I am in a season of life where I can hardly go a day without encountering a friend. I don’t say this to brag. I just have never been in this season before. Which means that a vast majority of my thirty years I have felt less than solid with my standing in my different circles of friends. I struggle(d) greatly with the fear of rejection. Maybe there is a childhood cause–maybe I have been hard-wired like that–I don’t care. The point is, I have had a self-preserving layer between me and others most of my life. I share easily, but I don’t expect emotionally from them. When people would open up to me and pursue a deeper connection with me, I would back off a bit because in my mind if I went deeper and then got hurt…well, that would be worse than where I am now. I didn’t see this until recently. I always thought that I didn’t have deeper connections because I was flawed as a person. I fought hard inner talk that said,
“You talk too much” “You are annoying” “You are negative”
“You are self centered” “You are needy”
“They don’t want to be friends with you” “You dominate conversations”
Anyone else have ugly inner talk? I am learning that Holy Spirit doesn’t speak this way to me. These harsh statements kept me at arms length with people and allowed me to feel I was doing others a favor by limiting my contact with them.
THESE ARE ALL LIES!!
Overall I am a good conversationalist. I enjoy building others up and hearing their stories. I do talk a lot, but I don’t talk too much. I have worth and I bring value to conversations. I don’t accept these statements over me any more. I am not perfect, but I am letting God sand the rough edges and commanding the enemy to drop the jackhammer and walk away. God will mold me and shape me using his perfect methods. He speaks life over me and builds up my strengths while removing the other stuff. He doesn’t make my shortcomings the thing. He makes Jesus the thing and while I focus on him, he removes my stuff.