Let’s start with an invitation: I’d like to invite you to stop being unhappy with yourself. To stop wishing that you looked like someone else or that people liked you as much as they like someone else. I’d like to invite you to stop hating your body, your face, your figure, and your flaws. I’d like to invite you to stop second-guessing all of your decisions and commitments, to stop wondering whether your life would be different if you had chosen the mystery prize behind door number two. I am inviting all of you, all of us, to a new conversation. It doesn’t matter when you began torturing yourself with criticism, but it needs to stop today. Here are five reasons why you simply must seize the confidence God offers.
1. You are beautifully and wonderfully made.
This is true today and always, and it has so very little to do with the size of your jeans. I am drawn to women who look deeper into themselves rather than longer at their reflections. Surround yourself with women who admire one another for the richness of their life experiences and the wisdom they’ve earned, for the scars in their stories and the stretch marks on their spirits. Wrinkles and scars mean you have loved; gray hair means you have cared. Don’t wait too long to appreciate your own beauty.
2. You’re a smart girl with a strong and amazing mind.
Please don’t apologize forbeing an intelligent woman. I think most of us are still making up for the first time a woman said to a man, “Please, dear hero, help me because you’re so much smarter than I am.” God made men with divine purpose, and he made women because he knew the world would need us as well. Please don’t make yourself smaller in order to make anyone else bigger. Instead, color with all the crayons in your box. We need all the smarts you have, so don’t pretend that you don’t have what you can bring.
3. You can take charge of your life.
You must be careful about who gets to speak into it, because there are confidence thieves around every corner. Set your boundaries and choose to not put the critics in charge. If you wouldn’t invite them to a dinner party in your home, then they shouldn’t get a voice in the sacred space of your heart. Life doesn’t offer a do-over, but you can claim a make-over. Choose one thing in your life that you’d like to do differently. Start today.
4. You were made on purpose, with intentional design, for exactly this thing you’re facing.
Don’t be so sure that the next moment is more important than this one. As long as you are here, taking breath, then there is more for you—more to learn, more to teach, and more to receive. Be present in this moment and in this season, because your life is happening today. Your life is never not now.
5. You were made in the image of God.
You belong to him. There is room for you at his table and in this story that he is writing about you, with you, and for you. Do you need some affirmation? Does your self-esteem need some attention and your confidence need a boost? You only need to look at the cross of Jesus to be reminded of this: The Maker of the moon and stars, the Sculptor of the mountains, and the Keeper of the sun would rather die for you than live without you. That is a fact, and you can walk in that confidence.
This is your life, your story, your moment. We live in a world where they want you to hate yourself because they think it makes them love themselves more. But that’s just not how it works, so tell them you’re not playing their game anymore. The truth is that when you love yourself, everybody wins. And I’ve always been a big fan of love and winning. You have all the same goodness in you as all the people who you think are better than you. Claim your confidence and get in the game, girlfriend. You can do this.
Tricia Lott Williford is a remarried widow, an author, a teacher, a thinker, and a collector of words and bracelets. She is delighted to release her third book, You Can Do This: Seizing the Confidence God Offers. Thousands of people join her each morning for a cup of coffee as they go online to read her funny, poignant stories that capture the fleeting moments of life. She deeply hopes that when readers finish her new book, they will think, “That book made me think and laugh, and now I feel like I can do this next thing in front of me.”
Image courtesy: ©Thinkstock/UberImages
Publication date: June 20, 2017