Time for another guest post, this time from a dear friend Jude

When Michelle posted the first ‘Sacred scared’ and issued a challenge to others to write their own, I actually mentally and physically recoiled. And my first thought was that my written word would not be good enough…..I’ll have to sit out this challenge because ’I can’t write….

’It’s not that I wouldn’t know what to say…I think I’d have plenty to say, but my barrier was ‘I can’t write’. My husband can create the written word beautifully…. my teenage son is a gifted writer….but my written word wouldn’t be good enough.

Then a friend of mine, a previous contributor, challenged me and said ‘come on, of course you can do it’. Those words have resonated with me ever since, and as I have continued to read the honest and vulnerable posts, I have been challenged to overcome my stumbling block which is ‘not good enough’.

And there it is….that’s my sacred scared. I live under a cloud of ‘not good enough’…..not a good enough mother, not a good enough doctor, not a good enough wife, not a good enough friend….daughter….sister….housekeeper…..and so it goes on. I look at others, in whatever area of my life, and in my view, I simply don’t measure up to how capable they are.

Coupled with this is another cloud- the cloud of ‘should be’. You see, if you believe you are not good enough, and that you don’t do things well enough, you live by a script ‘I should be better….I should do better….I should work harder…..I should…… I should….’

In a recent season, these have become even darker and more ominous clouds for me, leading to a deep struggle in maintaining my mood and emotional wellbeing. And I know these matters only too well, because this is my line of work. If the mood dips, then the lie increases from a whisper to a shout…and this of course causes the mood to dip further and sometimes it can feel like you are shrinking, cowering, restricted and fragile. This is where I have been lately.

It’s tough because as I live under a cloud of ‘not good enough’ & striving to be the best, then to admit to anyone that I am not doing so well will of course expose those dark fears, that in fact, I am humanly flawed, fragile and vulnerable. That’s why I struggle to ask for help. Bottling it all up seems so much better than exposing my weakness to another. Thankfully, of late, I have spoken up and confided in some key people.

I feel closest to God in worship; to me worship is life giving. For me, there are times when if nothing else helps…..listening to worship music will. In the past 8 years at Vineyard Church Dungannon, I’ve been observing the worship bands, and the various keyboard players, thinking ‘I’d love to do that’….and then comes the whisper of ‘not good enough’…..with me believing it……and the fear of trying.

I grew up in a musical family. I learned to play the piano and I was told when I was young that I was good at it. I struggled to believe that and I was loathe to have anyone listen to me. I hated preforming, because I wasn’t that good a pianist.

But recently my brother encouraged me to ‘go for it’, to go along to a worship circle with my keyboard. It was incredible. I loved it. I was put on the worship band rota
( yikes!)

The first time I played in a worship band in front of a real live people, I immediately afterwards fled to the bathroom and cried hard to myself because I perceived I had done such a poor job. I hadn’t been good enough. I wanted to walk out of the event but I had a responsibility to stay, and it took all my strength to do so….. there is growth in the struggle.

Thankfully the nerves have settled and it has become easier, but more than that, it has been the most wonderful life-giving experience for me.
Believing the lie of ‘not good enough’ is restrictive, it confines and constrains, and it silences. It only serves to hold us back from a purpose- filled, expansive and fulfilling life. Over the years, I consider that I have lost my voice because of it. Praise God, I’ve recently found my permission to speak.

Psalm 18:19
New International Version – UK (NIVUK)
19 He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

I gave “Our Own Sacred Scared” some breathing space, but now my hope is you’re ready for more.  I’d love to introduce you to a dear friend of a dear friend Joy, who when I finally met her I thought ‘she is her name’.

I had never thought of myself as a weak person. From a very young age I was praised (and rebuked) for being bold, outspoken, opinionated, strong-willed, loud …(the list goes on). These weren’t traits of a weak person, or so I thought. It wasn’t until a few years ago, when in the middle of a bit of a rough time and a lot of change, I had my first anxiety attack. At the time I couldn’t have told you which one thing had been the ‘straw that broke the camels back’. All I knew was, “everything is too much”, and “I can’t do this”.

Over the last few years these two short phrases have been the battle cry of a very real and persistent foe, one who breaks my lines of defense with such ease and finesse, and saunters up to me as if to brag at how easy it is to gain access time after time. The culprit: fear of inadequacy and failure.

Every time I feel under pressure, find that I have too much to do and too little time, or begin to feel overwhelmed by responsibility or expectations the same voices raise their ugly little heads and I am once again caught into another rendition of “its too much” or “I can’t do it”.

It was on my PGCE year that the paralyzing feeling of suffocation became an almost everyday occurrence. The churning stomach, inability to eat or sleep, and ‘the shivers’ as they became known; weird fits of shaking that rippled right through me as a result of over tensing my body. Fear had ceased to be this existential concept that people philosophised about and had become a real and very physical force that was making me sick. It managed to completely incapacitate me and put major strain on my relationships (some because I became super needy and others because I became so withdrawn and insular). And through it all I was so private and hyper sensitive about people knowing how weird I was, that I shut down and hid what was going on from almost everyone, bar a few faithful souls.

However mild or severe these attacks are, the symptoms are always accompanied by a self-deprecating sense of humour, which I use as a protective barrier from the world (yes I just admitted to using humour as a defense mechanism). I guess my reasoning is that if I can get in first, list my less raw and embarrassing inaccuracies, inadequacies, imperfections and flaws before others notice them, I somehow gain control of my world. My husband can testify to this as on our first date I drew his attention to my ‘moustache’ (a very slightly furry lip) and told him I was, and I quote, “making it cool for girls”. He calls this my ‘sabotage syndrome’ and I guess he’s pretty astute. Ironically it is this fear of failing that in most cases causes me to fail. I fear inadequacy and I live down to that fear, buying into it every step of the way.

Recently we were leading worship as part of an in house conference run by and for our church. In the week running up to the event Dave and I had allowed our diary to become fully booked. Alpha, pastorate (housegroup), band practices, work, all stuff that I love, but then came the news came that my school was being inspected. Well there it was…the straw and the camel met again! The sense of suffocating fear and those familiar voices rose once more; “this is too much”, “I can’t do it”.
It resulted in me throwing a huge wobbly, getting really upset, freaking out about every possible eventuality and finally demanding that Dave pull me out of the worship set up for the weekend altogether.

As it turned out, I didn’t pull out, and at that conference God spoke to me, directly and audibly, through a prophetic word delivered quite publicly. At the heart of the message was the word ‘capacity’. It hit me like a ton of bricks and completely floored me by how precise, accurate and timely it was. It was a wake up call. A call to living up to God’s plan for my life and not living down to a sub-standard existence rooted in fear of not being adequate. God was drawing out of me the recognition of a capacity that is rooted in Him and not my own abilities. In this moment he was again whispering to me “Joy, you can do all things through me, the One who gives you strength”.
I am reminded of a memory from primary school when in P6 I was being encouraged to try something and I told my then teacher, Mrs Kennedy, “I can’t”. I don’t remember what it was I was struggling with but I have never forgotten her response to me: “Joy, there’s no such thing as can’t. There’s only can and won’t”. It’s amazing how far back these kind of issues go, how deeply set some patterns of behaviour become, and I realise now that God has been wanting to deal with this issue in me for at least 20 years.

So I guess I’m realising that the root of my problem is not so much ‘can’t’ as ‘won’t’. I have learnt that so often I’m not a victim of my fear but a partner with it. I often choose to believe its lies over the truth the Father has spoken over my life. I am learning (slowly) that what I think of myself and my ability is not the whole truth.

On my PGCE year I took to speaking out scriptural truth over myself every night before I would go to bed. Confession of faith and proclamation of the truth became my weapon and my shield. There was never an instant relief of my symptoms but when I fought long enough and hard enough I found victory after victory in the small things and saw God rescue me time after time. I’m not fixed. I still struggle with this and so every day I am committing to the scary journey of believing the truth over lies….

An excerpt from my confession:

I reject the interference of the spirit of fear. The fear of the future, failure, the fear of success and all other fears. I receive the heart of a Godly fear to honour and magnify the Lord, and not my problems. I receive God’s grace to trust him without doubt for he has promised not to leave or forsake me.

When I first read Melanie’s SS I cried. So much of her’s is my experience too. Thank you Mel.

My sacred scared….. Man where do I begin!! Well I guess the biggest fear I have in life is that anything I go to do or am asked to do, I always overthink it, and presume someone can always do it better. Why would I be any good?

At school I was always a chubby child who seemed to have a massive appetite and an ever expanding waistline. By P6 I was noticeably fatter than all my peers and that’s when the name calling began. Very quickly I learned children can be very cruel. From P6 until about 4th year in secondary I was relentlessly bullied on a daily basis by people who thought I was useless and had no worth. Anything I went to do, was dismissed and laughed at by my peers. Because I was fat, someone else was bound to do it better. To set the context, when buying my first year uniform I needed a size 18 skirt. Yes, I was a fat girl but did that give bullies the right to fire insults at me before, during and after class? Anything I went to do, I was laughed at. I felt the friends I had could do better too. As when they were with me, they got insults fired at them too. I thank God for the friends I had (and still have all these years later!) who saw me for me and not for the red faced, chubby exterior.

So when teachers would try and ask me to do things in school I usually said no until I was made because I knew I was too fat and had no confidence. Yes I appeared the bubbly fat girl, who laughed in the face of the bullies, but in reality every time people pretended to fall over as the ‘earthquake’ walked past them, I lost another little piece of myself and my self worth.

I guess 15 years on I still carry with me the names and the ‘you’re not good enough’ taunting. They have stuck with me, in the deep corners of my mind. Times when a parent questions my teaching methods, or I make a mistake on a Sunday morning playing the flute, or a morning in kids church doesn’t go to plan, something inside takes me to my early teens and I hear ‘Mel, seriously what made you think you could do this!! Let someone who knows what they’re doing handle it!’

Now I simply have learned to say yes to things before I have too much time to think about it. Otherwise, truely I wouldn’t play on a Sunday, attempt to lead kids church or try speaking to new people. Just incase the bullies were right, ‘you’re just not good enough….’

However, despite my insecurities and often self doubt, I know my father in Heaven has me and my future covered. He has blessed me with abilities and talents (I pray I get more confidence to develop) and people around me to encourage and show me that I can do it!!

2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

So I share with you my sacred scared not to have people pity me, but to show that In our weaknesses God promises to do great things and his power is made perfect!!! Now more of God’s blessing and power I could handle!!!……. 😊

today’s guest post is from a fellow blogger and very dear friend, meet Ann.

I am afraid of being seen as weak, inadequate and incompetent.

I haven’t always been afraid of this because I wasn’t aware that I could be inadequate or incompetent until well into my teenage years. Achieving at school was never a problem and my family was very encouraging of these achievements. It wasn’t until I failed to achieve that I realized the depth these feelings could have!

At school I found I didn’t have to work too hard to stay ahead, or at least abreast of the field. But when it comes down to it, you just don’t achieve anything with out SOME effort going into it. At 16 yrs I had passed all my ‘O’ grades with no problem, but when it came to Higher Grades I had discovered that teenagers could have a social life and just didn’t put in the work.

The results were a dramatic removal from my previous form and huge shock for me (and my parents and teachers)! What must have been maddening for my parents was that I went on to duplicate those results the following year! But I simply couldn’t force myself to do what needed to be done.

I had no excuse. There WAS no excuse! Suddenly as it was time for me to step into the world outside of the institution I was desperate to leave, here I was sabotaging myself.

It’s not really true that I fully understand what it is in me, but I know self-destructive behaviour can be caused by the inability to handle stress stemming from a lack of self-confidence. For example, faced with pressing schoolwork, someone may choose to sabotage their work rather than cope with the stress of what the results might be.

I was powerless to change my behaviour. Even in later years, when finishing higher qualifications, the amount of effort I felt I had to apply simply to complete the tasks seemed enormous.

I went onto a career in Social Work that demanded I face this issue too regularly, regular tight deadlines with a constant burden of legal responsibility. Over the years I learned to put systems in place to prevent me from running to the wire with my work. I had a sickening feeling whenever I was nearing a deadline and felt I wasn’t going to be able to force myself to finish!

I became very, very good at avoiding the paralysis by appearing over responsible (when I was just extremely organised), and found myself in positions where I had responsibility to manage the whole team’s deadlines. What a learning curve!

My team laughed that I had to put everything in a box – yes all my minutes had (have) ‘SMART’ outcomes and timescales – because if I were not in control of that, the paralysis would take control of me! So now I’m an organized, systems freak and find that if I don’t have all the bases covered to prevent me heading towards the ‘abyss of paralysis’ I get shaky about that!

The biggest laugh is that my husband thinks I don’t worry enough about timing. And that’s true in a social sense, I’ve always been laid back thinking, well no one’s going to die if we’re 5 minutes late for dinner… Apologies if I offend those with ‘time’ issues out there!

I also never look like I’m panicking; when crises roll up I become calmer and deal with the flack at the time. But what people won’t see is the melt down when I go home!

So when things get pressured I feel like I’m about to be found out as the inadequate, incompetent fraud I am (and ultimately rejected and shunned).

There’s a shame in never having gotten this secret weakness sorted out. It lies below the surface of what anyone else sees, so I get away with it a lot, but carry it with me all the time! I know I can manage it, given the opportunity to plan… And I’m calm in a crisis because I’ll have a bigger crisis of not meeting my deadlines or responsibilities if I’m not calm enough to plan!

This is the first time I’ve every admitted to this. God and me dealt with it privately for years and my ultimate need remains: for him to carry me, as always!

TAKE TWO:

There is a whisper hidden in the truth, which as it resonates can build to shattering power – like a singer breaking a glass with only their voice. No sooner had I written this down in black and white than my methods of self-protection were under the glare of God’s spotlight.

This lie had been operating so far under the radar for so long in my life that I had no idea the power it actually had over me until it was openly challenged and the meltdown began! Stating the truth, publically confessing this issue, started a small crack in my defences that quickly became a landslide. Thankfully God chooses his moments to leave us undone: perfect timing, perfect place, and His perfect grace.

Contrary to what was my last line above, God is not content to carry me! His is a more perfect plan than that. He brings things up so we can deal with them. So here goes, yet another healing process has begun!

click here for Ann’s blog ‘a little heart sharing’

My third guest post as part of ‘Our Own Sacred Scared’ and they keep coming, planning on posting 3 a week, this one is from a lovely woman I met just recently and the creator of our visual. 

I have spent the last hour trying to write you the perfect article. And I haven’t even started.

And that, friends, is my problem.

Type type type…read….delete…type type type…read…cringe…delete…no no no…type type…sigh. And now I’m starting again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I don’t suppose the writing is that terrible, but it’s just not perfect. And I need it to be perfect. But why? Well I suppose the motivation straddles between straight-up perfectionism and an uncontrollable desire to always be RIGHT. Not very endearing character traits, I know. The wish to be right all the time is hopefully being sanded down with lots of prayer and (sometimes unsuccessful) attempts at submission…however, perfectionism? Surely that’s a good thing, right? Striving to do a good job? It may seem so, until the insidious, inner voice whispers in my ear, “You will never be good enough”.

This side of me always falls short of my own standards.

Sometimes when this happens (and it happens a lot), I give up entirely, disgusted with my inability to do the job I set out to do—I try to draw, paint, play piano, play guitar, write, sing—do anything that I actually might enjoy—and suddenly a wave of paralytic fear overcomes me. It’s not perfect—what’s the point in even going on?! The voice in my head doesn’t say it as explicitly as that, of course, but that’s the gist, and the outcome is always the same—failure to grow. Failure to try. Failure to live.

I look at other creative people I know and I see such freedom, such joy. I crave what they have—living unhindered, not always thinking about the outcome—just enjoying the gift of creativity that God gave us to brighten this world. But my desire to be perfect (or perhaps perceived as perfect) binds me up in a tightness that coils around my creative expressions. I end up despising my attempts because they taste of rigid, human control.

I’m a bit embarrassed admitting this and I cringe if anyone asks me about it (so please don’t!), but…confession…I love to sing. It brings me exceptional joy and makes me feel closer to God than anything else. However, in my entire adult life, no one has ever properly heard me sing…you see, I know I can hold a tune, but I’m not perfect—not even close. And when I say no one, I mean no one, not not even my husband of 8 years (unless singing Baa Baa Black Sheep to our daughter counts?). I find my lack of perfection in this area almost unbearable at times, I die inside from embarrassment at my lack of awesome. No amount of encouragement from my beloved husband will coax me…the fear mounts, the paralysis takes hold, and the voice in my head says “You’ll make a fool of yourself”. So nothing happens. I deprive myself of that joy, and in turn rob my family of the joy of worshipping together in song (potentially frustrating for my very musically gifted husband). It seems the closer something is to my heart, the more likely my perfectionism will drive it so deep underground that it becomes a nothing, a memory of something I used to love…a regret.

It is so wearying, I am my own worst enemy, and over a long enough timeline it becomes a habit. A pattern of behaviour that was once motivated by a genuine desire to be good enough transforms into a “can’t do” attitude. And behold—a lifetime of passed-over opportunities, all caused by a fear of failure.

As I thought over what I might write for this, a plethora of options presented themselves—but this, ah, this…well this is the thing that hinders me from becoming all the things I ever wanted to be. I think of all the dreams I wish I’d pursued, kept up, developed…most of my reasons for giving up or not properly starting at all end up at the door of perfectionism. Failure is not an option. If I can’t be perfect I have failed.

What a farce—because my heart knows that to not try is to fail, inherently. One thing leads to another. If you’ll only settle for perfect, you’ll likely settle for nothing (and crush your self esteem along the way for all the failed attempts). I’m learning this slowly…hopefully not so slowly to make significant changes…I’ve still life in me yet!

Michelle asked us to submit a photo of ourselves without make-up (if we wear it, which I surely do!). Rather than take a photo today, I am showing you a photo of myself and my daughter, mere hours after she was born. I had been awake for 2 days, I have never been so tired or bedraggled. Nothing about this photo is perfect by my usual standard…this is not a good look for me (hello world!), and yet look, EVERYTHING is perfect…I had brought life into the world, wow! Fearfully and wonderfully made life. I looked at her and there it was…perfection. As only a miracle created by God could be. And in my heart, I know that’s it—He is the perfect One, maker of perfect things. I’d like to get better at remembering that.

This is a guest post by a woman I’ve become reconnected with recently, we knew each other as children when her Dad was my Pastor.  Cecilia you are brave to bare your heart. Thank you.

Here it goes … I’m scared I’m boring. Even writing this I’m thinking it’s not an exciting enough thing to be scared about! And now to compound it I’ve just read a Facebook post that says

“Better to be ridiculous than boring”

See I have good reason to be scared of being boring!

Ever read those descriptions of personalities based on birth order?

(see here for an example)

I am an eldest and, it pains me to say this so much, but I fit the descriptions pretty well. I suppose I am responsible, reliable and organised. I plan and, a lot of the time, stuff gets done. Yes these are good qualities. They bring a measure of success and ease to my life but they also mean I’m no “life and soul of the party” like my youngest sister’s tag will read.

I look at my life which seems so “middle of the road”.  I’m a middle manager, who is middle class, in a middle income bracket, about to enter, thanks to my next birthday, middle age (deep breath!)

I think I look fairly average … nothing so weird here that people would stare, nothing so ugly as to drive people away, nothing so stunning as to worry I might only be chosen for my looks.

I never did blaze that missionary trail to China that I thought my 20’s held for me. Instead I married, started a career and family. I haven’t left the UK since I turned 21 – you have no idea how different that is from my teenage expectations!

No obvious big traumas have befallen me. No divorce, no addiction, no bankruptcy, no history of abuse, no huge triumph over adversity. I know I don’t really want to walk their paths but sometimes I find myself envying those who are able to talk about the dramatic events of their lives.

Even my faith story is boring. No blinding lights, no before and after lifestyle shift, no dramatic over-night change. My story is simply that of a child who understood Jesus loved her and has tried to stay following Him, pretty much, ever since.

So what happens when I’m asked to speak, to share my story? When I meet other women I see living exciting, courageous lives? When I’m asked to share my views or ideas? I’m afraid. Scared that what I say and, probably, who I am, is just boring. I’m a sensible, practical, ultimately dull Clarks lace up … not an eye-catching, heart stopping Jimmy Choo or Christian Louboutin.

In a world of the radical, the edgy, the transformational, the dramatic what does someone like me have to say? More importantly why would anyone listen?

And yet I speak anyway…

Because while I may be boring, I know my God is definitely not. He is God of all creation: I marvel at both the expanse of the sky and the detail of a snail shell. He is the God of the miraculous: I have celebrated with loved ones as, out of utter despair, He brought life and spiritual rebirth. He is the God of Transformation: I rejoice with friends and family who can testify to the “before & after”, the spectacular change in them and their families.

And on my good days I know that through marriage, miscarriage and medical tests; through children, church and career; through laziness, loneliness and longings – He has kept me. He has poured grace, mercy and faithfulness into my mundane, my everyday. He has performed the miraculous – it’s only me that sees it as small. He is transforming me – if I take time to see & acknowledge it.

I am learning that in today’s world, I am a radical, miracle … a child of the 1970’s, who despite her very weak faith, is still following Jesus.