Boys don’t understand girls. Girls don’t understand other girls. Girls don’t even understand themselves. “I don’t even know why I did that. I have no idea why I’m feeling this way.” Those are words I often hear myself and my friends say. It’s risky to put a bunch of girls in a room together for more than 5 minutes. That’s exactly what I did last week at West Shore - a one-day event for girls 11-24 (huge props to Emily Lewellyn’s willingness to follow God’s vision for this and all the females who put tons of work in!).
Here’s what I noticed: girls are insecure. This may not be a shock to you, especially if you spend any time at all with teenagers, but the way insecurities penetrate who we are should shock you. C.S. Lewis said that pride is the beginning of all sin. I think insecurity holds a close second. Insecurities fuel criticism of others, they led us to do things we regret later because we thought they would make us feel better, they plant seeds of self-doubt in our minds. As I talked with girls during West Shore, I began to pick up on this theme of insecurity. It came in many different forms: bragging, shyness, criticism, sarcastic remarks and a thousand other ways.
My good friend, Emmily Ocker, taught the session on identity. She told a story about an insecurity she had just recently encountered and I wrote down something she said, “My insecurity shows my lack of identity.” God has created you and when you become insecure in God’s creation (you), you miss out on your whole identity. That blows my mind. Identity is who we are, Emmily described it as, “the sense of who you are as a person.” God created you to be compassionate, but your insecurity leads you to tear others down. God created you to have a talent to share with others, but your insecurity leads you to hide it. God created you to make a difference, but your insecurity paralyzes you in fear. God created you with all the care and love in the world and your insecurity blinds you from that very care and love.
I’ve been quick to tell you that I saw insecurity in others, but I saw it in myself as well. During the beauty session with the senior high students, one of the ladies leading the group talked about how we need to learn to take compliments instead of feeling insecure about them (this is only one among many wise points they gave us). After maturing a little and praying a lot, I’ve become pretty secure in who God has created me to be. But Satan is sneaky and here’s what happened 10 minutes before the session leader said that particular thing: we were instructed to give a physical compliment to the person sitting to the right of us, that sounds great, right?
I was on the end and no one was on my left to give me a compliment (nope, we haven’t made it to the insecure part, yet). The student sitting on my right, whom I had never met before, asked if she could give me one since there was no one next to me. I was expecting something about my hair because that’s what people usually comment on, but what she said was: “I like your eyebrows” (bam - there it is!).
You’re going to need a little history for this: When I was in 7th grade, I pulled all my of eyelashes out. There were a lot of things going on in my life at that time and just how eating disorders are often about control, so was pulling out my eyelashes. I’ve shared that story with quite a few people, but what I haven’t told most is that I also pulled a lot of my eyebrows out in 7th grade. The eyelashes grew back and it’s not that big of a deal anymore. My eyebrows all grew back, too, but for some reason I am still incredibly insecure about them. I don’t even like when people say the word “eyebrow” in fear that someone will look at mine and find something horribly wrong with them.
I allowed that very genuine comment from the girl sitting next to me to create insecurity. I heard what the session leader was saying, but I let Satan yell over her, I was too occupied with my insecurity. Guess what one insecurity leads to? More insecurities. It doesn’t take much for an insecurity about a small thing to blow up into a giant insecurity about who you are, why you were created, what you were created for. The only way to overcome that insecurity is to surrender it to God, even if it might seem a little silly sometimes. I might have to wake up everyday and say, “God, you created me and that means you created my eyebrows, too, they are a part of Your plan.”
I want to leave you with the same question Emmily asked us in her session: What is holding you back from your identity in God? I want to add to that, what insecurities are holding you back from your identity?
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