To start from part one, click here.
In part three we talked about familiar words in our stories like hope, faith, and family. They tell us about who we are and who God is making us to be.
But there are darker words on the pages of our lives too. For example, one of those words for me is insecurity.
Ya’ll, when I’m in a room with a lot of new people I shake like a leaf, sweat like a hog, and feel like something is in my nose. Yes, ma’am.
That’s because inside there are thoughts running through my mind that sound a lot like, “You’re not_________enough (insert pretty, outgoing, etc. here).”
I wrote about this in a confession post on (in)courage. And since then, I’ve been doing more thinking about it.
And I’ve decided while we don’t even like to mention those words, they also hold an important key to our stories. Because God isn’t the only one who has a plan for our lives. We have an enemy who does too.
And whatever God wants to do most through us, the enemy is determined to come at us with the opposite. So those negative words, when looked at in a different light, also show us powerful truths about who we have the potential to be in the Spirit.
For example, another one of my negative words is discouragement.
Ladies, I can whine and throw pity parties like nobody’s business. Now, sometimes that’s just getting real with Jesus. But I’m talking about taking it a step farther and wallering (that’s a southern term for acting like a pig in the mud of your troubles).
So what’s the opposite of discouragement? COURAGE
And COURAGE is a characteristic I don’t possess much at all on my own but I very much feel called to live in and share with others.
Rather than looking at those negative words that are repeated in our stories as something to skip over, we can use them as clues to help us discover who God has called us to be.
Unlike the words we talked about yesterday, the words you transform will probably not come naturally to you. But that just makes more room for God to show up in them.
Today I’d like you to think about some of those words and their opposite. I’ll give you a start….
discouragement – COURAGE
depression – JOY
anxiety – PEACE
loneliness – LOVE
fear – FAITH
What’s a word you wish weren’t in your story? What could be the opposite that God wants to use you to write instead?
Like I did in the Joy Challenge, I’ll have random giveaways for people who comment or subscribe during this series. (Subscribers, to leave a comment click here or on Heart to Heart with Holley at the top of the e-mail. Then scroll down and click on “comments” at the bottom of the actual post.)
