It's so simple.

Fear. This is my biggest weakness. I have been a worrier since I was a kid. Ever since I lost trust in God. Today is a different story. I put all that I have of me, all which is healthy, positive and good in trusting of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I lost trust in God months before my first Holy Communion with him. I had received my first Holy Communion a few nights before I confessed to my Father that my uncle was molesting me. Part of me had lost trust in God loving me fully because I truly believed as a little girl that something was wrong with me. This feeling of inadequacy hit me at a young age. I remember as a small child a child of three years old praying with my wonderful mother. We would say the Our Father and sing the Hail Mary together. It was beautiful and I was completely pure of heart. But, at a young age the devil had already begun his war on my soul. I can recall a day when I was almost four years old. I was sitting on a bed of grass in a playground or neighbor’s back yard watching other children play with each other. I sat alone next to a fence and watched them. I distinctly remember thinking, “I don’t belong with the rest of them. I’m not like them.” That feeling of not fitting in had been planted in my mind at a young age, an extremely young age. So this is where the devil had me or so he thought. I’m not trying to scare anyone but the reality and the TRUTH is that evil does exist. We are living in a world where there is a constant spiritual battle going on. Christ has already won that battle but the devil is still prevalent in the minds and sadly in the hearts of those that will not submit their complete will to the Lord. I just want to be real with you. Don’t let it scare you because if you are of God and love God with all your heart and all your soul, you have nothing to be frightened of, but the devil is cunning and wants to bring you down with him into pride, fear, anxiety, guilt, selfishness, SHAME, anger, resentment and feelings of worthlessness; like you DON’T BELONG with God or the righteous. I felt like I didn’t belong and this evolved into a life of feeling unworthy and that is a humiliating feeling in front of such a magnificent God to have. After the abuse of my uncle, I subconsciously questioned God. Why didn’t he protect me? There must be something wrong with me. A feeling of disgust and shame came over me. From that day forward I struggled with a distorted body image and feelings of being different. I felt as though God had made a mistake when he made me. What??? Imagine any child thinking that. I lived a life of trying to be a good Catholic girl because I feared God but I didn’t fully love him because I didn’t trust him. I began to worry about everything from my appearance, to fitting in with friends, the approval of my father. I began to worry about what everybody thought of me. And you guys, this was my false idol. We all have them. We are human and struggle with earthly wants and desires. I wanted to BELONG. The world became my idol. I wanted to be what they wanted; beautiful, desired, and popular. No matter what that meant. The clincher was that I was obsessed with what everyone thought of me because I wanted to belong so intensely, I feared rejection. I feared rejection to the core of my being. We are made perfect in him. We are his perfect creation. I felt imperfect though. I felt tainted and defective. For this reason I didn’t feel that a God so good could love me, that a God so big could want to hear the simple prayers of this person, this defective and tainted person. Why would he want me? Why would anyone want me? This was a lie. All of it and I believed it for the longest time. Until I came to know the Lord and really opened my heart to him as fully as I could, I would continue to believe these lies forever. That is still my struggle and I pray through it knowing that God not only accepts me but rejoices in the loveliness of his creation. He made me in his image and for me to hate what he has made in me is like spitting in his face and saying, “YOU made a mistake.” Whoa!! This is God we are talking about here, the great I AM. Please don’t ever question his love for you and the perfection of his will for us. Fear is not of God. Shame is not of God. I do BELONG. I BELONG TO HIM AND NO ONE ELSE. I am his and he is my greatest love. That is what it boils down to and ultimately all that matters. Trust in him. He will heal you. He will cast out your demons and I say that figuratively and literally. Don’t worry about what the world thinks of you. All that matters is what HE thinks of you and he loves you. Come to him. He’s there. All we have to do is come to him and walk with him and live for him. It’s so simple. We just have to do it.