Confidence.

I’ve been thinking about confidence lately.

I really don’t have much confidence at all if I’m being honest.

It’s the ultimate reason for why it’s frustratingly impossible for me to take part in class discussions. It’s why I worry about what I look like. It’s why I trail off on my sentences or take back what I said. It’s the reason I second-guess myself and can’t make decisions. It’s why I get nervous before things like presentations or going somewhere new or talking to someone I don’t know.

It all goes back to confidence.

But in all of that, I’ve realized that not being confident in myself means I’m not confident in God. He made me. He made my passions, my knowledge, my opinions, ideas and thoughts. He made my appearance. He made me exactly how I am for a reason and a purpose. So, I should be confident in that because it’s from Him, and He is perfect. Because He is perfect and knows all things and sees all things, I can be confident in Him and trust Him which means I can be confident and trust myself because He is in me.

I was listening to The Artist by Rend Collective on my car ride home and it says “You make all things bright and beautiful, wild and colorful. You make our lives bright and beautiful, wild and colorful. You are the artist.” It’s so good and so convicting. It’s so easy to love God’s creation and other people because of the beauty in them. (For the most part, anyway.) But I struggle so hard to love myself and find that beauty in me. Why, though?

I’m just as much His creation as everybody else. I’m loved like everyone else. I’m forgiven and given grace and mercy. Jesus died for me too. But I seem to forget that.

I think it’s hard because I don’t want to be selfish. I don’t want the attention to be on me because then I’ll look self-absorbed. I want to care about others so badly that I tend to neglect myself. That thought process is almost prideful, though.  It’s almost prideful of me to not be confident in myself. It’s prideful to want to be better or prettier because then I’m hoping to change how God created me. I am perfectly Mikayla, and you are perfectly you. We’re not perfect, but we’re the perfect one of us because we’re the only one of us.

I’ve learned that it’s nearly impossible to love others the way you should if you don’t love yourself like you should.

So here’s my challenge to you and me… embrace yourself. love yourself. be yourself.

Be exactly who God made you to be, and don’t let anyone especially yourself give you a reason not to be confident in that.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;  your works are wonderful, I know that full well. -Psalm 139:14

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Four Goals for the New Year

2016 is two days away and I am terrified. In 2016, I’m graduating from college. This will probably force me to figure out what I’m doing with my life… at least for the time being. That should probably lead to finding a big girl job considering I’m confident(ish) in my decision to take a year or so off from school before grad school. Okay wow. Cue panic attack. 2016, you don’t have to come so fast alright?

Breathe. With all of the changes that will happen in 2016, I think it will be a good idea to set some goals for myself. Goals that aren’t things like eat better, exercise more and get less emotionally attached to fictional characters. All things I should do but really aren’t that life changing.

Lately, I’ve been particularly convicted to work on some things. While I’m not typically a New Year’s resolution type girl, I do think that it’s not a coincidence that these convictions have occurred right before the new year and right before the year where potentially the most amount of changes will take place that ever has in my entire life.

So here’s four of my goals for the new year.

1. Love better.
   Loving is something that I continuously want to work on and do better at. Because it is painfully obvious to me that I don’t love deep enough, and I don’t love anywhere close to everyone on this planet. I’ve also realized recently that I cannot love everyone to the best of my ability until I first love myself fully and completely. I do a pretty crappy job at loving myself. So in 2016 I want to love myself better so that I can love others better.
2. Act more.
   I am quite passionate about a good amount of issues particularly anything that oppresses or unfairly affects those who are far less privileged than I am. Because I am immensely privileged, it should be fairly easy for me to help those in need. But I so often find myself doing absolutely nothing. I talk a lot about it. I talk about how everyone else should be doing something while I sit on my couch and do nothing. I let myself off by saying that informing is doing something and it’s true. Informing people about injustices is doing something and it’s something I love doing, but I refuse to let that be enough. I should be doing so much more, and I intend to do more, act more in 2016.
3. Be courageous.
   Let’s be real here. I am not a Gryffindor, but I’m going to have to be brave in 2016. I’m going to need to step out of my comfort zone. Do new things. Do hard things. And I will have to have courage. Courage and a whole lot of trust in my Lord.
4. Become less argumentative and more gentle.
   I usually stay far away from conflict, but I do get defensive over my opinions, beliefs and thoughts. If someone challenges them, I often fight for them. I argue my case and don’t like admitting I could be wrong. The truth is I am wrong. Often. And sometimes I should be a little more open to what the other person is saying. I should be listening to what they are saying instead of tuning them out while searching for my next response to prove my rightness. It’s a goal of mine to be more gentle. To listen better and learn more and not be afraid to admit my faults and wrongs. I’m not perfect, and I shouldn’t act like I am.

So there they are. My challenges to myself. Now my challenge for you is to hold me to these and more importantly to challenge yourself to do and be better at whatever it is that you need to work on. Look deep for some life changing goals and resolutions then feel free to tell them to me so that I can help in holding you accountable. Happy New Year, friends!