Insecure!👤🤠🤕🎩

Side note: At the end of the week, I am usually inundated with ideas on what to blog about for the new week. Choosing one topic becomes my most difficult task. This week was no different in this regard. However, as I sat through last Sunday's ⛅ sermon, listening to my Pastor talk about an old personal struggle, and then referencing a particular passage in the Bible, I was transported back in time and it became much clearer what my topic would be.

"She's coming over here in a few...", Could be a signal from a college roommate on any given night 🌃. This could either mean, "give us some space", or just a heads up, "so don't fart!". I now reflect on one of those nights when the signal meant the latter.

So, it's late night, about 11:30; Time for me to kick back, relax and be me, in the safety and comfort of my Zone - my side of the room. But, the signal from a roommate just changed all that. A Pretty girl is on her way, possibly with her (average to good looking) friend, to hang out... Like we don't have class tomorrow. So what do I do? Straighten up my side of the room and make sure I look presentable? Well, maybe secondarily. But the first thing on my mind was, "where is my hat?". I would immediately location my hat and secure it on my head because... I was INSECURE.

I was insecure and not confident or comfortable with how I looked without a hat. Too many compliments with it on and almost none without, had reinforced my insecurity. If my memory serves me right, during my entire time (4 years) in college, I had a hat on whenever out of my dorms. On rare occasions when I wasn't wearing one, I was soon driven back to it by casual commentator offering remarks like, "oh I didn't even recognize you without... You look so different without it...". Hold up!✋🏽 Different?!🤔😱 Really?!! 😤You might as well have said l looked "interesting"🤡🤓.

Btw, I am pretty sure many factors contributed to the development of this insecurity, but this blog is too short a platform to explore them. Anyway, I also thought I looked better in hats, hence, my self-esteem shot up 75% once a fitted (baseball) cap crowned 👑 my cleanly shaved head.

Back to my earlier reflection. "You still have a hat on?...", Was the inevitable remark from one of those visiting girls in my room (who should be sleeping😴 under the covers of her OWN blanket, on her own bed, in her own room). "Oh...", Was also an inevitable response from me, as though just realizing the hat up there. "Okay thanks. Give yourself a round of applause, you're very observant. Now can we move on to more important talking points? Such as, the professor with halitosis 🤐... or why you are still up... Do you parents know where you are right now?"😂😂, Were my internal sentiments.

Wearing hats is not bad (I still rock them); neither is wig, extensions, make-up (for the ladies 👸🤰) etc... But INSECURITY is a beast; what an inconvenience, what a burden, what a struggle.

I shared the above story as one small example to illustrate the weightiness of the burden that insecurities bring. But I am glad that my story doesn't end there. Thank God! 🙌🏽👏🏽🙏🏽Literarily. Years later, some where in the timeline of my relationship with God (not religion), I discovered the treasure in the Bible verse referenced in that Sunday Sermon.

"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well." Psalm 139:14

The preceding and subsequent verses in that chapter (Psalm 139), also beautifully express the truth that the ONE who formed me, knows all about me; my good, bad and ugly; my faliures and short comings yet, "...I awake, and I am still with you." (Verse 18)

Just Imagine sharing your dirtiest and most awfully embarrassing secrets with a spouse, and you expect them to abandon you after it all comes out. But to your surprise, when you wake up in the morning, they are right there, with breakfast for you in bed, and still want you just as much as before....

In time, I found freedom in those verses. I was liberated by the truth coming from the One whose perception of me mattered most. Those powerful words still give me confidence, yet not arrogance because the same words rings true of every other human - "...wonderful made" in the image of God. Because of this I can be confident and comfortable in my skin, race, gender and even my head 👽💀🤕🤡🤖😇 😂😂😂