victory

Something I have found myself thinking about a lot recently is what it means that Jesus is victorious over sin and fear and worry and guilt and shame and death - over everything.

These past couple months have left me with a lot (a lot a lot) of time to reflect on the past few months, and really, my whole sophomore year. The "sophomore slump" that I heard so much about... I have decided it's a real thing. I have never experienced such a long, and at times, exhausting, season of life. There were so many beautiful moments and incredibly fun memories interwoven into these past months that I will remember forever, and already, these stand out so much more to me than most of the hard moments so I will choose to remember year two of college through those!

This year stretched me and broke me and built me and beautifully brought me back to Jesus. From the outside, I probably looked like I was having the best time - working at Thrive, being a Young Life leader, going to concerts, living with my best friends in Chi O, going to football games, going on trips, being with my best friends all the time, etc. - but that's how things usually look, isn't it?

However, starting in August, right off the bat, I quickly had an incredibly difficult job balancing pretty much everything in my life. I felt like I had nothing to give anyone anymore because I was doing so many things and I was doing them off of my own strength. Because of this, I started feeling so anxious that I wasn't good enough for anyone and I wasn't good at anything I was doing. I felt like I was being a horrible friend because I was constantly running around doing things or, when I was around, I had no energy to be a good friend to people around me. So, I felt like my friends "should" be upset with me or they "shouldn't" like me or care about me. I felt like I was failing at Thrive and being a Young Life leader because I wasn't outgoing, confident, fun, energetic, or consistent enough. Basically, I felt like I wasn't able to be intentional with the things I was doing or with the people I was around. After feeling all of these things for a couple months, I felt so trapped by comparison, insecurity, jealousy, doubt, exhaustion and sadness.

To add to it, I, for some reason, felt like it would be a great idea for me to jump into a relationship in the midst of this with someone who I barely bothered to get to know. I felt desperate to be liked, praised, and highly valued by someone to make up for how un-liked and unworthy I felt in other areas of my life and was sure this would help me out with that.

In the end, that relationship further helped call out all of the insecurities I was dealing with and left me feeling as empty, sad, and drained as ever. Then, I started experiencing an overwhelming amount of regret about months of my life all at once, shame about how bad of a friend I felt I had been by choosing to invest what little free time I had given myself in a boy, guilt (and even more regret) about insecurities and jealousies and old wounds and worries I never let Jesus heal in me that had resurfaced and led to some unbelievably ugly Maddie moments, worry about what he thought about me + what my friends thought about me, and just a lot a lot of sadness and grief about realizing that the person and relationship I lost hurt me so much in the end because it wasn't what I thought it was.

I felt hurt, confused, broken and unlovable all because I chose to flee the safety and security of a relationship with Jesus and instead chose to put all my worth and value and energy into forcing a relationship that did not make me a better person, encourage and build me up, or bring me closer to Him.

Coming back to school in January 2020, I tried so hard to be a better friend, think better thoughts about myself, balance my life better, and become this "ideal" (or, better) person that I had built up in my head that I needed to be.

Looking back on this time is almost funny to me, in a weird way, because I remember hurting so bad in the moment and feeling so hopeless, but those feelings seem so far away to me now [because God is gooood]. I remember kind of sobbing in front of my small group on a couple of different occasions because I never talked to anyone about the extent to which I was feeling these things and I couldn't possibly hold it in anymore. These moments have, months later, taught me so much. I just remember my mindset about life with Jesus and who He is being so wrong, which led to feeling so much long-term devastation and hopelessness.

I would disregard and wish away months of my life in hopes that I could fast-forward to the parts where I felt joyful, confident, and at peace again. I was living in complete defeat - I had forgotten that although I felt as though I had failed at a relationship(s), ministry and living out what I had deemed my purpose and my plan in life, Jesus does not call me failure, broken, unlovable, or unworthy. He calls me chosen, fought for, bought with a price, beautiful, enough, made NEW in Him, and called by Him to bring glory to His name.

Most importantly, He calls Himself victorious. Victorious over all of the ways that I felt bound by sin because He defeated all of these things when He died for me. We can walk in this freedom, remembering that God is at work in every single season of our lives and that just because I feel unworthy, does not mean that I am unworthy. Just because I feel insecure about something does not mean that I am insecure, and I can instead choose to find security in Him. Just because I feel exhausted by spreading myself too thin doesn't mean that I have to continue running at that pace - I can find rest and renewal in Him. There is power in Jesus' name and in who He is. In His goodness, He offers us Himself and all that He is, and He covers every ounce of failure, insecurity, guilt, shame and regret and pours out His love, joy, peace, strength, forgiveness and wisdom, so that we can walk through every season of life, the "good" and the "bad" running toward Him as He encourages us and empowers us to do this.

It's absolutely crazy to me that I lived in such fear and bound by so much insecurity, worry, guilt and sadness instead of taking control of the lies that I was letting myself believe and choosing to walk in the victory that Jesus offers. Also knowing that when I am walking with Him, I will see a victory because He already fought the war and He is was and will always be the victor. He has already conquered all of these things, therefore, they didn't have to have any control of me at all, yet I let them consume me for months. I know Jesus does not call us to live this way. He tells us that life with Him will have its hardships and that we will be tempted and tested and tried, but we do not have to live bound by the things that tried to break us because He is victorious! So, here's to growing and acknowledging who Jesus is (and who I am through Him) in the midst of failure, heartbreak, exhaustion, worry, insecurity and fear. In Jesus' name!