Once upon a time there was a young girl. This young girl was super shy. She was afraid all the time. One day in high school this shy girl decided that she was going to join the speech team (LOL!) Why? I don’t think she’ll ever really know why she made that decision. She competed through all of high school, mostly nauseous and full of terror much of the time.
She kept showing up.
“Speak loudly.” That’s what the critiques said. “I can hardly hear you.”
She worked on getting louder.
The she won her first blue ribbon.
Then she became captain of the team.
When she graduated high school, she was the speaker of the year, 7th in the state in her category and a finalist at every tournament that year. She attended college with a speech scholarship.
That young girl kept showing up even when she was afraid. She surprised the people around her who didn’t believe she would be good at what she was doing. She kept telling herself to speak up! She learned to trust her voice.
This is my story. This is about me. Even now I can feel the same emotions I felt every single round of competing. My heart is racing just remembering.
We are all faced with moments in our lives where we can choose to do what makes us afraid or we can sit it out and stay on the sidelines. I have no idea why I decided to keep showing up, honestly. Not giving in to the fear was one of most influential decisions I made in my life.
Whenever I am faced with a circumstance where I feel that familiar fear and terror creeping in, I remember that young girl who made the choice to keep going. We are all called to live our own stories, even if sometimes we feel what we are being called to is so much bigger than us. If you find yourself asking, “God, how am I going to do this?” remember you aren’t alone. Remember how far you’ve come. Remember you can do it afraid. Here are a few ways we can truly embrace our stories if we find fear taking us captive.
- Live and embrace your own story. I was not meant to win every tournament. I was meant to learn an important lesson about showing up afraid. You are not meant for someone else’s story, you are meant for your story. Make the choice to show up for it.
- Define yourself by God’s eyes. The world is going to feed you all sorts of things. Spit it out and instead devour the word of God and the identity Christ has for you.
- Seek God’s guidance on what you are designed for, what your passion is, and what your purpose is. Imagine if we were all living from a place of purpose rather than a place of comparison and envy.
- Celebrate others. Even if you are feeling that dark pit in your stomach, and especially if you are feeling that envy creep in, celebrate others. Sometimes you will want what others have. Don’t focus on that and let that grow in your heart. Instead allow yourself to pursue what is meant only for you!
- Let go of jealousy. I’ll be honest, sometimes I really wanted to win and become the superstar. In the moment, I wanted that to be my legacy. You know what I hope my legacy actually is? That in those moments when I didn’t win, I showed people what it meant to lose graciously, how it looked to celebrate others, and why lifting each other up is so valuable.
It’s interesting how the feelings of this high school girl are still so strong in me all these years later. I remember vividly my knees shaking standing in front of a room of speakers, the clammy hands, and the fear gripping my heart with my brain asking if this was the moment fear would win.
It never won. I don’t intend to let it win now. If she could do it so can I.
