"You Say"- Lauren Daigle

"You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing

You say I am strong when I think I am weak

You say I am held when I am feeling short

When I don't belong,

Oh you say that I am Yours

And I believe what you say of me"

For almost all of my life, insecurity has been a tower I run to in my life instead of God and my identity in Him. It started from a very early age with my speech difficulties in stuttering. The thought was if I had anything to say was it worth people knowing if it was not clear and easy to hear. Nervousness bottled me up inside like a ball and a chain.

I have known I was loved by my parents- even God, but it was hard to embrace that fact and take it for face value. It has been easy to think of myself as unloveable at heart. An outcast- worthy of scraps of love and affection.

There have been moments when I have come alive and I have seen the real me- free of insecurity- free of nervousness-and free to rest in my identity as a child of God and nothing else. Some of this was of highs like on mission trips, and meeting my wife. Then I would run back to my tower of insecurity- wondering who I am without it and if it really hinders my life the extent I think it does.

But I am choosing right here, right now, to run from that tower. Insecurity is not what I am and what it I am enough in Christ. I can begin to see how you see me. I am a child of the Most High God- and I have come to claim my identity- to be the me God created me. One who lets go of myself and embraces the truth for what it is. Free to sing. Free to dance. Have fun. Laugh. Embrace relationships that are out there for me. Relationships in which I can be the real me.

What is the tower you are running to? Is it insecurity? Fear? Anxiety? God calls us to run from the towers that have defined us and run to him. Run to him for our identity and our security. Run to him for belonging and to rest in His perfect peace.

As we embrace the stillness, and embrace God for who He is- we will see that we are children of the Most High God. Children free to dance. Sing. Have Fun. But most of all, be the one God created us to be. For what he says of us, is what really matters in the end.