Unconditional confidence.

“God would seem to be too occupied in being unable to take His eyes off of us to spend any time raising an eyebrow in disapproval.” 
--Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart

I want to be loved. Actually, I want to be known and loved, and we all know these are two very different things. There are parts of me I don't like. Parts of me that seem too dark, that I try to hide from others. I am guarded. I will share absolutely anything with you about my life, but there is a difference between knowing someone and knowing them.

Sometimes, I look at the people in my life and I think, "If they really knew". If they really knew who was under here, who I was at my core, they would run. I feel that I am unlovable. That the parts of me that are accepted are just some misrepresentation of myself that others are tricked into liking. That I could never be enough, will never be enough, just as I am. 

But then I look at the people in my life that I love, who I have loved over the years. I look at the people I have helped, and who have helped me. Some of them are ordinary by the world's standards, but are still extraordinary to me. And then some of them are extraordinary by the world's standards, but still have ordinary problems underneath. Who decides what is extraordinary anyway? And how do I see beauty in so many others but fail to see it in myself? What makes me so extraordinarily ordinary compared to everyone else? 

But seriously. When someone says they love you, why is it our immediate reaction to assume that there is some SECRET PART of us that they could not POSSIBLY LOVE and have somehow NOT SEEN in the millions of years that they have known us? We must be really good actors. Good for us. I'm not sure how that works out in the end though, when our friends do see those parts of us and SURPRISE--they don't take their love back.

Or maybe, like me, you have people who have rejected you in the midst of a hard season. People who have told you that you are, in fact, not enough. That you are too messy, too much to be loved. And it has stuck with you. It's hard to shake, that feeling that you are broken, not together enough to be accepted by the ones who are important to you. There will always be those people, the ones that make us feel small, that reinforce the lies we want to believe about ourselves so that we can say--SEE? I told you so. 

I'd like to argue that those people are not truth-tellers. That there are parts of them that they are afraid of, that they don't want to be reminded of, that they can only encounter with judgement as a way of protecting themselves. The truth is that we are all imperfect. Who said that means we aren't valuable?

I have a friend who once said  he had unconditional confidence in my goodness. I love that. Unconditional confidence. That no matter what I did or how I screwed up, it did not change his knowledge of who he knew me to be. That I did not have to be defined by my failures or my successes, that I was worthy right were I was, in the middle of my mess. 

Believe the people who believe in you. The ones who know who you are when you can't remember anymore, who refuse to give into your very convincing argument that you are not, in fact good enough. But more than this, believe in yourself. Believe in yourself because you aren't doing anyone any favors by living in the shadow of all that you are. And you ARE so much to this world. You have so much to offer just by being you, right where you are. 

Researcher Brené Brown says, "Until we can receive with an open heart, we're never really giving with an open heart." As much as I don't like to admit it, I think this is true. It is necessary for us to learn to love and accept ourselves if we are going to make a life out of loving and accepting others. To continue to reject our positive qualities, the gifts we have been blessed with, the fact that we are enough--it is to live a lie, and there is no honor in that.

So step into the light. Embrace the truth of who you are, living with unconditional confidence in your own goodness. Let yourself be celebrated by the world because after all, you are the only one we've got.