bigger than me

There have been a variety of experiences in my life that have been way too much for me to handle. I mean, if you take a look at who I was as a kid, you’d think I couldn’t handle much.

I was super duper painfully shy. It hurt my head and heart to say things to people. (If you’ve never been shy, I don’t expect you to understand this, but if you have been or are shy, you know what it feels like!) I was also prone to a nerves, which meant I had frequent stomachs aches as a child. My mom did her best to get to the bottom of the stomach aches, but in the end (and looking back now), I believe it was anxiety. I just didn’t handle things very well. This led to an anxiety disorder in high school and college (yay, me) with accompanying panic attacks (awesome). I was also very, very, very thin. I was not anorexic, but no one told my body that. I was skinny.

If you told me back then that I would raise a strong-willed kid, I would have laughed because the idea of raising any children at that point terrified me, even though it was truly my heart’s desire. If you told me that I would walk through cancer with both parents, back then, there was no way. I would have hidden in a closet, away from it all. I have lost a parent when he was WAY too young, I have lost family members to suicide, I have seen young lives living through trauma, I have shared the real me (the ugly, vulnerable me) with people, and I have said “No” to things I have been asked to do. And I have survived all the scary things.

This evening I had to have a tough conversation and while my insides were shaking, my words were not. I said what came to my heart, and even interjected humor at the appropriate moments. And I walked out of the conversation confident that all had been handled and handled well.

But I also walked out of that tough conversation knowing that all of that wasn’t me. I found the courage to walk into it knowing it was the right thing to do and knowing that God would handle it. And He did.

And when I look back at all the big things I have walked through and survived thus far, I KNOW it is not because of me. Because I am not Wonder Woman. I am just a skinny (well, not quite so skinny anymore) kid who said, “God, use me.” And He has.

I still fight Him on some things because I’m stubborn. I’m human. But When I do walk
into the scary things, I do so confidently because He is bigger than me.

He is bigger than little ol’ me.

KC