Day 2: Fight Song

I'm probably late to this party, but I am loving Rachel Platten's "Fight Song". Sometimes I feel like other people write the words I wish I could write, and the chorus of this song is like that. Have you ever read a book or heard a song and thought "yes! this is what I've been trying to say!"? I have. I do. A lot. Most of the time, it's just stuff that resonates with me and how I feel about stuff and what I believe. But with this song, it's what I'm too scared to say on my own. I'm too concerned with what other people think of me. Some of those people are relevant to my life and some are strangers. I shouldn't care what anyone thinks of me. That's easy to write. Easy to say. Not easy to live like I believe.

I know all the quotes about how I shouldn't care what people think of me because they're not thinking of me. I have most of those quotes pinned on Pinterest. I read them and think about how great it would feel to just be free and to not care about the opinions of others, but there's still pride in my heart. I want to believe that I'm important enough for others to think of me. There's still stubbornness. I want to pretend like there's nothing wrong and everything's fine. There's still fear. I am so afraid that I'll show people the real me with the scars and rough edges and mistakes and shortcomings and flaws and then they will react in exactly the same way I see it play out in my head. They'll leave. Rejection. Loneliness. Insignificance. That's what I'll feel. Again.

The lesson I taught in the 12th Grade Girls' Life Group class a few weeks ago was about the importance of loving yourself so then you can turn around and love others well. God always works it out to where I teach about the things I need to learn the most. I obviously haven't learned it yet. But I want to. I want to believe what the Bible says about me. I want to know with everything inside of me that God has a plan and a purpose for my life and that I matter. I'm tired of being afraid. I think it's kept me more alone than I would be if I actually put myself out there and took a chance.

Every time this song comes on the radio when I'm in the car, I belt it out. I want the words to be true of me. I want to take back my life from the fears and insecurities that have held me captive for so long. I want to prove--more to myself than to anyone else--that I'm alright. I want to just not care if ANYONE else believes it or believes in me. I want to be secure in who I am in Christ and let the rest of it go.

Maybe I'll get a little closer to that every time I belt out these words and remember that Jesus says I'm worth it.

Day 2: God's Word is Valuable

Up until my senior year of high school, my mom ran a day care. For a while when I was very little, that day care was a separate building from our home. When I was 9, Alayna was 4 and Marm realized she hadn't been at home with Alayna at all since she was born. So Marm quit the "external" day care and brought it to our house. She started out by just keeping a few kids during the day, and then she got licensed by the State to keep more and opened her own business. There were kids there when she woke us up for school and kids there when we got home. Some of them came and went, and some became part of the family.

One day, one of the children tore my Mom's Bible to pieces. She wrote in it, ripped out pages, and just destroyed it. My Mom was devastated. She loved her Bible so much and had written so many notes in the margins and underlined so many ways God spoke to her within those pages. It broke her heart to see it messed up, and she cried for a long time.

She got a new Bible--maybe a few more since that day--but that memory sticks out to me. My Mom loves her Bible. Not because of how much she paid for it or who gave it to her, but because of what's inside. She has always taught us songs about the Bible or written from Bible verses. She taught us to memorize scripture when we were little, and those verses are still with me. Her dad was a preacher, and her mom loved God's Word too, and that was passed down to my mother and then to me.

God's Word is valuable because of who God is. With technology today, you can carry multiple versions of the Bible in your pocket, but I still love turning the pages of the Book. God's Word is living and active and relevant to every day. I learned that from many people, but mostly from my Mom. Thanks Marm. :)