The other day, I did a radio interview for my new book release. It was my second radio interview, but I still had little confidence in my ability to sound coherent. The only confidence I carried into that booth with me was that I could survive the 10 minute span. It’s the same technique I used to get through 5 labor and deliveries – thinking that in 24 hours it would be over.
Friends and family were so encouraging. When I told them I was shaking in my shoes, one said, “I can’t imagine you being nervous about anything.”
When I first started teaching college students, I wasn’t much older than they were. I had mutiny nightmares for weeks. However, I walked into that classroom acting like I knew what I was doing. Eventually, I did.
Motherhood was like that. I had to persuade a newborn, a 3 month old, a 5-year-old, a pre-teen – eventually a teen that I knew what I was doing. Sadly, once they went to college, I think they saw through me.
Confidence in me? Not an ounce for what I can do – but I am Fearlessly Confident.
Fearless Confidence has nothing to do with the quality of my scones, lemon-curd or chocolate-ganache filled cupcakes or the quality of the photographs I take or words written or stories I tell.
Fearless Confidence has nothing to do with commas, semi-colons, colons, verb tenses, vocabulary or grammar rules, writing structures or transitions.
There’s no Fearless Confidence in how I mother these 5 sons.
Fearless Confidence has nothing to do with sock matching, laundry folding or delivery to the right boy’s room.
Fearless Confidence doesn’t mean I respond to driver’s in the on-coming lane crossing the yellow line any better.
It doesn’t mean I think you’ll love my children’s books, that I always shepherd correctly – or even always love rightly.
Offers to help can turn out all wrong – so no Fearless Confidence there, either.
I can try to share grace-filled words that are heard/received with the opposite intent.
Fearless confidence has nothing to do with how I do anything.
It has everything to do with whose I am.
Through the Fall, up through December, my husband had been encouraging me to show the world the same fearless confidence I show him, my boys or my community.
“Talk to ‘em like you do me,” he’d say.
“But the world isn’t you,” I’d respond. “There’s no place for that kind of confidence there.”
It can be a restricting thing when the “world” says, “Leave who you are at home.”
Being boxed up can cause self-atrophy of who we are God-designed to be.
Atrophy:
- gradually decline in effectiveness or vigor due to under-use or neglect
- (of body tissue or an organ) waste away, typically due to the degeneration of cells, or become vestigial during evolution.
Sometimes, the world we walk in is uncomfortable with Fearless Confidence. In the uncomfortableness of Fearless Confidence we hide it, only taking who we are out – every once in a while, in the safe places.
It is not how we were designed to live our God-designed journey. Even if we are believing it inside – in our hearts and minds – we are designed to be who we are outside, too – on the sidewalks, highways and hallways of this life we walk. If we don’t, who we are designed to be weakens, shrivels up, unable to stretch fully into God’s design.
One day, between Christmas and New Years, I happened upon Elizabeth’s blog, Just following Jesus, about her one word of the year-endurance (she does a beautiful job showing the grace, beauty and faith of endurance – stop by and read her post).
“Do not, therefore, fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward. For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and carry away, and enjoy to the full, what is promised” (Hebrews 10:35-36)
My soul caught on, not just the words Fearless Confidence – but the admonishment to not fling it away. Fearless Confidence caught like mohair yarn snagged on barn-door wood – it caught at me and wouldn’t let me be.
“That’s your words for the year,” the one who created me whispered quiet.
“Oh, no – not that word – not Fearless Confidence – the world – it doesn’t want that,” I told Him. The world can be mean-spirited when it doesn’t want things. A self-atrophied spirit can fight for others, but rarely feels up for a fight for self.
“This is going to be hard. It will be really – really uncomfortable,” my heart whispered right back.
. . . . and for a few days, we both just let it sit between us. God knows that sometimes I need time to turn things over. He had faith in me that I’d come around – and come around faster than I used to.
One of the best lessons I’ve learned about God, His directives and His timing – is that when He tells me something – it doesn’t mean I was supposed to have had it done yesterday – that I’m somehow late because I should have known and then I trip all over myself in graceless haste because I believe I’m already behind.
I’ve learned that when He tells me I’m to do something, He prepares me for it, has created a time frame for it to not just get it done but time to also ready for it – and that time frame is before me. I am not late because He is not late.
. . . . and for a few days, the words Fearless Confidence sat between us. He knew I would need time to absorb . . . time for me to take a deep breath . . . .and step into this new year where together He would teach me how to walk, talk and be Fearlessly Confident in a world that wanted none of it.
Fearless Confidence? “Oh, they just think too much of themselves,” some people say.
“They just think they’re better than anybody else.”
Someone else’s Fearless Confidence can be intimidating.
Eleanor Roosevelt, in This is My Story, said, ““No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
But they can try. . .
“The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages,” said Virginia Woolf.
. . . . thus encouraging us to walk into their cages and lock ourselves up.
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams,” Henry David Thoreau admonished. “Live the life you’ve imagined.”
I have no fearless confidence in the life I imagined – but I do have fearless confidence in the life He designed for me, the dreams He’s placed in me, and the journey He’s given me – because He’s given them. My dreams are just shadows to God’s plans.
I can have fearless confidence in who I am through Him because He tells me so:
He tells me that He designed me, put all these dreams and things in me, planned every day of my life. I am not who I am by whimsical happenstance. I am who I am because I am God-designed, God-loved. In that, I have fearless confidence.
My stories and words may not be welcomed by everyone – but they are welcomed by those who were designed to receive them.
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6)
Does this Fearless Confidence mean I’m soul-cleaner, holier, smarter, more worthy of going up to God – ’cause He’s the big cheese, you know – and, well, I hear He hangs with Mother Teresa, Peter, James and John?
No – it just means that I know that He’s my dad – and, he manages to make all of us feel like his favorites. Because He’s my Dad, I know I’m always welcome – even when I get myself into those messes I manage to contrive. He doesn’t tell me to come back when I’m cleaned up.
“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
God doesn’t create an inner-circle that leaves any of His children out. He makes room at His table for all of us. He always has time for me and you – even when He’s in the middle of something big. . . . even when He’s talking to someone the world thinks is more important than everyday ordinary men and women like you and me.
“But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory” (Hebrews 3:6).
The Fearless Confidence in Hebrews 10: 35 – is about fearless confidence in who I am to the great I Am, to Shaddai, to Jehovah-Raah – the Lord is my Shepherd, to Jehovah Rapha – the Lord my healer, to Jehovah Jireh – my provider, to Jehovah Shalom – my peace, to not just carry the banner of Jehovah-Nissi – but to walk with fearless confidence under His banner.
He designed my days before I was born – he is not surprised when I find myself in the middle of a self-designed mess.
He knit me together inside and out – gave me spiritual gifts, love languages – and a skill set designed just for me.
He sent His son to die on the cross, so that I could be called His child, His daughter – a daughter of the King – who can run into His throne room, fling myself into His arms and laugh with joy or cry for mercy – or even just talk.
He loves me beautiful – even when I don’t feel it. He designed each of us to be loved beautiful.
So when I walk into a library and ask if I can come read my books, I’m fearlessly confident – not that they will say, “Yes” – but fearlessly confident I am His beloved daughter.
When I’m invited to read to a classroom of students, I am His beloved daughter. That morning on the radio, I really just had to show up and be who He designed me to be right then and there – not who I am going to be in 10 years or 19 days.
Even after 32 years of marriage, and, yes, fearless confidence in the love my husband has for me and the love I have for him, I don’t have confidence that I do marriage perfect – but I have Fearless Confidence that God and His love works it beautiful right.
No matter who I work for, whether it’s inside the family or outside the family – I am His beloved daughter.
I am not confident in my mothering skills, but I am Fearless Confidence that God has the saving plan – for me, my husband, my boys, my daughter-in-law and DIL-to-be, my granddaughter – and one coming soon.
It has taken me awhile to work through this word – to walk in the world with this Fearless Confidence, to not just live it in the safe places. Let me tell you, it changed everything. It redeemed the challenges. God moved in ways that just had me standing still on the sidelines, watching God move. All I could say was, “Well-played, God! Well-played!”
“Be still and know that I am God,” (Psalm 46:10).
Be still in the Fearless Confidence of who God is and who you are to God! If you don’t know, don’t feel it – who you are to God, ask Him to show you, to help you understand – and He will. Those dreams you have? He knows all about them and wants to help you with them.
He wants you to be Fearlessly Confident that you are His, designed-beautiful, designed for joy, designed for good things.
“Do not, therefore, fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward. For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and carry away, and enjoy to the full, what is promised” (Hebrews 10:35-36)
( I realize that my Word for the Year is really 2 words – but that’s what He gave me. My word doesn’t always start in January – usually, just when He gives it to me. It’s like enrolling in a class for whatever duration He designs it to be where we study. My last word was Shalom)
Absolutely lovely post my friend. God bless xo
Thank you, Katherine! Wishing you blessing and fearless confidence in your week!
Love the verse from Hebrews which you shared. Fearless confidence because our confidence is in Him. Beautiful post!
Thank you, Joanne! Wishing you fearless confidence in your week!
I am fearlessly confident that I’m His beloved daughter! Couldn’t have said it better, Maryleigh! You go, girl! God’s equipped you with so much to be confident about! His work in and through You shines! And congrats on the radio interview! I’m impressed. 🙂
Thank you so much Beth! Standing with you in fearless confidence before the Father! Rejoicing that He loves us so much!!
hi blue:) (i must know your name, but can’t seem to find it.) i loved this post on many levels! loved the part about God giving you a timeframe to do what he wants, not being late. so true! took me forever to get that!…honestly, still in the process, but get it better.
love the eleanor roosevelt quote:) i’ll have to come back and reread this again. it was loaded with great stuff. loved it! i’m going to have to come here more often. have been in a photo class this month and ignoring a lot of other stuff. thanks for a great read today:)
Hi Martha – I know blog posts are supposed to be short – but I just couldn’t on this one. Thanks for sticking through! Wishing you fearless confidence in your week! (I don’t think I made it easy to find my name – It’s under about and then you click on a link that takes you here: https://bluecottonmemory.wordpress.com/why-bluecottonmemory/about/
~ Maryleigh
I love your strategy: just get through 10 minutes. 🙂 I also love your phrase “fearless confidence.” God is our daddy; what more do we need? I know I still have many fears, but when I really dig deep, I know there’s no reason to. Thanks for sharing reasons for our hope, Maryleigh!
I’m all about setting achievable time frames for completing things – but also have no problem adjusting it when it’s needed. My granddaughter was born last night. I kept making new time goals all night long – it’s what got me through an all-nighter at the hospital! Wishing you fearless confidence in your week! Thanks so much for stopping by!
These words really resonate with me: “My stories and words may not be welcomed by everyone – but they are welcomed by those who were designed to receive them.” It’s so important to remember this! Thank you for the encouragement! Stopping by to cheer you on from #InspireMeMonday
Thanks so much for coming by, Anita – it is liberating when we realize that it is God who opens the doors for us to give those for whom our messages are intended. Our audience might not be gazillions – but it is designed to fulfill design capacity!
Love! Fearless confidence…my confidence is in Him. I could have written this post (not nearly as well, just so familiar). So good, so encouraging and so real. Blessings, visiting from the SDG sisterhood. ♥
Thank you for stopping by and leaving such sweet encouragement! Wishing you a week of fearless confidence!
Hello, What wisdom to realize what it looks like to have this fearless confidence! As it is truly only in Him and through Him! Well, I never did get a word this year! But who knows, maybe after reading this God may still give me one! Isn’t it wonderful that our Hubbies love and support us so much. And why is that we can still feel ourselves shaking when we need to speak, and for a radio station! Congrats
Hugs, Roxy
Hi Roxy – for me it’s not so much a year – as it’s like enrolling in a class with lots of lessons and work to do – it names/recognizes the season I’m in. I’ve had the year of standing, the year of the great loss, the year of refreshing, the year of Shalom. I bet when you look at what you’re going through right now – and what God is teaching you – you’ll find a name for your season, too! Wishing you a week of fearless confidence! Thank you so much for coming by!
~Hugs right back!
Maryleigh
You have so many great little things in this one article! I got stuck way up at the verse in Hebrews 10:35-6 and it so perfectly fit a conversation I just gone done with that I had to go away and send that person an email with those verses. It’s a God thing. I love you word(s) for this year. Fearless confidence. Absolutely wonderful.
Carol – this is an unusually large post (some people keep telling me I blog posts should be small) – but I spent 4 months praying and working on how to express this – I just couldn’t cut anything. I’m so glad you had a God-moment to share through the scripture. God is so good! Wishing you fearless confidence in your week! Thank you for stopping by!
I loved this post!! There were so many things I could highlight that you shared that spoke to me in a profound way.
I will name a few…
The version of Hebrews 10:35-36 you shared I just kept reading over and over, letting the words sink in!
“he manages to make all of us feel like his favorites.” I often thought about this and you articulated it perfectly in its context!
And finally, for this blogger, when you said, “My stories and words may not be welcomed by everyone – but they are welcomed by those who were designed to receive them.” I loved how you tied the Sovereignty of God into this. What a wonderful reminder as we write.
Thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you, Karen – for you sweet encouragement. Sometimes, it takes a long time for His words to stink in before we fully understand them. He is so patient with us as He waits for us thrown down our understanding and pick up His! Shalom! ~Maryleigh
Among many great thoughts, I think this one encouraged me most:
“…when He tells me I’m to do something, … that time frame is before me. I am not late because He is not late.”
Blessings!
It is liberating, isn’t it, Janice – when we realize we are not behind – but in God’s unfolding time! Wishing you fearless confidence in your week – and time that is liberating!
I am processing what you are saying, really trying to take it in and absorb it…fearlessly confident not in my own abilities, but in who God is and simply who He created me to be. Which, I think, must come from living in the overflow, right?
I think sometimes gives us, as a minister once said, “the suddenlies” – where revelation goes down deep and fills us up right there – the knowledge of it – like Paul on the road to Emmaus. However, I think most often He tells us things that need time to sink in – and the deeper they go, the more we are filled up with His truth. I don’t think I could be where I am right now with this fearless confidence truth without God leading me here – to be ready for that moment. So, Jen – just let it soak in, go deep – and God’s truth will rise up to overflowing in you! Remember those little tablets we used to put in water when we were little – and dinosaurs would grow out of them after soaking – sometimes it feels like God’s truth does that in me! Shalom in your soaking!
Was I ever blessed by your post!!! Congratulations on your book! How awesome!
Thank you for sharing your heart at the end of the year – God used it to make me really step out and grab hold of this! Thanks for the well-wishes on my book! Wishing you fearless confidence in your week!!!~Maryleigh
Oh Maryleigh, such a beautiful post. Fearless confidence comes from knowing to Whom you belong. Wow, such a heady thought really. Because often I get stuck in who I think I am, or who I think others think I am, when truly I should be fearlessly confident because I am a child of the most High God!
Great post my friend.
God bless
Tracy
Absolutely lovely. Found you through #thoughtprovokingthursday and glad for it! I needed these words today, thank you for writing and sharing!
Maryleigh — you have poured your heart out here…with fearless confidence. Beautiful!! Lavish!! Thanks much 🙂
Maryleigh,
Love reading about your journey to grab onto “Fearless Confidence” in Christ…Congrats on your book and for being brave as God leads 🙂
Fearless confidence.
Yes, Maryleigh, yes. That’ll preach. 2 great big words to take with me into the coming days.
Perfect love casts out fear. He’s got this. Yes, He does.
Wow! I had to print it out so I could get away from my desk, move into a secret place and read it – let it seep into my soul. thank you such sweet words of wisdom. May the Lord bless & keep you….~Chris
This is just what I’ve been learning this past year – to gain my God-ordained moxie back! I taught at a women’s meeting one time about not allowing people’s faces to intimidate you – that God showed me that they may not be sitting out there judging what I was saying; they may have indigestion. It is based on Jeremiah 1:8 and 1:17 (be not afraid/dismayed at their faces). Great post that I will bookmark and come back to reread again and again!
Well. I just finished my manuscript – sent it to the editor (in chief) and got a chance to actually savor this post. Boy was it worth the wait! I pinned it, tweeted it #fearlesscourage and let my Facebook homeys have a look at it. Thank you and God bless.
Thank you, Chris – and Congratulations on your manuscript sent off to the editor-in-chief. Am praying for you – that this process bear beautiful fruit!