Insecurities, Friendships and Facebook

          Growing up, I always struggled with friendships. Girls were mean, catty, jealous, and disloyal. The circle of girls you referred to as friends, were (majority of the time) far from the definition of a friend. This in turn caused me to find friendships with guys, something I would still prefer to this day but am unable to engage in because I am married and that just doesn’t fly anymore. Some of the best friends I ever had however, were guys. Guys don’t get wrapped up in the cattiness and drama that is girls. Though they too struggle with insecurities, those insecurities don’t affect their relationships the way they do for girls.

          I began to surrender my life to Christ in high school, which is one heck of a time to discover yourself in Christ and stand strong against the influences of the world. Teens are so impressionable, so insecure and weak, and man is it a lonely road. Standing in the middle of a public school, full of sex, parties, drinking, and a whole heck of a lot of drama, it felt nearly impossible to stand firm in what I believed to be true. However, I feel this would have been far easier had I had a good support system apart from my family. I searched and searched for friends that shared a heart for the Lord, but they were far and few. I was stuck in the middle of the world around me and the world within Christ. The kids at school didn’t really want to hang out with me because we didn’t have anything in common. I wouldn’t drink, party, have sex, or doing anything “fun” in their standards. But the kids in my youth group were closed to me because in many ways I still resembled the world. Being a new Christian, I was still blind to some of the things that I shouldn’t have been engaging in, primarily the way I dressed. I had several people within my youth group speak to me about their thoughts, (and the thoughts of others) in regards to my clothes. Had it been done in love and without accusation, I may have responded better. But it made me feel dirty and isolated. Knowing that kids in my youth group, as well as parents apparently, made me sick and it hurt to know I was being judged by the very people I was trying to trust. In school I was being judged for looking and acting different, and in church the same was occurring on the opposite end of the spectrum. I spent my sophomore year isolated socially. I dealt privately with an eating disorder for over a year and a half. However, that year and half was one of the most incredible times of spiritual growth thus far in my life. I read, A LOT. And I grew to know and love the Lord more with every minute I spent in His presence. I felt strong. However, the following year proved my infancy in my faith and I fell hard. Again, much of this was because I lacked a good support system, because I was so alone in my faith, and I felt like such an outcast in both worlds. I caved and chose to follow the world again, and the consequences are still reaping their dividends today.

       

        I hoped that as an adult, this awful search for my place in this world, my search for “good” friends would end, but I have found over the years that it only gets worse. It’s different now, however. The insecurities are different and the reactions to those insecurities are fairly different, but the loneliness and hurt are still the same.  The most genuine of women still fall under the attacks of their insecurities and unknowingly cause a lot of heartache to those they feel threatened by. God rescued me through my relationship with my husband. We are so like-minded in our faith and in our passions, that it has made the hole within my social life seem not so devastating. Being a mother has forced me to grow significantly in my relationship with the Lord and in my faith. Being a wife has done the same. Amazing authors have served as my “friends” and spiritual encouragement despite the lack of those relationships in my physical life. I constantly ask the question, “What’s wrong with me? Do I come off as arrogant or unfriendly? Do people think I am fake? Am I offensive in ways that I am unaware of?”  Many times it has caused me to shut down and shut in, but thankfully God never lets me stay there long.

         Over the years it has occurred to me that much of the problem, despite the fact that we are all just incredibly busy, is a result of social media. Women are insecure and it’s something that will carry on with us in a variety of ways throughout the rest of our lives. Though we may react differently on the outside, we all still suffer from the ugliness of becoming envious, jealous, and judgmental on the inside. Facebook serves as a reminder of all those ugly insecurities, and Satan loves to use it as a means to keep us self-doubting and discouraged. We see these moms that seem to have it all together: clean homes, clean kids, perfect jobs, organization, a solid faith, an amazing husband, etc..etc… We see our friends getting big beautiful homes, buying nice cars, dressing up in cute clothes, having the money and time to do their hair more than twice a year, all while many of us are watching while we sit in our food stained yoga pants, with our three day old messy buns, dark circles under our eyes, dirty homes that are continually falling apart, and a car that yet again needs to go to the shop. Our kids are crazy, our lives are chaotic, and we just can’t seem to get anything right. Now, I am a mother so I can only speak from that perspective, but this applies to women of all walks of life, just different issues. Not only are we viewing these seemingly “perfect” lives, but we also have everyone and their mother posting articles, blogs, and statuses expressing why this and that are the best way to parent and take care of your child, and what YOU are doing is wrong and as a result, you basically suck as a mother. Or at least, that’s what we hear.

           I was talking with my mom the other day and telling her my thoughts on this subject. I told her I remember she and her friends, who were the mothers of my friends, seemed to always have such a great friendship despite their differences in styles of parenting and opinions on life and faith. To this day, she is still great friends with most of those women. And here I am, struggling to even find one friend like that. I told her I blame much of this issue on social media. She and her friends didn't have that. They didn't have the ability to share everything and anything under the son about themselves. They didn't share every political, parental, and religious (or lack thereof) opinion that came to their mind. As a result, their friendships were based simply on their relationships with each other…based on their similar situations, their crazy schedules and difficult days, and the pure enjoyment of one another’s company. They shared stories and laughed over coffee, ignoring all of their differences and just enjoying their walk through life together. They all had different incomes, different sized homes, and different cars. And yet, they were confident and comfortable enough in their friendships to see past those differences and the insecurities they may have caused. I wonder if they would have been friends (or still be friends) had they had access to social media at the time.

          My point, because I promise there is one, is that we need to see past ourselves, see past our insecurities and remember we are here for a short time and we can’t waste any more of it feeling inadequate, defensive, inferior, or discouraged.  Moreover, many of us need to step off of our pedestals of judgment and remember that we are all struggling in life, struggling to balance it all, to know what’s best for our families, to get back in shape, to feel good about ourselves, to simply press on each day. For those of us that profess Christ, we need to remember why we are truly here on this earth. Susie Larson said it best in her book Your Beautiful Purpose, “If we open our hands and hearts to envy and jealousy, the devil grabs the opportunity to tie up our hopes and dreams and choke the life right out of them. The love of God ceases to operate through us when envy has its way in us”. How much are we missing out on because we are allowing our insecurities to dictate our influence in the lives around us? How many people are we hurting because we are allowing walls of self-doubt and uncertainty to prevent us from reaching them with the love of Christ? I will end this with a paragraph from Susie Larson that really opened my eyes and efficiently sums up the point of my writing this post. She said, “We are in this together. We’re all in different stages of growth and development, but we’re all precious to God, all a work in progress, all engaged In the priceless work of the kingdom. Do remember that what we notice in others is something that we already possess to some degree—or at least have the potential to-- both positively and negatively. When we refuse the weakness and pettiness of a jealous spirit and instead rise up as co-laborers tending to a greater cause than our momentary selfish whims, the enemy is the one who gets blindsided. When we’re together – refusing to let pettiness divide – he cannot tell where you end and I begin. All he can see is an unbeatable army”.