A Confident Heart Study — Chapter 2 {I’m in Shock}

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Sweet friends, I am honestly at a loss for words tonight. I am in complete and total shock.

Have you ever had a horrible, lousy, fight-with-your-husband, yell-at-your-kids — “let’s just hide and act like this day never happened” — kind of day?

Well, today hasn’t been that kind of day Thank goodness!

However, I did have one of those days a little while ago, and I just sat down, pounded away at my laptop, and poured my heart out to all of you when I wrote “The I’m Fine Masquerade“. After I wrote it, I almost deleted the post because it felt so personal, and maybe a little too “raw”. However, something told me to leave it, that maybe someone needed to read it.

Little did I know how much it would resonate with others who were feeling the same way!

So…. back to the shock of my whole year. Okay, maybe a little dramatic…

Just to give some background, I was honored and privileged to be randomly selected to preview a “Doubt Diet” devotional to coincide with Renee Swope’s book “A Confident Heart“. In this group, I would read each day’s devotion, and send feedback to Renee’s group. Renee and I were able to email back and forth a few times, and I just have to tell you that her heart is just amazing. She longs to encourage women, and is one of the most transparent women I have even met.

A couple of weeks ago, Renee emailed me and asked if I would guest post on her blog.

ME?!

I checked the “To:” and “From:” fields on my email thinking maybe she had the wrong person, or maybe I was getting spammed but it looked like a “real” email. She said that my post about the “I’m Fine Mask” really touched her heart and asked if she could share it with her readers.

Amazing.

This isn’t about me. This is about God turning my terrible, no-good-for-nothin’ kind of day and flipping it around to encourage others! He is so amazing!

So, I just checked my email and there was the nicest email from Renee saying that she had shared my post on her blog. I am in complete shock right now. I honestly don’t know what to say except “thank you”.

Renee — Thank you for sharing my writing, and showing me that God can use our lives if we live transparently for Him. Thank you for modeling that for me. You are truly my mentor and friend, and I so appreciate you. There are no words.

Tonight, I would love for you to pray for sweet Renee. I know she is so incredibly busy and serving the Lord doesn’t make us exempt from problems. I just want us to wrap our arms of love around her and lift up prayers to protect her from the attacks of Satan. I’m reminded of the quote I just read in “Same Kind of Different as Me” that said “Those precious to God become important to Satan”. Let’s pray for God’s hand of protection and abundance of strength for our friend.

I just want to quickly share one quote that really spoke to my heart from Chapter 2 of “A Confident Heart”. On page 33, Renee writes:

“My life was far from perfect, but I didn’t want anyone to know. On the outside everything looked “fine”, yet on the inside I was haunted by thoughts of never being good enough. I felt like I could never do enough to measure up.”

If you feel like that, sweet friend, you are not alone. As we work through this study, you will see God’s many promises for your life and the fact that His love NEVER is based on our being “good enough”.

HE is enough.

We will continue to read through “A Confident Heart” for the next 10 weeks (1 chapter per week). Next week, we will discuss Chapter 3. Hope to “see” you there!

What are your favorite excerpts from Chapter 2? What is God speaking to your heart?