Confidence

By Crystal Eddlemon

Confidence…I know how I am with it, and how I am without it. For many years I had no self-confidence, yet I managed. As far as I know we don’t want to just manage to live.  It’s not joyful.

Without confidence we cannot go into the world and let people know that we mean what we say to them.  Or that we believe in ourselves.

I once was a woman, who, after many years of neglecting myself was very depressed. I depended on someone for my feelings/confidence. It was nearly 15 years later that I learned the meaning of confidence. I had to believe in myself first. No one can make us happy, we must first make ourselves happy.

I used to walk looking down at the ground, ashamed, no confidence. I now know that I am who I am. Everyone makes mistakes. God loves us just the same. I will never forget that. I know I can hold my head high as long as I try to do the best I can.

Confidence is a big part of our character. I now look you in the eye with confidence. I believe in myself. I may not always be right, but I try. I know how I felt without confidence.  I dismissed many of my dreams. I put my faith in someone else too often to be let down.

I hope you have confidence in yourself to know how you want to live. The confidence to be true to yourself. I had allowed myself to become ill over those years. I didn’t believe in me. I can admit, I wasn’t trusting God. The Lord clothes the lilies of the valley, feeds the birds of the air, knows exactly how many hairs are on our heads, and every single thing we would do from beginning to end. He says how much more precious we are than those lilies/birds. And by worrying there is no power in us to change one hair from black to white.

I believe that if we know and trust in God, He will carry us through. Let us have confidence in Him who for our sins paid the Ultimate price. Because, my friend, if it were up to us: we’d never have been saved. Do you really love your neighbor, enough to do that?

I pray that we all will have patience, kindness, and understanding.

Those times that we don’t let’s trust God and let him build our confidence.

Crystal Eddlemon writes from Medford, Oregon.