incredibly beautiful, nonetheless

I was in a worship service recently, and in the song we were singing, the phrase “I am found in you,” (in this case, the “you” being God) stuck out to me. I frequently sing my own phrases re-worded when I worship, and I did this with that line, without even thinking much about it: “I find myself in you.” It hit me afterwards: the place that I find myself is in Christ. Maybe it sounds stupid and a little obvious, but it was actually an epiphany for me. Being that I’m in college, I’ve been thinking a lot about who I am, and about finding myself. I’m even reading a book called Becoming Myself (by Stasi Eldredge), because I thought maybe somehow it could help, and it has, but it can’t fix it all for me.

I’ve been fighting a lot of rejection in this season of my life, which might also be why I’m so fixated on figuring out who I am. In some cases the rejection is real—people have questioned and even criticized my decisions on getting married young,

thoughts on vulnerability

Remember my fear, failure, and fear of failure? I have another fear: fear of rejection. Fear of putting myself “out there,” where others can see. Fear that if I say what really goes on in my mind rather than echoing others’ opinions, people will think that I think too highly of my own opinion or that I must think I’m cooler and deeper than everyone else around me. And people have actually expressed to me that they’ve thought that before, so I have even more reason to fear it happening again.

I fear it so much that I often just go along with what others want, allowing them to walk all over me because I’m too hesitant to share what I really think. I don’t want to share who I am, because I’m afraid of what people will think of me. I’d rather