Be Vulnerable

At The Conference, there were these break-out sessions.  They covered all manner of things, and one of them was called ‘Intimacy: I Am Confident’.   As soon as I saw it, I knew that was the one I needed to go to.  I didn’t want to.  I felt like walking in was akin to stamping my forehead with the moniker ‘frigid wife’.  Now, I DID have to take our FOURTH child into that session with me, cause she was wreaking havoc in the nursery.  My husbands motto is ‘practice makes perfect’, and my kids are pretty amazing.  So clearly there is some flexibility in the interpretation of ‘frigid’, but you catch my drift.

Anywho, there I am, sitting in the front row, (side note, when you send friends in to grab seats for you,  let them know what your confidence level is on the subject) listening to this amazing woman speaking about growing a healthy confidence.  She exuded it.  Girlfriend had done her homework, and you could tell she possessed a security in herself and had some authority over her body.

As I sat there, I started feeling worse and worse about myself, which I knew was red alert for another lie trying to take me down.  So I had to tune out for a second to figure out what God was having to say about this particular subject.

This is what I got.  Our world sells us a message that there is ONE kind of confidence when it comes to intimacy, self-confidence.   We have to believe in ourselves, our body, our sexuality, we have to own it, with a take no prisoners kind of mentality.   What happens though if we don’t?   Are we just SOL?  It feels like when I explain to my husband that I’m having a hard time falling asleep, and his solution is I just need to go to sleep?!?  Umm…. did you not hear me…. that is the PROBLEM.   That’s how I feel when people tell me I’m supposed to be confident…. I kinda wanna smack ’em just a little and say ‘duh, if it were that simple I would be DOING it already’.

Enter my default persona when I’m NOT feeling confident…. Act a fool.  If you’ve known me for more than five seconds, you’re familiar with my go to self preservation tactics, tomfoolery and ballyhoo.   Laughter can diffuse almost any situation, so I figure its a safe bet.  It’s not the greatest aphrodisiac, however.  I know, shocking.  That’s where the challenge came in.  Be vulnerable.

Say WHAT God?!?

So not only are you NOT planning to divinely impart some sort of super natural sexpot skills into my repertoire, you want me to ‘own’ my LACK of confidence?!?  That’s the great plan here???  Clearly I’m less than thrilled about this strategy.  Just to recap, I married a ridiculously good looking man, had 4 babies that has demoralized my body image, while he’s only gotten MORE attractive (as if that were possible), and the plan now is to be vulnerable?  I call foul.

To add insult to injury, I looked up the definition of vulnerable: “Susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm.”  How’s THAT for terrifying.  God really doesn’t mess around when He asks for ALL of you.   Turns out He’s not all that interested in building up our self-confidence, but He’ll move mountains to build your confidence in Him.

The beauty of it all is that God has already walked Kevin and I through trusting each other against the odds.  He has built my confidence in my husband to handle me with care….. Its me in the cross hairs this time.  I can hear God loud and clear saying, “You’ve got a baby girl now, and she will NOT grow up hearing her mama talk about that body I built like it is something less than.”  Got it God, but where do we go from here???

Vulnerability doesn’t come naturally.  It can’t.  Our flesh screams self preservation.  Vulnerability is a choice.  It is a choice to lay yourself bare, physically, emotionally, spiritually, with anyone and trust they will hold your heart gently.  It is a choice to do it again and again, even after you’ve experienced the attacks and harm that can result.

I trust Him.  I trust Him enough to try.  Turns out I’m not that concerned about my self-confidence either…. but I’ll do anything to build my confidence in Him.