Help! I'm Trapped in My Insecurities!
March 3rd, 2022 • by Holly Mackle
My car’s front window motors are broken so my windows won’t roll anywhere, but mostly down. This is problematic because there’s a lot of awkward floating around looking for insecurities to stick to, and without windows to let down, they chemically bond and get trapped, stifling me inside my car on a Deep South summer day. I say to my husband, “All the awkward can’t get out,” and he says, “That is a problem I cannot help you with,” and I want to pinch him but instead I remind him I don’t have any cavities and he shoots me a grumpy face.
The awkward used to get real weird in carpool when a sweet teacher would do that bright-eyed, big smile thing with the cute little gesture that means, “Roll your window down, I want to tell you something hilarious your kid said!” And I would make blundering hand gestures and roll down a back window and spend the next 190 seconds sucking all the air out of three counties explaining something no one cares about. Or, bless my heart, there was that one time with the neighbor when I opened the sun roof to chat and I went way past awkward into crazy and I promise to never ever do that again.
I Can't Possibly Be Alone, Right?
My brilliant women’s ministry director says most women are lonely, especially the women who don’t look like it. I’m guessing this applies to personal insecurities too. Maybe it could possibly be true; I just feel alone in the thick, stifling cloud of them that follow me around, trapping me inside mental windows that refuse to roll anywhere. Too bad I’m inexact at picking out who feels them too, cause maybe we could make some sick jokes and do a high five that turns into a hand clap we both still remember from fourth grade and OH LOOK THERE I DID IT AGAIN WITH THE AWKWARD.
One of my favorite chefs says quirks make the world go round and one of my favorite writer-friends is very passionate about telling her babies to stay weird. Both of these women are insanely creative and also kind and I find that kindness to somehow weaken the chemical reaction between my awkwardness and my personal insecurities.
Kind friends help me let go of the insecurities. I find this to be no small coincidence, especially since I don’t believe in coincidence. To fully commit to the metaphor: they make my front window motors magically decide to work, flying in the face of my mechanic’s assertion that this is mechanical and the fix will cost hundreds of dollars per side.
“Kind friends help me let go of the insecurities. ”
Friends Who Let Out the Awkward
But there are bigger things at play than a kind friend helping me get beyond my own awkward. The friends who help me forget my insecurities make me want to turn and do the same for another. They make me want to look around for others who might feel uncomfortable too. I can’t always see them, but sometimes I can. And it’s really the best feeling when they can see me back.
If we can see each other we can say hello, we can make a new friend, we can have a funny conversation about Colossians or Kingsolver or Costco. We can let the stifling air squelch out like an untied balloon, flying out of our fingertips until it flops to the ground, deflated and powerless, no longer trying to lead the way. De-weaponized awkward balloons make way for something else to lead the way: like truth.
Letting Truth Lead the Way
To me, making way for truth to lead the way is worth the risk of feeling a little more awkward or insecure than I already do. We find people all over Scripture who stepped into the highly likely awkward for the sake of the gospel. I’m reading the accounts of Paul and the disciples’ travels and interactions post-resurrection in Acts and ya’ll, there’s no way to describe it but awkward.
They’re either asking questions that make people drop down dead (5:1-11) or raising people from the dead (9:40, 20:10) or telling people straight to their face how to not be dead in sin (2:38, 4:11-12, 8:35, 16:31, 18:28, 26:22-23)—and how can we read these narratives and not see the gawky-awkward in these encounters?
But they were so certain of their message—so assured in the hope they had visibly seen in the resurrection of the Christ, who ate and drank with them after he had been crucified and was raised from the dead—that they were empowered to let go of their personal insecurities and do the work of the gospel. They embraced the all thumbs-ness because their hope extended well beyond these fleshly, temporal walls. They knew their purpose—they knew what was at stake.
“They were so certain of their message that they were empowered to let go of their personal insecurities and do the work of the gospel. ”
Lord, Make Me The Same
I read their stories and I feel the stakes rise within me. The disciples’ courage makes me want to be courageous. Lord, make me the same. Help me to be the kind of friend willing to ask the meaningful question, move toward the tender spot, embrace the blundering with both the believers and unbelievers in my life—all to get to the main question, the only one that matters—Where is our hope? In Christ alone.
Arriving at that place puts perspective on my personal insecurities and my awkwardness. This perspective demotes awkward and insecure to inconsequential in light of kingdom living, revealing them to be what they truly are—just annoying thorns in my flesh that really might not bother anyone other than me. And sometimes, on extra memorable and fun days, in the light of a kind friend, awkward and insecure get promoted to quirky and weird-cool. And then I’ve found my people.
Roll out.
If you’ll excuse me I’m off to the Starbucks drive-through where I promise to try real hard not to low-key scare the worker. Oh don’t make me pull up and OPEN THIS DOOR.
Holly Mackle is a lower school librarian, wife, mother, curator of the mom humor collaboration Same Here, Sisterfriend, Mostly True Tales of Misadventures in Motherhood, and author of the family Advent devotional Little Hearts, Prepare Him Room. Holly’s Realtor husband, David, can plate a Lean Pocket like a James Beard Award winner, and together they wrangle two young girls in Birmingham, Alabama. Find her on Instagram.
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