A Confident Heart – excerpt by Renee Swope

I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, squinting from the bright lights above while also trying to open my eyelids so I could brush mascara on my lashes.

My heart was wrestling with self-doubt regarding an event I would be speaking at the next day. I had felt honored, confident, and excited when the leader called months before to invite me to speak at their women’s event. Now I questioned whether I should have accepted the invitation in the first place. I couldn’t help but wonder, What’s wrong with me?

I needed to get ready, finish packing my suitcase, and drive to the airport. Instead, I wanted to stay home and do something predictable like fold laundry, order pizza, and watch a movie with my kids. Something less risky than standing in front of five hundred women to give a message that I hoped would challenge and encourage their hearts, bring them laughter, and leave them longing for more of God.

As I continued to put on my makeup, I asked God—once again—to please take away my uncertainty. I hated feeling this way. Canceling the event wasn’t an option. Maybe I could call in sick? No, that wouldn’t be good.

This was not the first time I’d struggled with self-doubt. In fact, doubt was something I had dealt with more times than I wanted to recount. As a child I doubted I was worth keeping. My insecurity even kept me from riding the carousel at an amusement  park, because I doubted  my dad would wait for me. I thought he might leave me forever once I was out of sight.

Doubt also robbed me of the joy of waterskiing as a young girl. I refused to try it because I wasn’t sure my family would come back to get me once I let go of the rope. I questioned whether I was good enough in college, so I avoided some great opportunities because they brought the risk of rejection. Even as a young bride, I doubted my husband’s faithfulness. Our newlywed memories include a lot of arguments about trust.

Now here I was years later, a grown woman in ministry, doubting myself again. It was getting old. I wondered if perhaps my self-doubt was a sign I was in the wrong calling. I mean, if God calls you to do something, shouldn’t you feel confident about it? Shouldn’t you want to do it? Shouldn’t self-assurance be part of God’s equipping?

Maybe you know exactly what I’m talking about. Perhaps you have prayed since you were a little girl to be a mother, and here you are with kids, doubting you have what it takes to be a good mom. Or maybe you’ve sensed God calling you to serve Him in a way that requires steps of faith, but insecurity has convinced you that you’re not smart enough or gifted enough. Perhaps you have wanted to change jobs for a while and now you have the opportunity to do just that, but you don’t want to go. The unknown is too scary. Although you’ve been miser- able, at least the misery is familiar where you are now.

I desperately wanted to move out of the shadow of my doubts, but all I could do was go through the motions and pray that God would zap me with confidence. I kept hoping it would happen right there in my bathroom, but it didn’t. Doubt and questions continued to criticize me.

Once I finished brushing on my mascara, I turned around to put my makeup bag in my suitcase, which was on the floor behind me. That’s when I noticed a huge nine-foot shadow on the wall. I was surprised by how much bigger my shadow was than my five-foot-two-inch frame.

It was distorting my image on the wall by making my body look bigger than it really was. All of a sudden, it dawned on me. My uncertainty had created a huge shadow of doubt. Just like my shadow on the wall was distorting my shape, my doubt was distorting my thoughts and overpowering my emotions with confusion and questions. The shadow of doubt had become bigger than what I doubted—myself.

I just stood there looking at the humongous shadow. Then I bent down to put my makeup bag in my suitcase and sensed God whispering to my heart: You can only see the shadow because you have turned away from the light. Turn back toward the light.

As I stood up and turned back toward the light above the mirror, I realized I was no longer standing in the shadow. And that was the day I discovered the shadow of my doubts.

Renee Swope is a popular national women’s conference speaker, radio show co-host, and the executive director of radio and devotions at Proverbs 31 Ministries. She is the author of A Confident Heart and A Confident Heart Devotional. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and three children. Find out more at www.reneeswope.com.

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Excerpt from A Confident Heart by Renee Swope. Used by permission of Revell Publishing.