There are moments in life where every single little insecurity about yourself will come up and bite you.

Yesterday was one for me.

My Birthday is on Sunday, and this year I wanted to just invite a few people out to lunch, the people I consider to be the closest to me. My family, my three closest friends, (One of which is married and has kids so them also of course.) and the parents of one of those friends because I consider them like my a second set of parents.

The list was a little long due to husband and kids and things, but it was still the list of my core people basically.

But as it turns out, beyond my family, no one will be coming to my birthday.

Everyone was busy, everyone had prior plans.

In their defense I’d asked late because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do this year.

Still, when the last person fell through, I wanted to cry, and every little insecure voice rose up in my head and started talking.

The voices that talk about how I don’t really have many friends, and maybe the ones I do have don’t really care about me. The voices that talk about how I’m really not a very interesting person, I’m not very fun, and I have no real value. The voices that make me feel like so much wasted space in life. The voices that say I have no impact on anyone and no one would miss me if I were gone.

I had a really big and pathetic pity party last night, finished off with a bunch of ice-cream.

And part of me wanted to accuse my friends for not caring, for not showing interest in me. But its not really their fault that I have these voices in my head. And it was at the point of this realization that the most pathetic part of my evening began, because I realized in that moment that I really believed myself to be uninteresting and not very valuable as a person.

I feel like I don’t want to talk about these moments in my mind because they really are pretty pathetic seeming. But you know what? I feel like I can be the only one to ever feel this way and that isn’t true. So I’m sharing. I’m being real today, as real as I can be.

I’ve always felt different than other people, like I didn’t fit in. But the truth is we are all unique. I’ve always felt like I wanted the attention and popularity others had. But the truth is I never wanted to change myself to try to get that attention.

I always wanted to be accepted and loved for myself. But the truth is that the first and most important person that wasn’t accepting and loving me was myself.

Because the truth is that I’m God’s own unique and beautiful creation. The truth is I was never meant to be like anyone else. The truth is that only I can fit into this unique and beautiful walk and plan God has for my life. And the truth is as long as I keep my eyes on others instead of Him, I won’t see any of that.

The truth is that as long as I only see how I’m different from others, I won’t be able to see how I’m unique and beautiful in my own right.

I’m still really bummed about my birthday this year. It’s just sort of humiliating when the only people you invite aren’t going to come. But hopefully I’m moving past my pity party to recognize that sometimes life happens, and sure, its a bummer, but it isn’t a reflection of my value as a person to the people I care about.

And hopefully I can cling even more to my reflection of value I find in the One who created me to be unique.

~Joy Aletheia Stevens

Photo Credit: Birthday Cake By Ishikawa Ken (CC BY-SA 2.0)    

Photo Credit: The Bell Flower By Trevor Grant (CC BY 2.0)