Take Your Space
Hey BAE’s!
If y'all didn’t know, I’m “the tall friend” among my girl friends. Granted, 5’5 isn’t that tall but I’ve always found myself nearly towering over the people around me. This led me to physically and personality-wise shrink myself in order to not take up so much space.
It’s by no means my friends’ fault, it’s a mindset I’ve been slowly unlearning after being able to be vulnerable and talking about it.
Use What God Gave You
I can’t pinpoint the exact reason or moment I started feeling the need to shrink myself, but I know that from that point I started becoming more aware of the space I was taking up. To this day, I am still a little anxious about this. Again, I’m slowly trying to be okay with taking up the space I need and that has been given to me.
During a talk with the girls about this specific topic, Deej said something that has jump started my desire to take back my space. She said something like, “God has given you the authority to take as much space as you need in order to be used by Him.” And that doesn’t mean I can’t be used when I shrink, but I won’t be able to fulfill my calling to my full potential. With that thought, I don’t want to serve God half-passed.
The enemy took an insecurity I had/have and made it into something bigger and I allowed it to happen because I started to be okay with cultivating my insecurity. This is a dangerous position to be in because you can be left complacent and/or lacking in faith that God can save you from the chains of your insecurities.
In Luke 10: 19 (NLT), Jesus tells the disciples “Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy…” He’s given us the authority to overcome the things that hold us back from wholeheartedly serving Him and fulfilling our calling. I realized that not breaking my shrinking habits was only going to make things worse, when I meet new people, when I’m placed in different environments, etc.
God has placed you where you are in order to grow. To put it this way, you can’t expect a seed to grow into something bigger and better if you don’t provide it with the care it needs. If you feed the plant with toxic things, it’ll either shrivel up and die or it’ll grow into something that’ll poison what’s around them.
I don’t want this to discourage you if you are in a similar position of feeling (the need to) shrink. I want to encourage you all to take up space. Take as much space as you need in order to be used by God to your fullest potential! It doesn’t matter what others say because at the end of the day, the only approval that matters and will ever matter is that of the Lord’s.
So, as we go through this journey together, I want to let you know that I’m proud of you! You’re doing great and you’re capable of so much more than you think!
Praying for and loving you always,
Angeli <3