I Bore My Soul

On Sunday during Church services, I bore my soul.  It was the hardest thing...I shared my testimony of Christ and expressed my love and thankfulness to a loving Heavenly Father for his tender mercies and miracles I have seen in our lives.  I was shaking, my heart was pounding and I even teared up.  Yes, even me...This was so totally and completely out of my comfort zone.  It was almost like one of those out of body experiences, "How did I get here?" moments.  Someone said to me once after I had shared a testimony years ago, "It's hard to know when you've shared too much."  I was hurt...I internalized that and I began to protect my heart.  I tend to protect my testimony and heart and not share it with the world.  Unless it is on my blog, and then I lay it all out there.  But in a public setting with people I know and don't, it's like exposing a tender wound.  I am careful and protective and a little bit scared.

I felt good about what I shared and said, but strangely, later I felt incredibly guilty.  It was the weirdest thing.  I had all these thoughts in my head like, "No one really wanted to hear what you had to say," "No one really cares about you," "I probably wasn't coherent with my thoughts," "I probably didn't make sense,"  "I'm sure people were just rolling their eyes," "She is so braggy!"  "Get her off of there, Next please?"  I know in  my head these are Satan thoughts.  He didn't like that I testified my feelings.  But, still that feeling of guilt of opening myself up to others and sharing persisted.

Then this morning I read a blog post by Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience.  She is inspired and knew just what I needed to hear.  My Heavenly Father was sending me an answer through one of his earthly angels.