So Long Insecurity Read online

  So Long, Insecurity

  you’ve been a bad friend to us

  by

  Beth Moore

  Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  Carol Stream, Illinois

  Visit Tyndale’s exciting Web site at www.tyndale.com.

  Visit Living Proof’s Web site at www.LProof.org.

  TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  So Long, Insecurity: You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us

  Copyright © 2010 by Beth Moore. All rights reserved.

  Cover photo of Beth Moore by Stephen Vosloo copyright © by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Cover background photo copyright © by Ivan Stevanovic/iStockphoto. All rights reserved.

  Designed by Jacqueline L. Nuñez

  Published in association with Yates & Yates (www.yates2.com).

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  Quotations designated (NET) are from the NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2006 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. www.bible.org. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NKJV is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version.

  Scripture quotations marked NCV are taken from the New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NCV is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Scripture quotations marked The Message are taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Moore, Beth, date.

  So long, insecurity : you’ve been a bad friend to us / Beth Moore.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references (p. ).

  ISBN 978-1-4143-3472-1 (hc)

  1. Christian women—Religious life. 2. Security (Psychology) 3. Trust in God—Christianity.

  I. Title.

  BV4527.M624 2010

  248.8'43—dc22 2009042432

  For Annabeth

  Acknowledgments

  I have never had so many people to thank at the end of a writing project. Over a thousand men and women contributed to this message, and if you’re one of them, my words of gratitude will fail to convey my heart and how humbled I am by your willing investment. I pray God will wildly bless your efforts through a harvest of women who stumble on the book providentially and find the freedom they yearn for.

  To my beloved online community I affectionately call the “Siestas”—Girls, this book exists because of your input and the courage you gave me to write it. You will recognize yourselves all over it. Wait till you see chapter 7. It is you from beginning to end. I love you like crazy. You are a huge part of my journey and my picture window to a big world. May Jesus continue to be your prize.

  To the more than 150 men who invested in the guys’ survey—Your perspective turned out to be one of the most important junctures in the journey. Pure gold. Thank you so much for letting me quote you and for even letting me pick on you a bit. You were fabulous. By the way, so many of you asked what you could do to make insecurity a smaller issue for your wives and daughters. I smiled every time and thought to myself, If you had the insight to ask the question, you were not part of the problem. I respect you so much. Thank you again.

  To my Monday night TMA girls—I had such a blast with you. Thank you for bringing insight from your young generation to an issue that will undoubtedly only escalate. Keep gathering the courage to be the women of God we talked about!

  To my friends—Poor things. This was a dangerous time to be my running buddies. Thank you for telling me things you had to wonder later if I’d share in print. Rest assured, I did, but don’t worry. Either I didn’t use your name or I changed it. I’m throwing back my head and laughing. You might as well too. It helps calm the nerves.

  To my second family, my staff at Living Proof Ministries—You are the dearest people on earth to me outside my immediate family. I absolutely adore you. Thank you for all the deep conversations over lunch about this topic and for acting once again like you could hardly wait to get the new book in your hands. I am not worthy of you. I love you and cannot imagine my life without you.

  To Sealy and Curtis and the entire staff of Yates and Yates—Thank you for being people I can trust. Thank you for being the very first to catch the vision and for doing everything you could to give it wings. The best part is that you didn’t do it because you believed in me but because you believe in Jesus. Thank God He can use anybody, or you and I would never have crossed paths. You are gifts of His mercy to me.

  To the Tyndale team—Mark Taylor, I have so much respect for you and your heritage. I am honored to partner with you, sir. Thank you for taking this chance on me. Ron Beers, you are honestly one of the most gracious men I’ve ever encountered. I bet the women in your life don’t struggle with a ton of insecurity. Jan Stob, you were one of the first women to read the manuscript, and I was relieved almost to tears because I could tell you got it. Sometimes I’m such a needy, fragmented person that I wonder if I’ve written a whole book to myself. You made me know that this one was at least written to two of us. Jackie Nuñez and Stephen Vosloo, I loved working with you guys! Thank you so much for coming to Houston and for making me smile till my cheeks were honestly sore. I had more wrinkles when you left than when you came. Maria Erikson, I am so grateful for your attentiveness to every detail and for not letting up on the questions until you understood the audience. Your professional intensity never left me wondering whether or not you were doing your job. Stephanie Voiland, thank you so much for your hard work on copyediting. How many times did you wonder why I couldn’t say it simpler?

  To Lisa Jackson—You are an integral part of the Tyndale team but worthy of singling out in this project. As this message began to take shape on paper, I knew the editor would have to be a woman. God knew the editor would have to be you. I loved every minute of working with you. You have an uncanny way of always being available but never intrusive. No small feat. I will long remember the day we spent together knocking out every single edit and without a single awkward moment. How about that? You treated the manuscript with dignity. You won my heart as an editor, as a fellow mom, and as a sister trying to navigate the shark-infested waters of this culture. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  I’ve written all the other acknowledgments with teeming joy, but as I come to the remaining few, I do so with tears stinging my eyes.

  To my wonderful daughters, Amanda and Melissa—Nothing on this earth fulfills me like learning and processing and serving alongside the two of you. I respect no one’s opinion more than yours. I have no greater proof of God’s grace in my life than the two of you. No one makes me think or laugh or pray or spend like you do. You are used of God to continually keep me connected with a generation of women, not coincidentally, young enough to be my daughters. Words don’t exist to tell you how much you mean to me.

  To my sons-in-law, Curtis and Colin—I am so glad you did not know what you were getting yourselves in
to. You never could have imagined the implications of having wives thrown this deeply into women’s ministry. You are both great sports . . . and the sons I never had.

  To Jackson and Annabeth—Thank you for providing countless delightful distractions. Your Bibby is nuts over you.

  To my man, Keith—How can I ever thank you enough for sticking it out with me through so many ups and downs and twists and turns? Others come and go, but you have not left my side for thirty-one crazy years. You are my life companion. My very best friend. I place no offering on the altar of God that did not cost you dearly in one way or another. You often say how you could never write a book, but darling, much of your life has been an open book with your wife’s name jotted on the cover. I’m somewhere between so sorry about that and so very thankful. Bless you for caring about people so much that you let me tell about you constantly and on you occasionally. You are a humble man with a bone-deep desire to see hurting people come to wholeness. I am so in love with you . . . again.

  Above and beyond all else I find dear, “now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17).

  Introduction

  Well, I suppose what you hold in your hands is the closest I’ll ever come to an autobiography. My entire life story grows like a wild shoot from the thorny soil of insecurity. Every fear I’ve faced, every addiction I’ve nursed, every disastrous relationship and idiotic decision I’ve made has wormed its way out of that sorrowfully fertile ground. Through the power and grace of God, I’ve dealt with so many side effects of it, but oddly, until now, I’ve somehow overlooked its primary source.

  Our family has some acreage in the uglier, flatter, and rougher side of what’s generously called the Texas Hill Country. Let’s put it this way: if there’s a sudden rush on cactus, mesquite, and nondescript white rocks, Keith and I are sitting pretty. While I was there recently, I got a dichotomous glimpse of myself while trudging down a rocky path, dodging thorns. I had my headphones on and my iPod blaring. My left hand, complete with wedding ring and fresh manicure, was up in the air, praising God, and my right hand was down by my side, gripping a shotgun. I know how to load it. I know how to use it. I grinned, shook my head, and thought to myself, How on earth did this happen?

  Rattlesnakes—and not a few. They’re the reason Keith ended up setting empty soda cans on a stump, putting a shotgun in my hands, and saying, “Aim carefully, ’Lizabeth. Now lean in, steady the thing with your shoulder, and when you’re ready, shoot like you mean it.” I missed the first time, but I haven’t missed since. The way I see it, either I can get out in the fresh air and enjoy myself well equipped or I can sit in the stale house like a wimp and sulk about a path full of hazards. Throw me a shotgun. I’m not missing life over snakes.

  These are perilous days to be a woman, but to be sure, they’re the only days we have and they’re passing quickly. We can sit around like victims, talk about how unfair all the gender pressure is, and grow less secure by the second, or we can choose to become well equipped and get out there and do some real living. This book is for any woman who courageously chooses the latter over her own strong compulsion of insecurity in a culture that makes it almost irresistible.

  Through all the hype of our society, we’ve developed an erroneous belief system that is about as subtle as a rattlesnake. It’s time we aimed hard and shot some holes in it.

  Maybe you’ve never read a book like this before. Maybe you don’t share my belief system, but you’ve been drawn to open this cover because you share my battle. Glance around you. Do you see another woman? She probably shares that battle too. Regardless of our professions, credentials, or possessions, the vast majority of us are swimming in a sea of insecurity and trying our best to hide behind our goggles. In case we’re thinking we’ll one day outgrow the challenge, I’ve learned through the research for this book that chances are, we won’t. Left to itself, the chronic part of the struggle may curve downward in our sixties, but insecurity could just as easily haunt us till we die. Honestly, who wants either option? In the best-case scenario, what are we supposed to do with those first fifty-nine years until we feel better?

  Insecurity among women is epidemic, but it is not incurable. Don’t expect it to go away quietly, however. We’re going to have to let truth scream louder to our souls than the lies that have infected us. That’s what this book is all about. It invites us to focus solidly on one issue that causes countless others. I hope so much you’ll come along with me on this journey to authentic security. I give you my word that I’ll shoot you a straight shot and won’t try to manipulate you. If I have something to say, I’ll just say it instead of trying to get you to swallow something you didn’t realize you had on your plate. Risk it from the first page to the last, and if you honestly get to the end without an ounce of insight or encouragement, I’ll pack up my books and go home. My hope is that you’ll come out with something infinitely greater, however. I want nothing less than for you to close this book secure.

  This writing process has been unlike any other I’ve experienced. I’m a research freak and relish the study that goes into a book as much as the writing. Months are spent in other resources before the first word pecks its way onto the computer screen. Not this time. My search for books devoted specifically to insecurity turned up a paltry offering. More resources may have been hiding in the bushes out there, but methods of finding them that have served me well for years failed to produce. In the lack, I discovered resources that were infinitely more valuable. I turned to people as my books. Over 1,200 of them, as a matter of fact, and you might be intrigued to know that I didn’t just study women. You’ll have to hang with the message to see the parts men play. I think you’ll find their contributions very enlightening.

  Every woman’s story I’ll share in these pages is somehow, in some way, a piece of my own. I may not have gone to her lengths. She may not have gone to mine. But we understand each other well. We wish each other well. Perhaps now it’s time to walk with each other well.

  Chapter 1

  Mad Enough to Change

  I’m seriously ticked. And I need to do something about it. Some people eat when they’re about to rupture with emotion. Others throw up. Or jog. Or go to bed. Some have a holy fit. Others stuff it and try to forget it. I can do all those things in sequential order, but I still don’t find relief.

  When my soul is inflating until my skin feels like a balloon about to pop, I write. Never longhand, if I can help it. The more emotion I feel, the more I appreciate banging on the keys of a computer. I type by faith and not by sight. My keyboard can attest to the fact that I am a passionate person with an obsession for words: most of the vowels are worn off. The word ticked really should have more vowels. Maybe what I am is peeved. That’s a good one. How about irrationally irritated to oblivion? Let that one wear the vowels off a keyboard.

  The thing is, I’m not even sure exactly who I’m ticked at. I’m hoping to find that out as I hack away at these chapters. One thing is for certain. Once I figure it out, I probably won’t keep it to myself. After all, you know how the saying goes: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And I’m feeling scorned.

  But not just for myself. I’m feeling ticked for the whole mess of us born with a pair of X chromosomes. My whole ministry life is lived out in the blessed chaos of a female cornucopia. I’ve been looking at our gender through the lens of Scripture for twenty-five solid years, and I have pondered over us, taken up for us, laid into us, deliberated over us, prayed about us, lost sleep because of us, cried for us, laughed my head off at us, and gotten offended for us—and by us—more times than I can count. And after a quarter of a century surrounded by girls ranging all the way from kindergarteners to those resting on pale pink liners inside caskets, I’ve come to this loving conclusion: we need help. I need help. Something more than what we’re getting.

  The woman I passed a few days ago on the freeway who was bawling her eyes out at the steer
ing wheel of her Nissan needs help. The girl lying about her age in order to get a job in a topless bar needs help. The divorcée who has loathed herself into fifty extra pounds needs help. For crying out loud, that female rock star I’ve disdained for years needs help. When I read something demeaning her ex said about her recently—something I know would cut any female to the quick—I jumped to her defense like a jackal on a field mouse and seriously wondered how I could contact her agent and offer to mentor her in Bible study.

  Several days ago I sat in a tearoom across the table from a gorgeous woman I love dearly. She has been married for three months, and they did all the right things leading up to that sacred ceremony, heightening the anticipation considerably. After an hour or so of musing over marriage, she said to me, “Last weekend he seemed disinterested in me. I’ll be honest with you. It kind of shook me up. I wanted to ask him, ‘So, are you over me now? That quick? That’s it?’”

  I’m pretty certain her husband will perk back up, but what a tragedy that she feels like she possesses the shelf life of a video game.

  I flashed back to another recent communication with a magazine-cover-beautiful thirty-year-old woman who mentioned—almost in passing—that she has to dress up in costumes in order for her husband to want to make love to her. I’m not knocking her pink-feathered heels, but I wonder if she is paying too much for them. I’m just sad that she can’t feel desirable as herself.

  Then yesterday I learned that a darling fifteen-year-old I keep in touch with slept with her boyfriend in a last-ditch effort to hold on to him. He broke up with her anyway. Then he told. It’s all over her high school now.

  I’ve got a loved one going through her third divorce. She wants to find a good man in the worst way, and goodness knows they’re out there. The problem is, she keeps marrying the same kind of man.

  I’m so ticked.

  If these examples were exceptions to the rule, I wouldn’t bother writing, but you and I both know better than that. I hear echoes of fear and desperation from women day in and day out—even if they’re doing their best to muffle the sound with their Coach bags. Oh, who am I kidding? I hear reverberations from my own heart more times than I want to admit. I keep trying to stifle it, but it won’t shut up. Something’s wrong with us for us to value ourselves so little. Our culture has thrown us under the bus. We have a fissure down the spine of our souls, and boy, does it need fixing.