Root For Yourself First
Between 2011-2020, I highly doubted that anyone would love me or want to be with me romantically. Although I desired marriage, it was on the “not probable” list. However, I’ve always been a person of huge, massive faith - for my friends. One day, my best friend and I were having a conversation about our disbelief in getting married. She retorted with (and I’m paraphrasing here), “How can you have faith for me when you can’t even have faith for yourself?” In all my pessimistic years of thinking, no one hit me with that. Although I was quite offended because here I am trying to encourage her and let her know that she is too wonderful a person to not get married, somewhere deep inside of me knew that she was right.
Years later, I realized that the statement my best friend made not only fit relationships, but everything else in life, too. Not only did I have big faith for her relationships, but I knew my friend would be a big name in the world some day (and still do. Just remember I told you!), and although I had faith big things could happen for me, I realized my faith for myself was a little bit smaller.
One of my top three love languages is words of affirmation. (Y’all pray for my husband because I need a lot of love, lol). I realized that my belief in what I could do in life was tied to the belief of what loved ones believed I could do. I wanted the parents who would quit their job to manage me to greatness or invest in a particular talent until I reached the greatness I wanted to achieve. Through therapy and by reading the Bible and self-help books, I realized the only validation I needed was from God. Moreover, once I received that validation, I had to root for me first before I could depend on anyone else rooting for me.
When David went to fight Goliath, no one believed in him but himself (1 Samuel 17:26-41) and that’s the same confidence we should exude when God has called us to do something. It doesn’t matter if no one in our family owns a business, if God has called you to entrepreneurship, walk into it boldly. If no one in your family has gone to college, if God has instructed you to go to college, go to college. If no one in your family has moved across the country, if God is calling you to move across the country, move across the country.
It may be intimidating and it may seem scary, but God did not give us the spirt of fear (2 Timothy 1:7).
It’s time for us to root for ourselves.
