I love you, my dearest, darlingest insecurities.

Once I had a pretty special experience with one of my sisters.

And if you don’t know me very well, I am the 2nd of four girls.

I know what you’re thinking.

“Your Dad is…

….one hella lucky guy!!”

YOU ARE SO RIGHT. Thank you.

He has gotten wads of hair out of the drain, has seen us in our pubescent, smelly state, has watched us throw huge fits whilst begging him and our mom to let us finally walk to Starbucks, has had to put us on time out for going to the bathroom in the pool and so much more.

He is a true American hero.

Anywayz, back to the experience.

One of my sisters and I had just gotten home from seeing a movie and when I went upstairs another one of them called for me and it sounded like she had just been crying.

Stolworthy girls are notorious for having tears about everything.

We get it from our Dad and our dog Max.

I went into her room and she was wearing a swimsuit. She was just staring at herself in the mirror with tears just falling down her cheeks.

When I asked her what was going on, she explained to me that she had been invited to a New Years party where they’d be swimming and hot tubbing and there would be a bunch of people there. She then went on to tell me that she thought she looked disgusting and asked me if she should even go to the party.

She kept pushing and pulling at her body with tears coming down her face at such a rapid rate and her face just had this look of sadness.

Honestly, my heart just broke.

My sister is beautiful and has lived a life acting in faith instead of acting on her insecurities.

It’s ironic that here I am sitting in front of this girl who I have looked up to since she’s been born. She has been a student body president (I am the only one out of the four of us that hasn’t been one, PRAISE BE), has had a 4.6 GPA, has had many friends, she is someone who has risked being judged over and over again and so much more.

Even with all of this, the judgments of the world based off of our appearances can still keep us from forgetting our faith in our intrinsic, divine self-worth and instead it is overcome with the feelings of disgust, fear and despair.

I just sat and listened.

And while doing that, I looked at her and finally told her all of the things I should have said to her before.

I told my sister that she is brave. That throughout my growing up, I acted on the insecurities instead. And because of the acting on these insecurities, they got bigger, deeper, darker so much so that I couldn’t see a way out. Because of the hole my insecurities created, I missed out on a lot of opportunities that taking the risk in spite of the fear would have given me.

My sister acts in the face of fear. She has been able to cultivate these amazing experiences throughout her life because she has taken the risk to disbelieve the negative voices that oh so commonly swim through our minds and just live.

She told me that she had made a promise to herself years ago that she would not let her insecurities hold her back from the potential she knew she had, no matter how loud the negative voices got.

I think it’s about time we all do the same.