Build Unshakable Confidence
If you are joining me here today from my devotion Unshakeable Confidence with Proverbs 31 Ministries, welcome! I’d love to connect with you further through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest at Lynn Cowell and by sharing with you my Wednesday Wisdom Tips which you can get by subscribing here!
Before we chat about unshakeable confidence, I want to invite you to my party!
I love parties…don’t you?
This party is to celebrate my new book release, Magnetic: Becoming the Girl He Wants!
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be celebrating in all kinds of ways!
First, if you pre-order Magnetic: Becoming the Girl He Wants I’m giving away over $50 worth of FREE downloadable resources:
* His Revolutionary Love ebook
* Devotions for a Revolutionary Year ebook
* My video message Confidence Comes Closer
* Printable resource The Magnetic Manifesto
* Printable resource Magnetic Journaling pages
Also over the next month, I’m giving away one BIG giveaway every single week, along with a grand prize giveaway that runs the entire four weeks! You’ll want to enter to win each and every one of them (and tell your friends to enter too!)!
Head to the celebration and the place for you to sign up! Click here for the give away page! Then come back and we’ll talk about unshakeable confidence.
(If you are getting this via email, you must enter the give away by going to www.LynnCowell.com.)
Unshakeable Confidence
From the time we were little girls, we’ve been told what to build our confidence on.
My attic proves it.
Do you have a box in your attic of old ribbons, trophies or certificates? Working to organize our attic last fall, I discovered a box of mementos from my years as a young woman. As I took out each item out of the worn out box, they served as reminders of how we try to build our confidence on things we can loose, have taken from us or even never attain.
We’ve built our confidence on:
* How pretty we are
As a little girl, do you remember putting on your best for your first day of school or a special holiday and smiling for the camera? You probably didn’t ask for it, but there was a longing in your heart for someone to say, “You look pretty today!” Maybe it was your dad or that guy had never bothered to look your way.
One of the items I discovered in the tattered cardboard container was an aged advertisement. Cut from the yellow pages of my home town, my photographer had used my bridal portrait for their ad. I hate to admit it, but some weird part of me finally felt validated. I might not have ever gotten the attention of the popular guys at school, but my photographer thought I was pretty enough to put my picture in the yellow pages! I looked to a piece of paper to build my confidence on.
* How well we performed
The dusty engraving on the small trophy read “Lynn Martin, Choir Student of the Year”. At the end of my senior year, that trophy meant the world to me. My musical career had been filled with rejection and unlike my writing story, it never had a happy ending. Year after year, try out after try out, I missed the cut for the state honor choirs. Though it couldn’t possibly erase all the rejection I had experienced, the trophy served as a sort of balm on my musical heart. Years later, it serves a reminder to not build my confidence on something…like how well I can sing.
* How well liked we are
“Spring Banquet Queen”. There was no way I would have ever been elected for prom queen, let alone the court. But my youth group had said I was the “Spring Banquet Queen”. Really? We even had a popularity contest at church? Another reminder: never build my confidence on what others say about me.
One after another, my mementos reminded me of a truth God has engraved on my heart and is now my passion to pass on to women much younger than I:
Unshakeable confidence is not built on someone, something or someplace, but on our unshakeable God.
I wonder how many tears would never have flowed, how many nights of rejection wouldn’t have never been wasted, had a woman shared this truth with me. I would like to believe I would have invested more time, more energy and more of my emotions in building my confidence on my God who would be building His life in me forever.
Who knows? Maybe I wouldn’t have listened. I just know that this truth has the power to change the trajectory of our lives now and the young women we have the opportunity to pour it into today.
Will you be that woman to a young girl?
Very true. It’s so important we share this message with young girls who need to hear it. Then maybe it will sink into our hearts as grown women because we need the reminders, too. 🙂
Sara,
When I wrote Magnetic, I included a leadership guide in the back. On my first book, I heard from so many women who said that as they led their young women’s groups, they learned right along with them! Once a girl, always a girl 🙂
Thank you, Lynn. This is true for young girls and not so young ones. This is not about our limitations or others’ perceptions…it’s about God’s faitfulness and power.
So very true, Carolyn! I have found that most of the things I share with young women apply to women of all ages. I gave my mom, who is almost 80, Magnetic. She started reading it and asked me, “Did you write this for me?”
Hi Lynn,
I am a single woman in her 40s who mentors younger women. I am excited about the upcoming release of your new book Magnetic. It will be a great tool to use in teaching the women. I have to admit, though, I’m looking forward to taking notes from it myself. As stated so many times by others, these principles are for women of every age. Thank you for being transparent in sharing your struggles with confidence as a younger woman.
Thank you, Karen, for being an investor in the next generation. We’re all going all the time, right? At least hopefully we are!