I Have a Confession: I Forgot I Was Protected

A Short Sunday Lesson

I have a confession…

I am always in defense mode.

What does that look like? It looks like constantly scanning for danger. It looks like resting bitch face (which, despite what I tell myself, is not the opposite of smiling). It is not smiling at people when they catch your eye, which is considered very rude to my Southern roots.

I passed a young family outside the mall today, and I couldn’t smile because I was scanning for danger and worried about the heat. All I remember is a crinkled forehead beneath dark shades.

I have been this way for years now, but I do not want to be that woman any longer.

Healing includes identifying the patterns we used to survive so we can change them when the time for simply surviving has passed.

And I blame survival season.

There was a time when I didn’t accept that there was a hedge of protection around my life that had been prayed into place before my grandmother’s mother ever thought of raising a child. In that season, I picked up behaviors and habits unbecoming of a woman who calls herself a joint heir with Christ.

That makes me royalty.

Royalty doesn’t spend its days acting as its own bodyguard. It trusts the protection surrounding it.

As I return to myself, I find that I want certain reminders of the foundation laid during my childhood and teenage years. That includes the freedom to simply be me, trusting that I am not only spiritually, mentally, and emotionally protected, but that my physical steps are ordered and protected by the Creator.

The abundance I faithed into existence will not allow my nervous system to remain stuck in patterns that no longer serve me.

I am not just a survivor anymore, walking around on edge and bracing myself for the next piece of bad news. I have a life now, filled with joy and love, where I am building systems—rituals—to support not only its maintenance but its expansion.

My God has literally overcome the world.

Scripture never promised I wouldn’t see the weapons. It promised they would never defeat me.

I am curating spaces that provide safety and a soft place to land, and I can’t invite people in if I am not inviting.

So consider this confession to you a prayer to God:

Thank You, Lord, for opening my eyes to this beam. Forgive me for attempting to protect myself when I gave You that job decades ago. Do not let me be deceived by the familiarity of my old ways. Allow the surplus of joy, peace, and everlasting love I have stockpiled to be evident in my dealings with others, God—not just in these private moments with You.

In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

And it is so.