In Bloom: Trading Restless Insecurity for Abiding Confidence

Don’t read this book unless you’re okay with the eerie sense that Kayla crept into your house and read your diary while you weren’t looking! On every page of this refreshingly honest book, I met a new friend who seemed to know exactly how I feel—which, in the end, was precisely what I needed. If you’ve struggled with shame, insecurity, and fear, this book is for you. Thank you, Kayla, for reading our diaries, taking us by the hand, and leading us into freedom.

Jennifer Dukes Lee, author of The Happiness Dare and Love Idol

As someone who has struggled with insecurity for many years, I found Kayla Aimee’s words like a balm to my heart. Her gut-honest (and laugh-out-loud funny) stories woven with poignant, biblical truths made me feel less alone and less crazy. (I’m so glad I’m not the only one who’s battled completely unfounded fears or who’s made up countless stories about what everyone else is thinking of me!) In Bloom is a must-read book for any woman who has ever felt like she is less-than, not enough, or that she just doesn’t measure up.

Crystal Paine, New York Times best-selling author of Say Goodbye to Survival Mode and founder of MoneySavingMom.com

I found Kayla’s book on a day I was overwhelmed with commitments for which I felt completely inadequate. I just wanted to hide. Within the first few chapters, her refreshing and vulnerable storytelling welcomed me in and encouraged me to boldly step forward with confidence, knowing God had created me for this exact purpose. I needed coffee-time conversation with a girlfriend who understood, and In Bloom offered that gift when I needed it most.

Jen Schmidt, blogger at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, author of Just Open the Door, and host of the Becoming Conference

Insecurity is no laughing matter, and yet somehow Kayla speaks to the subject with a levity that lightens our load as we laugh our way to healing and wholeness. In the pages of In Bloom, Kayla chronicles her own journey from a self-abasing inner dialogue into the freeing truth of God’s thoughts toward her. Sojourn with her and you’ll start seeing yourself as God sees you too. What a miracle when His thoughts about us become our thoughts about ourselves, when His Word becomes the words we choose to believe are most true.

Wendy Speake, author of Triggers, Parenting Scripts, and Life Creative

In Bloom is a fresh drink of grace that goes down easy. Kayla masterfully weaves stories and truth so seamlessly, you’re almont sure you’re sitting on the back porch with her. Chapter by chapter, there’s a growing confidence that you really will be okay, and that today you truly can give yourself a break under the cover of God’s love.

Kelly Balarie, speaker, author of Fear Fighting, and blogger at www.purposefulfaith.com

I have this secret belief that every woman I know is wondering if she really fits in, if people really like her, if she really matters. (Maybe it’s just because I carry those fears in my pocket everywhere I go.) In Bloom opens wide the doubts, insecurities, and fears we carry as women and, with equal parts of humor and humility, Kayla Aimee invites us to hold those thoughts and feelings up to the light of God’s Word. I can’t think of a single woman who wouldn’t be just like me—laughing, crying, and praying her way through this book, whispering to herself, Me too! And at the end, finding herself thankful for the God who makes all things new.

Teri Lynne Underwood, author of Praying for Girls

Who can make you laugh until you cry and feel perfectly understood all at the same time? Kayla Aimee can and does in In Bloom. For every woman longing to rid herself of insecurity: this book is for you.

Erin Odom, author of More than Just Making It and You Can Stay Home with Your Kids

Copyright © 2018 by Kayla Aimee

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-4336-8611-5

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Published in association with literary agent Jenni Burke of D.C. Jacobson & Associations, LLC, an Author Management Company, www.dcjacobson.com.

Dewey Decimal Classification: 248.843

Subject Heading: WOMEN / SELF-CONFIDENCE / SELF-PERCEPTION

Cover design by Jennifer Allison, Studio Nth.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Also used: English Standard Version (esv), ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Also used: New Living Translation (nlt), copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Also used: The Message (msg), the New Testament in Contemporary English, © 1993 by Eugene H. Peterson, published by NavPress, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 • 22 21 20 19 18

To Ridley

For showing me the transformative magic of a new season

And to Scarlette

For teaching me how to flourish

Introduction

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

—2 Corinthians 5:17

My shoes were all wrong. Black Mary Janes with wide straps, they betrayed me with their sparkly sequins, catching the light from the classroom windows and reflecting it back on row upon row of matching white tennis shoes with three-and-a-half-inch rubber heels. I slid down further in my seat, tucking my toes under my backpack as a faint blush crept over my cheeks. Maybe no one would notice.

I glanced around furtively to assess the footwear situation of the rest of my classmates. White, chunky-heeled platform tennis shoes, white tennis shoes, white tennis shoes. What was this, gym class? Did everyone assume we’d be doing first serves instead of first period today?

As I surveyed the sea of white platform heels, the most popular girl in our grade caught my eye, glancing down at the floor where I was self-consciously attempting to wedge my feet further under my backpack to hide my obviously uncool footwear choices. She smirked and bent her head close to the girl next to her, her chestnut brown hair swaying as she tilted her head in my direction. Thick and glossy, with artfully arranged little butterfly clips across the crown as though it was meant to look casual but must have taken all morning to pin in place, her hair fell across her face, blocking her from view but not quite muffling the sounds of the two of them giggling.

How did everyone even know what shoes to buy anyway? I mean, was there some sort of seventh-grade girl newsletter that circulated during the summer? To be considered cool, buy these shoes?

I had been trying hard to prepare for junior high. First, I convinced my mom to let me buy all those teen magazines (okay, so I hid some in the cart and snuck them on the conveyor belt when she wasn’t looking), and then I mapped out elaborate charts with the coolest outfits I could afford on my meager babysitting salary. Like a vision board. I saw that on Oprah. I took a copy of Seventeen with me when I was shopping for a back-to-school wardrobe that should have made the cute boy in homeroom notice me. I blew basically my entire budget on those sequined Mary Janes in Delia’s, as seen on page forty-three. They were supposed to be THE thing that year. And okay, they totally did make my legs look longer.

But apparently, they were not the Must Have Item for School like the September issue promised because, hello! White tennis shoes with three-inch heels. Where was THAT piece of information, Seventeen magazine? Those magazines were full of lies. No one even tried to kiss me by my locker either. I’m probably going to sue.

The bell rang, and as I gathered up all my books to leave, I felt a hard shove from behind, then blushed again as I bent to pick up the scattered contents of my Sanrio pencil box from the floor. Popular Girl smirked down at me as she passed. Loser, she hissed, and then tossed her head and laughed as she flounced off in her white, chunky-heeled tennis shoes.

Loser.

I reached out and caught that word as it hung in the air between us. I absorbed its weight, and it quickly made a home in me. I didn’t know who I was yet, but I knew that this word had correctly defined me. This one moment reflected back all the insecurities I already had about myself, which meant it must be true. And so I believed it easily, without question.

Maybe you are like me. Maybe someone else’s words have reduced you. Maybe you’ve been made to feel invisible or inferior or inadequate or ashamed. Shame is like Stockholm syndrome. It holds us hostage, and after a while we subconsciously embrace it because it’s become our method of survival. Shame is our captor, and we were never meant to be held captive. We were meant to be captivated. God promises to restore the years the locusts have eaten, avows in Isaiah that in place of your shame, you will have a double portion (61:7). Our entire covenant is based on redemption. And the Bible holds the blueprint to interrupt our insecurity.

I spent my formative years in a cycle of feeling hopelessly uncool.

All I ever wanted was to be a cool girl, to shed the wrapping of shame and live with confidence. I checked out books from the library on the topic, even underlining and highlighting one titled How to Be Popular. I totally tried flirtatiously dropping my pencil in front of the cute boy who sat behind me, but surprisingly he didn’t ask me to be his date to homecoming, thereby cementing my place among the cool kids. Instead, he just wordlessly handed the pencil back to me and simultaneously shattered all of my dreams (as well as my trust in coming-of-age films). No makeover. No debut of my ugly-duckling-to-swan transformation in front of his friends. Nothing.

From the moment the glossy-haired girl discarded me with her once-over, I embraced a new sense of self-worth that felt less-than, cast aside, and rejected. It felt shameful just to be me, even if I didn’t understand why. And the thing about shame is that it seeps so deeply, rooting so firmly within us, that it becomes enmeshed with who we are. It becomes a filter we don’t even realize we’ve layered over the top of our feelings and responses. It becomes our reason for rather than our reason why not.

And once it takes root, it breeds an insecurity that colors all of our interactions.

As an adult I listened to Brené Brown on stage at a TED talk, describing shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.¹ I heard it as the definition of how I was living. Shame in action strips us of our confidence. It decimates our self-worth. Worst of all, it distorts the truth of who we were created to be. It ensnares us with its subtle lies, leaving us longing and lonely. Somewhere along the way I collected all the tiny moments of hurt and embarrassment and insecurity, and I decided they comprised who I was. I was like a sieve. All the good things and encouraging words passed through me like water, leaving only the muck behind.

I felt worse than invisible: I felt insignificant. And like many women I know, I buried the beauty that was uniquely knit into me by my Creator when He formed me in my mother’s womb (Ps. 139:13). I quit nourishing the gifts that were waiting to bloom within me. I believed in a good God but missed connecting His goodness to who I was.

Shame keeps us striving for acceptance, but grace gives us eternal belonging. This is where everything turns around. This is how we unlock the mystery. This is where we rewrite the girl code and change our heart narrative to mimic the Almighty instead of the mean girls. The good news is in the Good News. You can only get two chapters into the Word before it comes spilling out, Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame (Gen. 2:25). This is how life began, in our Eden, naked and unashamed. This is more than a longing; this is how we were created to be. This is the divine design of our humanity, that we would live with one another uncovered and unburdened.

For years I stayed locked inside myself, and then I swelled full and gave birth to new life. As I held my newborn daughter in my arms, I knew I had to conquer my battle with insecurity for her sake, so she could grow up with a mother who modeled a confidence that comes from what is holy. So I opened up the Bible along with my heart and made a commitment to overcome. I went through a metamorphosis of spiritual renewal.

My friend Elisa is a life coach, and she says, Real change happens when you start embracing fresh attitudes and focused habits, all in light of God’s grace and truth. . . . Real life change is a process built on a partnership between you and God.²

So I started there, with a fresh attitude gleaned from Romans: Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (12:2). This was the process of beginning my unmaking while embracing who I was created to be. I set out to renew my mind and restore my relationships. I practiced affirmation and reconciliation. I lived deep and wide. I discovered grace.

I thought that I couldn’t be happy unless everyone else was happy with me, but I’ve learned that someone else’s measure of satisfaction is not greater than God’s portion of sanctification. It’s not that life got easier. I still cried at rejection letters and felt left out when girlfriends got together without me. I still felt my heart shatter the day my daughter almost died and my husband went one way and I went another. I still sometimes scroll through social media and feel like I’m on the fringes.

It’s just that now I’m fulfilled because I have found my portion.

So these days I don’t turn my eyes downcast when I pass a mirror. I no longer hover by the nearest exit ready to make my escape from a crowded room. I fill my heart with songs of affirmation rather than refrains of self-loathing. I stopped hiding and started boldly living.

And my favorite shoes are a pair of dainty ballet slippers with silver sequins.

This is how I learned to flourish.

Chapter 1

Uninvited

We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life.

—Marina Keegan

This is a story all about how my life got flip-turned upside down. No, wait, that’s not me. That’s the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Still, that’s an applicable assessment with a good beat, minus the whole living in a mansion in Bel-Air part. Okay, and the prince part. Sadly, despite my unrequited teenage love for Prince William, I am not royalty. Although when I was catching up on today’s news, the main headline was that Kate Middleton wore the same outfit twice. I’ve basically been wearing the same yoga pants and nursing tank since Saturday. I always knew I was princess material.

The first thing I did when writing this book was ask my editor if it was possible to include several photographs of myself. Not because I’m aspiring to a Kardashian level of selfies but because just about every picture of me that was taken in my youth displays a level of awkwardness that must be seen to be believed. I was an incredibly awkward adolescent. And I don’t mean awkward as in a Zooey Deschanel-esque adorkable sort of way. No. I mean a fairly gawky, spent a lot of middle school trying to avoid being shoved in a locker awkward.

Unfortunately, though, it must be really expensive to print photographs in books or something. Obviously the solution to this problem is to tell all your friends to buy this book, and then maybe it will be a best seller, and then we can sneak some pictures of 1988 Me dressed as Cartoon Rockstar JEM into the next one. It will be worth it.

I spent most of my life wishing I were someone else. Someone prettier, braver, funnier. Someone who was lovable. Because stowed away in the depths of my heart was the belief that I was not. I’ve always felt unfinished, as though I’m perpetually in the process of becoming.

There is a lovely, oft-quoted sentiment by Marianne Williamson adorning many a Pinterest board that reads, Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.¹

Nope.

That whole part about inadequacy? That is definitely my deepest fear, right after tornadoes and just before driving over large bodies of water. I’m not at all afraid of that powerful light she’s talking about. Actually, I would really love to possess that light. I’d be all hide it under a bushel? No, I’m gonna let it shine!

No, my fear is the former—that I am inadequate. It’s always been that one.

I thought growing up would provide me immunity against insecurity, but a few