Without a Doubt

I desire confidence.  Clarity.  Sureness.  A sense of purpose.  I used to be so much more confident and now it feels like I doubt everything I think....and then I have to rethink.  I doubt what I want.  I doubt.  Afraid.  Yep, fear is at the root of it.  I'm afraid that what I decide is wrong because I have a sense that for all of my trying over these married years to get it right...I've simply always gotten it wrong.  Even when I think, "finally, I've done it!" I always, without fail, am found lacking.  So, I question myself.  But, faith demands freedom.  To be full of faith, I have to give myself the freedom of failure.  Of knowing that I won't always get everything right and that that is not what life is about.  I am going to give MYSELF this permission.  Though it's difficult.  Freedom to fail.  So that I don't have to doubt every word, thought and decision.  It drives me rather crazy.  It's like his words and attitudes are stuck inside my brain.  Like I always hear HIS questions if I'm buying something or cleaning something or choosing what to do.  And,it's not a positive, encouraging, "go for it" voice...it's the voice of shame.  Of guilt.  But here's the lovely thing:  I get to choose what to listen to.  And, my Father says that I am beloved.  He says that I am worth His very life.  He says that He takes all of my inadequacies and makes me enough to do anything that He asks of me.  By Him.  With Him. 
That other voice in my head has to go.  It goes to the grocery store with me.  It even comes here...to my writing.  I want to write "for real", but that voice, that mocking voice and smirk..it assaults my courage. 
He started his bible study at our church again early this morning.  And I wondered if that's why I couldn't go yet.....couldn't be vulnerable in "his" place.  I feel like I'm cut off from being able to be myself there.  He is so known.  He has.....power there.  It makes me feel small.  Uncared for.  Like they became his family because he is involved in everything.   Like I'm nothing. 
I know that I'm NOT nothing.  It's just that I worked hard at making him a place there....at encouraging the things he wanted to do.  You name it, he does it.  Making me cold even on this nice warm day.  I don't know how to have a place there.  Too much really hard stuff.  I can't share it with people that I would feel like I was trying to convince.  Not while we are still together.  Because right now I can't separate my story from his.....I can't explain what I'm living through and just be talking about me.   And I know that even if people keep their own counsel...it would still change how they felt when he leads worship.  Or when he's in a group with them.  And, that would be wrong.  Don't want to pull apart.  But, I do want to be seen.  It's yet another area of doubt.  I know what I want...keep second guessing.  What I want is to have people to speak with but not just everyone.  One or two.  Small.  Don't need to put it out there and hurt more people nor tempt gossip.
I want to live without doubt.  Not without questioning.  But without that nagging feeling that no matter what I choose it will be wrong. I want to walk by faith.  May it be more and more so as I silence the voice that mocks me and listen more wholeheartedly to the voice the encourages me.  And...I need to seek encouragers in my life.  I need to HEAR the words.  I need to experience that as fully as I have experienced the other.
grace to you.