My mom loved me. I know that now with a settled kind of certainty.
But one of the things she said to me over and over, even when I was very small, was this. Be humble.
Be humble. Do not think too much of yourself. Do not take up too much room.
I was a little girl who wanted so badly to be good. So I took those words and I built my whole self around them.
The trouble was something I would not understand for years.
Real humility is not something you can watch yourself doing
Here is what I missed for the longest time.
If you are aware that you are being humble, you are not actually being humble. You are performing.
True humility is quiet. It does not stand in front of the mirror checking to see if it looks humble enough.
But that is exactly what I did. I stood in front of that mirror for years.
I got so busy shrinking that I forgot who I was
I became so focused on managing how small I appeared that I lost track of the person underneath.
Every time I had a thought, I second guessed it. Was that prideful? Was I making it about me?
Every time someone offered me a kind word, I brushed it off so fast that not a single one ever got to land.
I called it humility. It was really fear wearing a nicer outfit.
And slowly, something in me went silent
I was miserable and angry at the very same time. And both of those feelings lived deep inside, where no one could see them.
I never raised my voice. I never made a scene. I just disappeared a little more each year.
That is the strange thing about false humility. From the outside it can look so gentle. But on the inside, it can be quietly tearing you apart.
The truth I wish someone had handed me
God never asked me to erase myself. He made me on purpose.
One of the psalms says His workmanship is marvelous, that we are wonderfully complex (NLT).
That is not the language of a God who wants you to vanish.
True humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is being so secure in how deeply you are loved that you finally stop thinking about yourself so much at all.
Do you feel the difference?
False humility is still all about you. It just points the spotlight in a sadder direction.
Real humility is what happens when you truly believe you are loved. So you can put the mirror down and actually live.
Jesus did not come so I could shrink
In John 10:10, Jesus says the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but that His own purpose is to give us a rich and satisfying life (NLT).
Friend, false humility was a thief in my life. It stole years of joy while quietly whispering that it was making me holy.
But Jesus did not come so I could become less of myself. He came so I could truly live.
He is giving the years back
I used to grieve those silent years. The ones where I was present in the room, but strangely absent from my own life.
Then I found Joel 2:25, where God promises to give back what we lost to the swarming locusts (NLT).
He has been doing exactly that for me. Restoring my voice. Restoring my joy. Helping me take up the room He always meant for me to fill.
If you have spent your life trying so hard to be humble that you forgot who you are, I want you to hear this gently.
You are not too much. You never were.
You can lay the performance down. God is not asking you to disappear. He is inviting you to come home to yourself, and home to Him.
A few gentle questions to sit with
1. Where in your life have you quietly confused shrinking with being humble?
2. When was the last time you let a kind word actually land, instead of brushing it away?
3. What might change if you truly believed God made you on purpose, and delights in who you are?
Come as you are
If any of this stirred something in you, please know you do not have to sort through it alone.
Click here to find a Purple Room session that fits your lifestyle. It is a soft place to be honest, to be seen, and to slowly start finding your voice again.
And when you are ready to look a little closer at the patterns that have quietly shaped you, EvenBetter.app is a gentle companion for that kind of self awareness work.
You are loved. You always were. It is time to come home to that.
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