 Thursday, December 16, 2004
Shyness
Ellie has a beautiful gift in dancing. Sometimes when she dances in spirit, it really touches my heart. But the problem is, she's shy. If she realises that someone's watching her, she'd stop or she'd only do the technical part of dancing. That really frustrates me.
But then I can't blame her at all. I'm extremely shy myself. And I know the Lord is frustrated with me, extremely.
I think my shyness comes from the education and upbringing that I had. It's a culture thing of China. Shyness is regarded as a virtue, especially for females. Openly express one's feelings will just make one feel like some kind of prostitute or causing mockings. I was mocked badly when I was a child so somewhere I've made a decision to never express my feelings openly again. If I tried to dance or smile, even my sister or brother would laugh at me. And the worse part is, I started to laugh at myself.
I lost the ability to laugh out loud, and to be transparent. I always unintentionly try to hide myself behind a mask. And for most Chinese, this is how they live....always with a mask, that will only reveal a part of their true feelings.
Living in Australia has helped me a lot. People are a lot open and willing to share their emotions and feelings. I'm blessed to be able to go to Hillsong church, where their praise and worship is famous around the world, where people allow their inner joy to freely flow out and expressed through facial expressions, body languages...their whole being.
The Bible tells us that the light is not to be hidden, it's to be placed at an open place for people to see. We all have light inside of us. But for me, too many times, I have covered it tightly without letting it to shine out freely.
It has always been a battle for me not to be shy. Like if I have to pray publicly, I'd freeze. I feel extremely difficult if I need to move my body like to dance,etc. And I find it difficult to even tell my kids I love them. A lot of the time I hide myself behind humour, not that I'm good at humour, but at least they can cover me of my true feelings.
But then I find, being shy actually hurts the Lord so much. It actually caused me to miss so many chances to be a blessing to other people. The Lord wants me to be an expression for Him, to be a light for Him in this world, but shyness is just like using a quilt to cover the light. It's actually a sin.
It's easy to hide behind shyness so I don't have to feel vulnerable. But then when I do choose to be vulnerable I always feel the power of the Lord with me. I really need to grow in this strength until it becomes a habit.
Blogging has been a big help for me when it comes to expressing. I find it a lot easier to express myself in writing than any other means of communication.
But I need to constantly remind myself from now on, that shyness is a sin. And it's not something that I should hold on to or celebrate. Do you agree?
As seen by
Susan @ 11:35 AM
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