What owns you?

I like to get up in the morning and spend some time reading and praying for the day. This morning has been hard. I've realized I'm "owned" by a lot of things... mostly other's opinions of me. The craziest thing is, sometimes its the unspoken opinions of me that bother me the most. For instance, I realized I can either be validated or invalidated by whether or not Sam says something about the way I look as I walk out of the door to work each morning. If he doesn't tell me he thinks I'm pretty, I don't feel pretty. All day I'm owned by the thoughts of insecurity. This is ridiculous.... I can't be owned by this.

I get a strange look from a stranger and I think, "Oh Lord, somehow my boob is showing or maybe I've grown a tail or maybe my zipper is undone and I forgot to wear underwear today." This said stranger is probably thinking about their grocery list and my skin tone reminded them to get self-tanner. But, I'm owned by their unspoken opinions.

The list goes on and on: I'm owned by my coworkers' opinions of the work I'm doing, by whether or not my friends laugh at my jokes, or if my husband's friends think I'm a good wife. I can't be owned by anything except being a daughter of God and being a woman that is active in this world. I have to experience freedom from others' perspective of me and start experiencing a development of confidence in who I've been made to be. I hope that you aren't owned by anything or anyone in this world. If you are, I pray for an ultimate release so that you and I both can start experiencing freedom.