Introvert

I am reading a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.  I am very intrigued by what I have heard about this book.  It is also interesting because a couple of years ago, I decided to stop fighting what the world was telling me about how it was better to be outgoing.  Why be something I'm not?

Introverts are not necessarily shy--that is a perception that is placed on them by society.  I'm not shy.  I have things to say about many topics.

The world is more introverted than you think, too.  I would love to explore more about what that means for the Church and for those in leadership positions.

A few years ago when I was a youth minister for a summer, the pastor tried to make an extrovert out of me because it was the kind of person they expected should be a youth minister.  It didn't take.  It did leave me with feelings of self-loathing because I could not be what that kind of congregation wanted.  I told my therapist last year that I was happy to be an introvert, and I was finally at peace with that aspect of my personality.  I don't think she ever got what I was trying to say.  I'm not shy.  I'm not socially withdrawn.  I am just me.

I am this person God created.  My personality was created.  I will live within the traits that have made me wonderful up until this point in my life and until the end.

Moreover, I will encourage those whom the world labels as shy.  That is not a bad thing to be--it is only when we look upon those people as defective that that's what they become.

I am wonderfully made.