I’m sitting in a nice little coffee shop today, hoping that the change of scenery would catapult me out of this rut I’ve been in. Nice big windows, good coffee, and a couple of hours alone should do me some good, I think to myself. After eating my brunch, as I sat sipping my coffee and pondering on life, my eyes land on a woman at the next table. She’s pounding away at her laptop, her table littered with notes and pens. The first two things that entered my head were, “she looks like she works hard” which was immediately followed by “I wonder when I last worked that hard? Do I even work that hard?”

This kind of negative self-talk is something I’ve been working on for a while now. I’ve battled many a personal demon in my life, and the last few years have been a real awakening. It required unpacking a lot of baggage and struggling with some hard truths about myself. There were a couple of years where truly I felt like I was beyond fixing. Thankfully, I worship a big God—one bigger than all these mountains and self-made messes. I find myself at peace with many of the ugly versions of me, knowing that all of it has been used by God to bring me to where I am today. I honor all of them, those girls that I once was, and all the things they had to heal from.

There is, however, this one demon that’s bigger than all the ones I’ve battled. This is the one that causes me to compare myself to complete strangers in coffee shops. The one that twists someone else’s success into my own personal failure. The one that is so entangled in my veins and being that sometimes I can’t tell where I end and it begins. Quiet and looming, this is one I haven’t been able to defeat just yet.

In my mind, this demon is a big shadow monster without any defining features. It feels like a male entity, just looming judgingly over me at every turn. He doesn’t have any discernible eyes and yet I feel them on me, condescending and belittling. He doesn’t have a voice and yet I can feel what he thinks of me—that I am small and unable. He’s so quiet that sometimes I forget he’s there, only to be reminded of his presence when I feel the slightest bit proud of myself. It is a sinister darkness sitting in the corner of my mind, telling me that I am capable of nothing. On my stronger days, my more faithful days, my light is so bright that it almost, almost drowns him out. But it never lasts. In my vulnerable moments he creeps into corners and waits until I’m not looking. Then slowly, gently, he slinks out of the shadows. Like a familiar lover he eases his arms around me, so gradually, that I don’t even realize he’s there. In the dark, I sleep soundly beside my shadow monster called Self-Doubt.

Self-doubt tells me that everything has to be perfect to be acceptable; anything less should never see the light of day. Self-doubt is the monster that destroys the things I begin to build, the saboteur of my dreams. He shows me all the things I love and how they are all so impossible and out of my reach. He shows me how far I could fall so that I don’t even attempt to fly. This custom-made demon plagues me every single day, lurking over my shoulder, sniveling and cruel.

Often, he is covered in darkness and I can’t make out any features. The unknown is always terrifying. But on my braver days, when I turn to face this hellion, I get a glimpse of someone familiar. When I remember to shine a light on him, Self-Doubt looks a whole lot like… me.

Me, but dressed in every negative phrase that has ever been spoken to me and about me. Me, but bathing in the heartbreak of other people’s unbelief. Me, but lacking in prayer and depending on my own strength. Me, but needing validation from other people. Me, untrusting in Jesus. The monster is familiar because I have always been my worst enemy.

These seeds of lies were planted in my heart and mind so long ago and became so deeply rooted. Even when I’m constantly pulling up the weeds, my garden still feels overgrown. I need to kill the root to defeat this monster, and to do that, I will need to be braver than I have ever been.

In the middle of this battle, being brave requires surrender on my end—surrender of pride and fear and the past. Surrender of the belief that it is my own might and my own power that will see me through. Surrender of my own will.

Being brave in this fight will look like me prone on the ground, not stubborn on my feet. Instead of the sound of steel against steel, it will be prayer against fear.

This is the kind of bravery that finds peace in the dark, even when there is only enough light to see just the next step.

It is the kind of brave that accepts that it is God who fights my battles for me. That whatever small thing I have to offer he is capable of multiplying to feed the multitude. I need to be the kind of brave that knows that all the dark parts of me are just as loved and just as precious to him.

My shadow isn’t a monster at all, really. It’s just a scared little kid version of me who is trying to protect me from potential heartbreak. She just seems large and looming because I’m looking at her through the lens of fear. I need to take her hand and take off that coat of darkness she’s been wearing. To shake off all the things that didn’t work out and look forward to everything else that is possible in Christ—which is all things.

I hope that lady in the coffee shop feels proud of all the hard work she’s doing, and I hope through it all she’s finding time for rest. I hope that you, dear friend reading this, find solace in knowing that you aren’t alone in this battle. I hope that each day I sit down to write the book I’ve been dreaming of writing, I won’t be paralyzed by the deafening static of Self-Doubt. I pray that each time our personal monsters begin to take shape again, we are brave enough, and kind enough, to love ourselves through it. I pray that the light of Christ shines down on every shadowy corner, no monster to be seen ever again.