“Don’t rewrite someone else’s story based on your insecurities.” Steve Gilliland
Wow – Just Wow!
There’s something about that quote that feels very Jesus-ish, isn’t there?
Like…
how many relationships have been wrecked because somebody interpreted silence as rejection?
Or distance as betrayal?
Or someone else’s success as proof of their own failure?
We do this.
We take the unfinished sentences of other people’s lives
and we narrate them through the lens of our own wounds.
And suddenly:
they’re against us.
they’re arrogant.
they think they’re better.
they don’t care.
they meant to hurt us.
Except…
what if they didn’t?
What if you’re not reading their story—
what if you’re editing it?
What if insecurity is less like fear
and more like a red pen?
Crossing things out.
Adding meaning that was never there.
Turning neutral moments into personal attacks.
A delayed text becomes disrespect.
A different opinion becomes abandonment.
A closed door becomes proof you’re unwanted.
And eventually you stop seeing people as they are
because you only see them through what you fear.
That’s the danger of insecurity:
it doesn’t just affect how you see yourself.
It changes how you read everyone else.
And once insecurity grabs the microphone,
it starts narrating the entire room.
But love—
love does something different.
Love leaves space.
Love asks questions before making accusations.
Love understands that other people’s lives are complicated too.
Maybe they’re tired.
Maybe they’re grieving.
Maybe they’re overwhelmed.
Maybe they’re carrying something you cannot see.
Maybe the story has nothing to do with you at all.
Which is humbling, honestly.
Sometimes our insecurity is just ego wearing a victim costume.
And that’s hard to admit.
There’s this moment in scripture where even the disciples are constantly trying to interpret things through fear and comparison.
“Who’s the greatest?”
“Who gets to sit at your right hand?”
“What about him?”
“What about me?”
And Jesus keeps pulling them back.
Back to trust.
Back to presence.
Back to reality.
Because fear creates fiction.
And insecure people become amateur novelists.
They fill in blanks with assumptions.
They assign motives without evidence.
They create villains out of ordinary humans.
But wisdom?
Wisdom waits.
Wisdom listens longer.
Wisdom realizes:
you can deeply misunderstand someone while being completely convinced you’re right.
So maybe before rewriting someone else’s story…
pause long enough to ask:
Is this actually true?
Or is this my insecurity trying to protect me from something?
Remember—
not every silence is rejection.
Not every disagreement is hate.
Not every closed door is personal.
And that moment you took in a negative way…
may not have been intended to hurt you at all.
You just received it through the lens of your insecurity.
Which means what wounded you
may not have been their actions—
but your interpretation of them.
People’s stories
do not need your editing.
They need your honesty.
Your patience.
Your humility.
They need to be read
for what they are—
not for what your insecurity
decided to turn them into.
phillipbrande.com 