Slow to the Bandwagon

So I was driving my daughter to the pulmonologist check up the other day and she was watching Akeelah and the Bee, a movie that came out in 2006. I was just listening to it as I was driving, but I heard the Lawrence Fishburne character recite a quote that really struck me as amazing and liberating and profound. After doing a little research as to who said it and what the entire quote is, I found it on IMDB.com and then again on Wikipedia.com. This quote is from a woman named Marianne Williamson, a minister, author and lecturer from California.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

This quote is simply amazing and says it all to me. I am just now jumping on this bandwagon because, after reading everything about this woman on Wikipedia and the various websites, apparently she has been around a while and I am not the first person to be struck by this quote.
As I read her profound words, I identify with the idea of being afraid of the person God created me to be. Expectations are so high when one fulfills one's destiny. What if I fail? What if I screw up my life, my children's lives, my family? I think the real question however is, how will I ever know if I don't try?

To be the person God created me to be, I must embrace all that He has provided. The good and the bad; the dark and the light. The choices that I make in this life show the kind of person I am. I was watching a newer BBC production of one of my favorite books, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Marianne, the younger sister, after a period of high drama in her life (as expected from a tumultuous teenager) has an epiphany. I am paraphrasing, so forgive me if I don't get it exactly right. "It is not what we say or feel that makes us who we are. It is what we do; or fail to do." Now why can't I think of things like this? Honestly though, I feel like I am constantly being prodded into accepting my role in this world; however much I choose to pretend I'm not good enough or I don't have the right skills, I am a wife, a mother, a friend and I must choose to DO what is right. Not just talk about it.