Saturday Confessions

It's a lazy day today for me. I had some personal plans to do...clean my apartment, do a little more organizing, paint (which I may still do), write, play Frisbee Golf with friends at 4 p.m....but right now, I am making no plans...except to write the following: (I'll let God work the rest of my day.)

Through the ups and downs of my alone times and life changes recently, I am beginning to see a pattern to the uncertainty and the convictions that I've recently seen in myself and others. There's one thing that stands out: it's not about us. It's about doing what we can, being what we need to for others. Okay, so that isn't a new realization...but it's not just about the normal "serving" things. It's about doing the things like Nelson Mandel did for South America; Martin Luther King, Jr., did in this country; it's about how Ryan White fought so courageously in his young life; it's about how we now wear yellow LiveStrong arm bands as inspired by Lance Armstrong. It's about that inner specialness (yes, I made a new word), that inner genuinity, that inner uniqueness that God has given each of us, to use to affect this world for the better. It's about getting up and doing...and not sitting and waiting for the just the right time or right answer when you know what you've been given. It's not unreasonable to wait for a "yes"; but if there isn't a no, why does that stop us? Why can't we use what we've been given in each moment in every day to affect the world around us? Why do we wait for the yes when we know what we've been given is good?

I've been the biggest example of this hypocracy that I know. Instead of doing, I'm hemming and hawing at what I don't have anymore; the changes in relationships that have occured in the last year; the worrying about why, if I did/said/written something wrong; the wondering if I'm ever gonna be loved like I should be by a man or love a man like I know I can and should; and just the basic wondering what my future holds when I see so many of everyone else's futures (namely, three couple friends will or should be getting married soon; others are having more kids; others are content with their singleness or thier dating; and still others have career/serving paths that have real purposes). Why do I let all of that get to me?

I made a comment to a friend last night about being "over" something. I said it in gentle frustration, but I really meant it, too. If the thing that I'm frustrated over isn't really going to end my life or my relationship with Christ, why does it matter so much to me? This situation or person has their own items/life with all its ups and downs...and it doesn't have to include me, even if I want to be included. Though it's unfortunate to have the change, I don't see it as anything that should be holding me back or making me feel like the person or friend that I am isn't enough anymore. I am enough just the way I am, just where I am; I always have been and I always will be...and I know that God has been with me all this time and will be with me every step in the future. No matter how many mistakes I make or successes, He knows my heart and my love for Him and my uniqueness better than anyone else. There is no judgement from any human being - friend, family or foe - that can ever take my relationship with Him away from me for any reason.

Why have I been so worried about that? Wow...I've wasted so much time trying to please everyone and to be the perfect Christian and follower of Christ that I wasn't being who God made me. Namely:

I'm a dancer; I'm a writer; I'm a painter; I'm a dreamer; I'm silly and can be an absolute dork sometimes. I can be frustrating to some and a Godsend to others. I love to cook for my friends and just love food in general. I love to help a friend in need or be there to comfort them; and love that they trust me and call me and share with me their unhappy or deliriously exciting moments. I make mistakes and learn a little slower than others at times. I may be a dancer but I'm also a clutz. I love dogs; accept cats. I love tigers and sea lions. I love to hang outside with my friends, talk sports with the guys, play poker/cards, joke and tease with them. I love to get mani-pedi's, throw dinner parties, take long walks, talk at all hours and giggle with my girlfriends. I never feel homesick when on a mission trip...seriously, I never have...but He hasn't called me yet to full time missionary work in the "going to another country" sense. I cry anytime I see anything on tv or from a friends stories about people with hardships, knowing I can do something but I don't know what or how...or have the desire to get off my couch and go do something. I do love people even when it gets hard to love them; I could never truly desire for anyone to be hurt out of spite. I know I'd be devastated for them; even if I'd been very angry for awhile, God knows I would not seek out to give them harm or for revenge. I know that God is always with me even if I let myself forget sometimes; He is always there, it's me who isn't. I'm not good with finances; but I know that I have the capacity to learn and get better and am doing so. I know that I'm smarter in a lot of ways than my friends; but I also know that they are smarter than me in a lot of ways...and that that's what makes it so good...that you can share and help each other, and not be jealous of what others have. Though, I also know that I can be jealous, too, at times because I am a human being and that God can be jealous, too...when I choose something else over Him, He wants me to Himself. But He lets me decide anyway, choosing more to love me than to give in to His jealousy. And it's in all that that I know who I am right now is who I should be, not that I can't change or won't, but that I just need to be me and let God fix and handle the rest. And that in the beginning and at the end of the day it's all about what Jesus told us in Matthew 22:36-40:

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’[d] 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’[e] 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

On a rainy Saturday, these are my confessions...and it all can be rolled up into one:

I am okay with who I am because it was God's hands who have sewn me together. I am hand sewn by Him.

And I have a poem on that; maybe sometime I will share it but not today. But that's also who I am: open, but at times mysterious, vague and un-sharing. All of which I am in this blog today.

But in conclusion to all these confessions is my thought for this day: I know who I am...so it's time for me to start showing it. :-)