What if....

I love reading good things.

I've been fighting with myself a lot lately, and let me tell you, I can get pretty sassy when I wanna.

I used to not do anything unless someone either did it with me, or gave me complete approval. Sad right? I was like a little puppy. In recent months, I have been telling people to just bug off and let me do my own thing my own way. But here's the thing....

Both are wrong. 

And as I'm finding that, I see my pendulum swinging faster and faster between the two, hitting both extremes, sometimes all within a few minutes. I want people to like, admire, and even want to be me (ew.) but then I want to be a totally independent woman completely not caring what anyone thinks (but still wanting people to notice that. double ew). So really, it all comes from this sick need for people to think I'm the stuff. 

Mmmm.....i bet you WISH you were me right now. (har har har)

There are many words I could use to describe how this feels, today the most accurate one is tiring. My mind is CONSTANTLY racing trying to read a situation, accommodate accordingly, then turn two minutes later and do the same thing based upon an idiotic comment I made (yet again).

And then as I was reading, C.S. Lewis caught my drift and gave me something to chew on. Well a lot to chew on.

[God] wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. [God] wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour's talents--or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognise all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things.
-The Screwtape Letters

I find myself saying, "what if" to that. Sad. That is how unfamiliar---no, how alien, how peculiar, how.......completely anomalous, the idea of being just as okay with ourselves as we are with others is.

We either exhort ourselves to the point of utter arrogance or demean ourselves to insignificance. The top or the bottom. What if it's not a totem pole? 

This looks like a million things in my life. Maybe it's not how different or similar I am, how much I think versus how much I feel, if I'm dressing "urban-enough" as opposed to cliche. It's a flowing stream of me against the world. Feeling as though I can't trust it because it's not an original thought from the wise fountain of my mind.

God calls me to enjoy Him forever. I don't find enjoyment in feeling the need to be better, think better, dress better, or write better. I find enjoyment when I shut up and let Him just do His thang (yes, I did say thang).

So, i love the 80's and 90's. But I don't need to love the 80's and 90's because everyone thinks that's goofy. I just wanna love it cuz i love it. I've loved recently being around girls who don't care. They neither mock nor admire me for it. They just hang with me and let me do my thang (there it is again).

Speaking of these girls, we had the best girl date last night. Imagine with me....Cheddar's, Borders, Potter's House (the BEST coffee shop in Springfield), and a star-lit dance party. The people around us at dinner were asking to move due to our loud, sputtering laughter. Good for them. Good for us. I enjoyed every minute of that night with those girls. Them being completely themselves, and my being completely myself, and it really not mattering to any of us. Glorious. Beautiful. Sweet. Godly.

Now that I think about it, maybe what Lewis was saying isn't a "what if" thing. I guess it's more like how, "how often" thing. The more often, the more I see God in relationships, and am able to better enjoy Him. And isn't that the end of it all----learning to enjoy God?

Word to your moms peeps.