Enough

Enough! I've had enough! 

Much of my life I have felt inadequate because I don't nuance and parse things with the wisdom of my discerning (intuitive) friends. I'm not wise. I lack depth. I try to cover up my shame in that by being intelligent, but my cover is blown after only a few rounds back and forth in a debate. Rather than going any further, which feels futile to me, I just quit. 

I have a bad habit of quitting. Quitting conversations, quitting ideas, quitting when something gets hard and I don't care enough to keep trying. 

Yet I have climbed mountains, when once I swore I'd never again climb even a foothill. By the grace of God (through other people) friendships have grown, even when they have shifted—I want to learn to do that better. All that to say, there is hope. Hope that I will persevere.

Still, I don't nuance—I say what I mean, not thinking how deeply and widely it might be misconstrued by someone who does parse every word a thousand miles down the line. How do I explain that, "Nope, I'm not that deep, I just meant this thing on the surface level as far as my nearsighted eyes could see in all directions?" But I am ashamed to admit my ineptitude. I shudder to know how often I have made others feel inadequate in who they are or how they process—because I despise being treated that way.

Is it wrong not to pursue everything to the last degree? What if something isn't meant to its last degree? Then it would be wrong to chase it there. I take things and ideas and people at whatever depth they are presented to me. I compare their words and actions. Both matter. But I find that actions matter more to me—especially other people's actions. When they don't match, I believe their actions more. But of course, my own actions should matter most to me, because those are the only ones I can change. I have high ideals and I fail to meet them. My own actions tell me that ideals are hard to practice, but still I expect other people to live up to their ideals. Alas for inconsistency!

I want other people to grow, and I want to grow. Yet, sometimes all I can see is my past failure or someone else's behaviour pattern—and I despair of growth for any of us. Is growth impossible? No. In fact, growth is probable. But some obstacles feel insurmountable, some broken things appear irreparable, and some growth requires me dying to my self—and I can't hold those crucifixion nails up to my own hands. . .

. . . How quickly I forget that I don't have to grow of my own power. How rapidly I lose sight of the fact that I am not the one nailing my sin—with its passions and desires—up to the cross. How often do I function like I believe I can save myself or fix myself—or be good enough to measure up to whatever standard I don't meet and think I should? 

I am inadequate. 

I can't live up to my own ideals.

I can't live up to someone else's ideal version of me.  

So I quit trying to live up to a false ideal...even if I feel damned by everyone else who effortlessly processes the way they do because they were created to do it that way. I process the way I do because I was crafted thus, why isn't that enough for me? If that is how God shaped me, shouldn't I seek to process in the way He gave me? Why do I grasp for what I don't have, can't do, as if He gave me the wrong thing? 

God didn't make a mistake. 

He didn't make a mistake...so why do I treat Him as if He did? Why do I treat myself as if God made a mistake and I just need to try harder to be like all of my intuitive friends? Most of them don't actually mind if I don't process the way they do—so why do I mind? Because I've been led to believe that processing like a sensor is somehow lesser. It is how "simple" people, dumb people, process. And God forbid that I fall into those categories, because I fear them. I desperately fear them like the pit of sheol. 

But doesn't God take the foolish things of this world and show His wisdom through them? Doesn't God confound the wise through the simple? Why am I so afraid of being the very thing God says He uses? Why am I afraid to be less than enough? 

After all, I will never be enough. I can never save myself...or fix myself. I am not adequate. I want to grow, but I will never be the ideal thinker, the ideal Christian, the ideal woman.

If I only ever think on the surface, then may it be whatever glimmer of God's thoughts I can learn to think after Him. If I must expose the fact that I am simple and foolish, then please, God, show Your wisdom through me.

LORD, I am a vessel—the ignoble one. Let me serve Your purpose well. Help me to stop saying, Why? Why have You made me thus?

You don't make mistakes.

You made me Yours.

And being Yours...

...is enough,

and much

more.

Life is Deeper than Fiction

What shapes our ideals about what life ought to be like? Frighteningly, I think many persons are shaped by various forms of banal media more than by their families and mentors, or by historical figures and enriching arts. One's ideas of high school and college are formed by teen fiction a la Twilight and a host of other semi-pornographic novels marketed towards pre-teens and high schoolers.

One's ideas of dating and marriage are formed even earlier, through Disney films or grown ups asking toddlers if so-and-so is their girlfriend or boyfriend. A steady diet of 'young adult' fiction, films, and various genres of music are shaping the minds of children and teens, perhaps more than any other influence. No wonder girls struggle with self-image—not being willowy and graceful, or worse, sassy and sexy—like the ‘heroines’ they admire. No wonder boys and young men are apathetic or aggressive—they have no one in the public square to set an example of good character and hard work for them. They think they have to prove themselves by their wit, sarcasm, or skills. For many, it is much easier not to try and not to care.

Thankfully, for me, my parents made sure we had access to good books, along with other forms of media and art. They were generous during my youth, not policing my library stacks or telling me I could only read things by Christian authors. I read as many horse-centric books as I could find, hoping to avoid 'stupid romance novels.' Yet even horse stories had their share of 'boy drama' and vocabulary I knew wasn't acceptable in our family. Enter the availability of good books on the shelves at home. 

My mom would often get us new books when she attended conventions or workshops. Many of those books were missionary biographies that I read for pleasure or for school. My dad read books out loud to the family on an almost nightly basis; from To Kill a Mockingbird and The Prince and the Pauper, to The Chronicles of Narnia, Carry On Mr Bowditch, Hinds' Feet on High Places, and a failed attempt at 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. We also read our share of Tom Swift and Trixie Beldon books, as well as some Louis L'Amor westerns. So it wasn't all classic, well-written literature, but it wasn't anything we couldn't all read together. (Even though Dad read To Kill a Mockingbird to us before I was eight or nine, I think he edited a bit, and many of the words and references went over my head.)

Mysteriously, my family were unaware of Lord of the Rings and its precursor, The Hobbit, but I discovered them my senior year of high school and remedied the deficit. Some of the most influential books in my life I discovered well out of high school: A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, The Giver, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, and others. I found depth in these  so-called 'children's books'—depth I never would have discovered had I read the books as a child. My brain was set in motion by these books to engage life on historical, ethical, microscopic, and macrocosmic levels. I was challenged to ask myself what I believed about time and words or family and love—thus expanding my perception of God and man.

Children's books, I have discovered, deal with weighty philosophical questions in ways that help the reader wrap their mind and life around both the questions and the answers. Who am I? Who is God? What is a good death? How do we process loss? Why do we crave life? What is love? These books also show what perseverance, self-sacrifice, loyalty, and love look like in action.

Confessedly, I had a moderately skewed idea of high school and college life, of romance and marriage, and what it meant to be an adult—most of which stemmed from the small amount of television and films (and sadly, from many so-called 'Christian' fiction books) consumed in our household. The elusive 'grown up' world was one that was both scary and intriguing from these portrayals. I was afraid of various things before I attempted them—physics, college classes and papers, driving on the interstate, etc.—thinking that one had to feel grown up in order to accomplish those things.

Feeling grown up and being grown up are two different things. I still don't feel like a grown up, but I am somehow comforted by the fact that many adults share that feeling. I didn't procure a traditional education, get married in my early twenties, have children, or own a house before I turned thirty. In short, I have not lived the American Dream. For many—who think persons are entitled to romance, intelligence, and affluence—my life's path might appear bitterly disappointing. Yet I am not disappointed nor bitter. I have learned that I am not entitled to the American Dream, even if I work hard. I am not entitled to my next breath of oxygen or my next steady heartbeat. Provisions, relationships, and life are all gifts.

Simply living life—for the glory of God, one day at a time, enjoying what I have—is a great gift. I have learned this lesson through various family members, professors, and friends; through opportunities, experiences, and jobs; and, not surprisingly, through art and literature. I have learned that being faithful in the daily matters of life—from rising on time or doing housework, to interacting with people and listening to God—is what prepares one to be entrusted with larger responsibilities and adventures.

I have been given some unbelievable gifts and experiences that I have striven to use well, both to challenge myself and to encourage others. These experiences have been well beyond my ability to earn, leading me to humbly give thanks to God. They have shaped my character and mind—my very living and being.

Let us come back to the question I asked earlier, what shapes our ideals about what life ought to be like? For me, it has been a mixture of the solid truth and the chintzy glamour of the world’s lies. The more truth I learn to live, the more hollow and false the world’s story rings. Living well takes hard work, faithfulness in the mundane, integrity, and the maturity to know when to play and when to be serious. It takes being teachable, learning to forgive and be forgiven, to give love and to receive love, and to be thankful in all things—even when life does not go as planned or as shown in the movies.

Real life might be stranger than fiction—even though it is full of daily responsibilities—but it is also more wonder-filled and satisfying. Real life, the good life, is deeper and richer than fiction. It is ours to pursue—and ours to receive with humility and thanksgiving.