Why hello there lovely people! It's time for your regularly scheduled blog post. :D This past week has been pretty great. I got back from spring break, and the things that I loved about it continued to happen. Community, and kingdom talk, and love, and God, and good things like that. And my schoolwork didn't suck my time up a whole ton, like it often does. In fact, I think that I spent more time on other people, and more time on schoolwork as well, and I was happier than I have been in the past. Normally when I spend more time with people than I do normally, I'm okay for a little while and then I crash and can't deal with people for several days. But I've been going hard socially for two weeks, and while I needed a little me time yesterday, it was nowhere near the level of withdrawal I normally experience. It turns out that spending time with my family in Christ is way less draining of my people energy than spending time with other people. :D Also, at least some of that socialization came from a place of "How can I serve my brothers and sisters in Christ?" Loving motivation (versus a purely selfish motivation) and wanting to give to others makes a huge difference. So yeah, that's been pretty great.
I signed up for LT (YAY! :D) so now I need to start figuring out my summer and all of that stuff. It would be overwhelming, but I know that God has good things for me, and so I am trusting him. I need to figure out housing, a job, how I am paying for LT and housing in advance of having a job and the money to pay for it. That sounds overwhelming, but I am at peace about it. I don't need to tackle all of it at once, either, as long as I take the little steps that God wants me to take. A little at a time, relying on God's strength instead of my own. Life is so much easier when I do that. Who would have thought it? So that's good and exciting!
In other matters, though, this past week God has been bringing up my deep contempt and disgust with myself when I fail to achieve the things that I think I can achieve. I know that other people don't feel that towards me when I fail, and I know that God doesn't either, but I think that it's okay for me to. I have such incredibly high standards for myself, and on one hand that's good, but on the other hand, it's bad when I fail to live up to them. Linda said something in life group this week that really made me think. She said that often contempt is a mask for shame. And so I'm wondering if I underneath my contempt for myself when I fail, when I sin, is a deep deep shame. Shame for not being perfect, although no one but myself expects me to. I am slowly learning that I don't have to be perfect, but it's hard. I grew up as the baby of the family, the academic one who achieved good grades, a model christian teenager who was excited to go to church every Sunday and never drank or went to parties. I was the golden child, and others had high expectations for me. My teachers expected a lot from me, my principle as well (do you have any idea how annoying that was?). My brothers, multiple times, have communicated how proud they are of how I am working hard in school, how I have things figured out and they wish they had things figured out when they were my age. My friends - no, I have projected expectations of myself on my friends. My friends are great. My parents, bless them, have always communicated that they only want me to do my best, they don't expect more from me. That they love me regardless of my grades and my life decisions. But I expect myself to be perfect, and feel ashamed when I do not achieve that. I want to be strong, and capable. I want to be productive, and efficient, and loving. But... I am weak. I am incapable so much of the time. I consume rather than produce. I am inefficient, and selfish so much of the time. I sin, I am faithless, I don't trust, hope, or love. I'm broken. I am a human being. And slowly, I am starting to learn that it's okay to be broken. It's good to be broken in front of God, because that's when he can really transform things. When I am weak, he is strong. I'm learning that the love of others, and most especially of God, is not dependent on my decisions, on my ability to get things done, or on my actions. It is unmerited, irrevocable, and unfathomable. I know that God loves me, and will always love me. And when others let me down, as they inevitably will, God is there to catch me, and so I will keep loving others, and trusting in their love for me.
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