I'd like to think that I can remember the specific moment I decided I was done living life for myself. It should be easy, because I've done it more than once.
I've thought it through in my head, felt broken by it, made an arbitrary decision to abandon a self-centered lifestyle, and then gone right on to live my posh, American, all-about-me life. I'll take some mass-marketed self-absorption to go, brown bag, no ice. I'm sick of it, but the whole of me occupies my time, and my doubts and fears have a magical ability of being all-encompassing. I get caught up in a career, a lifestyle, and therefore a sad, solipsistic existence. Even as I sit here, I am trying to come up with excuses for this. There are none.
I am upset that things aren't going the way I want them to go, but maybe that's because I am blinded by selfish ambition. Maybe that's why doors have been shutting left and right. Slamming, as it were. Slamming doors aside, I still have more than I need, more than I deserve, and I am left asking, "Who am I to be blessed? What makes me deserving?" The answer is simple: nothing.
Nothing.
It is my duty to use the resources I have to help others. I chastise the rich for not doing enough, but I could do more; I just need a nudge to get me going. Perhaps a kick; something that makes me realize that this life I am living is not mine. I am reminded of something Paul said in Philippians, "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves".
Once a month or so someone at my church gives their Faith Story. It is undoubtedly emotional, purging, eloquent. And every time I hear one, I wonder to myself what mine would include. What would move me to tears? How could I turn this humble, if not insipid, existence into something inspirational? I could come up with something, make it sound real, maybe even squeeze out a tear. Of course I can cry at the drop of a hat about my own life, a life of luxury, all the while stoic at the sight of those dying from war or hunger or disease. That is a sad, sad fact.
I sit here, future still unknown, needing God to change my heart, make me grow, help me find purpose, save me from myself. I just feel alone in it. I want Him to come sit by me, hold my hand, give me the strength to surrender my life to Him, completely, unabashedly, without reservation.
No one ever said it would be easy.
1 comment:
I love you, Mindy! and I'm so excted to read your blog now!!
I can't tell you how many times I think and feel the same thing that you are talking about here. I think that we cycle through things with surprising and frustrating regularity, but it's a good sign that these are the kinds of things that we find ourselves perseverating over - I think it shows that we are closer than we think we are to the kind of people we'd like to be...at least I hope so. When I think about how I'm living vs. how I should be, I often come back to a line in a Sara Groves song about what Paul wrote in his new testament letters: "When you said this was a fight, you weren't kidding." Peace sista!
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