Annal 53: Tale from a Lack of Clothes Hangers

This week has been a week (shocking, I know).  It is not that anything has gone wrong or I have had great tragedy strike, it has simply been a tough week.  I can't even put my finger on what caused it.  So I'm going to be somewhat open, and if you don't want that, feel free to stop reading (I'll never know ;) ).

I deal with my own set of insecurities.  I can hear the great intake of breath as you all gasp in shock, but it is true.  Two years ago this fall I left for school and spent a year working out at the gym, walking around campus, and as a result felt incredibly healthy and fit.  It was fantastic.  Then I started teaching last fall and somehow pacing a classroom or sitting at a desk just didn't have the same impact on my activity level.  I tried to keep up with my exercising but the result was a seemingly screwed up metabolism and some weight gain.  I have always felt insecure about my appearance, especially when growing up I was surrounded by close friends who were just plain beautiful.  I always compared myself and I always fell short.  Since the summer started and I have been working at the deli, I have slowly felt myself getting back to where I used to be.  I feel healthy.  The weather has been nice enough that I have been able to run outside several times a week and I am just loving it. 

Despite feeling like my body is getting back to normal, I still had a rough week.

I laugh at my quirks and I know they are a part of me and I embrace them.  But every once in a while I hit a point where I wonder: God, am I just too odd?  Should I change myself?  Maybe I should find hobbies that are a little more acceptable?  At times I feel like I just don't belong.

Now I know this is just an attack of insecurities.  My closest friends and my family love me not just despite, but because of, by quirkiness.  I am surrounded now by people who take me as I am and accept that--they have no desire to change me.  I don't have to give up gaming, or card  making, or BBC movie-watching in order to belong. 

So why the tough week?

I don't know.  All I know is that I felt down, and just when I would seem to get past it, something would happen that would cause me to topple back over the edge.

My work schedule was somewhat crazy and I am sorry to say that as a result my devotions took a back seat.  So last night, after erupting into tears because my sister asked for her clothes hangers back (can't even blame PMS), I sat down with my Bible and read.  I read Psalm 92:1-2 and it said: "It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your steadfast love in the morning, and Your faithfulness by night."

This might not seem to have anything to do with my insecurities, but it did.  It caused me to take my eyes off of myself and place them on the One who truly matters.  Instead of waking up and thinking of how awful I look, I need to focus on God and declare His unchanging, steadfast love.  Instead of falling into bed discouraged, I need to focus on how faithful He has been and still is.  I need to remember that my purpose is to glorify Him, and that He is everything.  This doesn't change the fact that I may still feel like crap, but looking away from my circumstances and remembering who He is is the best remedy--the only remedy.  So I went to bed last night listing the ways in which God has been faithful--and I fell asleep wrapped in peace.  I woke up this morning and even though I didn't know what the day would hold, I declared that His love is everlasting and that it never changes. 

Today was a better day.

Then, to top it off, I was researching quotes (because this is what all cool people coming to terms with their quirks do) and came across something by C.S. Lewis that seemed to define me.  Here it is:

Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence... When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

God has created me the way I am.  I would not classify myself as a "big kid" because I'm not, but rather I believe that God has given me the imagination and creative pulse which so define me, and to deny them would be to deny who God created me to be.

Some things to think about.

Such is the life of a Christian single.