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I don't want to be anything other than me [Saturday, Dec. 25, 2004, 6:40 pm]
Well, it turned out to be a good Christmas after all. Thanks to God, dell.com, and my dad, my computer is now fixed, as far as I can tell. I'm glad nothing was seriously wrong with it, considering the warranty ran out last month (I'm telling you, they program these things to go bonkers as soon as the warranty expires - I can find no other explanation for it). Especially since I try to be very conscientious about treating all of my possessions as well as possible - you'd think they had feelings or something. Actually, when I was a kid I really did believe that my stuffed animals had feelings, and tried my best to make sure none of them were "left out", because I knew the feeling. But that's entirely irrelevant to what I was talking about. So I have a cell phone. Why, I don't know; but I do. I must say, I find playing "snake" on it to be very amusing. Aside from that, and choosing which ringtone to use, I guess I have yet to discover its real value. Today we had a big dinner, with almost 20 people total, including us, which made up about half the population right there - as my family usually does. I ate too much chocolate today, as usual. But it's all my parents' fault - they gave it to me ;-) I think my family members liked the photos I made for them :-) Hopefully next year they'll be getting color ones. After dinner, we all (except the kids) just sat around the table talking. I don't talk, but listening can be just as valuable, if not moreso. My Uncle shared some very interesting observations from his time in the Ivory Coast, and I heard some incredibly hilarious re-tellings of a prank that my dad and brother played on him. I've never understood the male tendency for prank-playing, but then, I'm not a male. So there you go. But occasionally we wandered into more serious turf. We got around to talking about spiritual gifts, and my Grandfather started talking about something that he obviously felt very strongly about, because he was getting very emotional. I'd never seen him like that before - it was almost hard to watch at times, for me. But I could identify with his idea - I'm just paraphrasing here, but he was lamenting the fact that the church tries to categorize people. He said, "Some people are made to feel like they need to work in a group, when God really designed them to work alone." That's me, right there. I've often found that during "group activity" time in classes, I always think to myself that I could accomplish the assignment much quicker and more efficiently by myself. Doing things in a group seems to impede me - I don't want to lead and I don't want to follow - I generally want to work alone. Class activities really haven't been a big deal, but in life, people are "categorized" far too often. There is no category for me. And I'm realizing that it doesn't really matter what my grandparents, or my parents, or society wants me to be or act. All that matters is what God wants me to be. He made every one of us different for a reason. As some famous person once said (I'm too lazy to look it up): "You can't get harmony when everyone sings the same note." I don't have to be "social". If God created me to work better as an anti-social, then I'm not accountable to anyone else for my shyness or lack of social ambitions. Let's face it: in life we all struggle with different things. I don't have a problem with swearing. I hate it, and I can honestly say I've never cussed out loud. Not because I'm perfect, but because it's just not an area that I'm generally tempted in. But that doesn't mean there aren't other areas that may give me more trouble than they give others. We all have our weak spots, and our strengths. And I don't have to change myself to be what other people think I should be. Maybe this is why so many people become disoriented about "God's will", and their place in life. Maybe they're just trying too hard to fit in, when they really fit in fine just being themselves. But that's not what the "authorities" generally think. Maybe some members of the church have done more harm than good by trying to shove pepole into molds. And I think that's quite enough babbling on that subject for now. Merry Christmas! And let me close with a song I love from Gavin DeGraw:
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Vitality - Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009 |