I was never picked first in elementary school. Most of the time it was close to last or, on a few occasions, dead last. It wasn't that I completely sucked at sports, well except dodgeball. I never understood dodgeball, but if you'd given me a sport where I could chase people with a bat instead of an awkward-sized rubber ball, I most certainly would've excelled. I think it's because I've always been an unknown variable. Consistency is not exactly my strong suit to say the least.
This, "never being picked first" curse has followed me my entire life. Having been passed over for jobs or promotions, never getting the role I really wanted, rarely being asked my opinion on important matters, this did little to validate me. Even in the moments I have had a little success, I felt like it was in someone else's shadow. In turn, I have always behaved however I wanted. It's not like anyone was paying attention, right?
The further away I get from the values of the world and closer to understanding the life God wants for me, the less I am bothered by my curse. Don't get me wrong, I'm still hoping that someday I will walk into a room full of people who adore me, cheering and clapping and throwing confetti with Whitney Houston on stage belting out "One Moment In Time," (obviously this dream needs an update), but I can laugh at myself now. I accept that this life isn't about me at all. It's about God using me to reveal His own power and glory. To take someone so shattered by this world and recreate him into an instrument of grace and love is something only God can do and for which only He can be given praise.
It's painful, no doubt. Much like a doctor must re-break a bone that has healed wrong, God had to re-break my heart so that He could perfectly mend it. The result of this, you ask? His clever plan for me to be completely, 100%, no holds barred, dependent upon Him. This has taken the conversations in our relationship to a whole new level which is exhilarating and exhausting all at once.
We argue daily. And I get so frustrated that I can't see my path forward yet, but He is teaching me to trust Him completely. For someone that has never actually trusted another living soul since the day his mother died almost 26 years ago, this is no easy achievement. In "Life of the Beloved," Henri Nouwen writes about a choice we make through the healing, reconciliation, and realization processes: "It is here that we are faced with the freedom to make a decision. We can decide to be grateful or to be bitter. We can decide to recognize our chosenness in the moment or we can decide to focus on the shadow side."
As easily as bitterness comes to me, I fight it with prayer and praise because, while my dry, cynical wit is still an obvious card I play in social situations, there is no room for the seeds of sour grapes in this new heart He's given me and filled with His spirit.
Of course I struggle. I haven't finished a blog in over a week because I couldn't get over myself and my own feelings of doubt and frustration. But today, among other good things and people, a friend, (an AMAZING friend at that), texted me this:
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11
I have read this repeatedly for the past couple of hours. Actually, I'm clinging to it like a toddler with a security blanket, because, well, I'm human and giving up my own life and my own say in the direction of that life is, well, completely and utterly terrifying.
But that's what it takes. Total surrender. Asking to be chosen last. To be made least. There is no other way.
So take heart my fellow dodgeball failures! God's got a plan for your mad skills.
And for those of you who've been hogging the spotlight, be careful, it can blind you to the truth.
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