(I will preface this blog by apologizing because I am so brutally honest that I cannot help but inserting my own personal life here, I mean isn't that what a blog is for? And if you're a part of my life, you're taking a chance, just saying :) )
I was talking to my mom earlier today about this very subject. It has become a laughing matter for me that people think that I'm more intelligent, wiser, smarter, or even "brilliant"... that I should write a book, make a movie, or be an actress (okay, that was a little dramatic). I am not really any different than you. I grew up in a bedroom that I shared with my sister, my whole family shared a bathroom, and I played in my backyard in the dirt. My dad worked construction and my mom worked in some type of accounting for most of my life. We weren't rich. I didn't have more clothes or shoes or books than any other kid that I went to school with. I went to the same classes, I had the same teachers, there was nothing in my life that really "set me up" for what people now think is brilliant. I could sit with you at Panera right now and we could compare life stories and honestly, yours are probably more outrageous than mine... you were smarter than I was, you made better grades, had more friends and wore nicer clothes. Maybe that's where we became different though, a lot of those things never really mattered to me at all. I do have to be honest and say that I'm now overly sensitive to kids who are made fun of because I was in middle school, I just didn't know any different and I apparently was unaware of things that all of these other girls knew.
But maybe... just maybe... that's what set me apart. I was innocent, naive even (still am--thank God). I didn't know any different. I didn't WANT to know any different. I didn't want to feel stupid and I didn't want to experience all these things that girls experienced in middle school or high school. I liked being innocent. I also liked being in control. Therefore, I liked knowing what I wanted. It was in the moments that what I wanted was questioned that I felt stupid or unintelligent and being naive became a problem. I was given an incredible gift of empathy, which sometimes fleshes itself out as sarcasm and sometimes compassion (I know that doesn't even seem possible). I can see what you're going through and realize what it must feel like, I can put myself in your shoes. I know what I would want you to say to me and do for me and where I would want you to be, I can do those things, I can feel those things, I can hear those things. Maybe it's some sort of crazy (fabulous) gift that God decided to give me. So maybe I'm considered smart or wiser or something along those lines because I know what I want.
Here's a hint on living your life... stop settling. What do you want? What fills in your blanks? What makes you excited? Where are you passionate? Why are you not living there? My life is better knowing that I know what God wants for me... to glorify Him... He gave me passions to love kids, love Africa, and love people... by being honest, by being real, by being authentic. It doesn't mean I have to be completely vulnerable with every single person in my life but it does mean that I can be me. What do you want? You want to know what I want?
...to love God with wreckless abandon, to pursue Jesus passionately and to love Him with all of me, to be satisfied in what He gives me, to understand the situations that my students are in and meet them where they are, to open my arms and heart and life to the prodigal child, to stop being the prodigal child, to love my family and share with them what is going on in my life, to have friends who are always friends-- who I can pick up and call at anytime and they do the same, to feel like I matter, to make a difference, to change my world, to change someone else's world... or actually a lot of others worlds, to run an orphanage, to be a foster parent, to love the man that God gives me, to be pursued by the man God gives me, to be honest enough to say that I'm not okay, to see Kevin, Steven, Jocelyne, Maythe, Valerie, David, Keisha, and so many more of my kids graduate high school, to take a group of students to Africa, to work for IJM, to be comfortable in my own skin...
I could go on and on all day. At least you have an idea of where I'm coming from, now think... for you... what is it that you want? What do you see or feel that you know you don't want? And more importantly, it's not what we want or don't want... it's what we do about it. What is your next step? I say.. go for it, jump, and land in the place where you are in love with Jesus as He whispers His desires for you into who you are.
I'm living there... Melis
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