Last week I started attending a sunday school class at my church called "The Story of Stories".
It caught my interest because well, most of you know that I am all about a great story... check out some of my early posts. So I went to the class and it was so interesting how our life story has been affected by the world, our culture, our upbringing, our religion, our environment.
For instance, I grew up in an environment where it mattered a great deal what others thought. I was a people pleaser... never to the point of compromising my values and morals, but I always craved validation, approval and significance.
So to this day, everything is sorta sifted through that grid of... what will others think... will this hurt anyone... or disappoint anyone... or mislead anyone? I have to work really hard not to think of any one person when writing this blog... or else I will wonder how that person is interpretating my words, my thoughts, my intent.
I really do want my life story to be real, authentic and honest. I don't want my fears to cloud the true me... having to weigh my words... or coming off together when I'm not.
Probably the one realization that I recently acknowledged is that I have never been afraid of failure... I am afraid of success. What it will cost me... what will others think... how will I handle it... will it change me. I have known this deep inside... but to actually admit that I am choosing to deny my true potential rather than to risk being all that I was created to be... has been revealing to say the least.
And I'm thinking this post has been more revealing than I intended. But maybe it will strike a cord with someone... maybe we can look at our life stories as unique to who we are... and let go of how we want to control and manipulate it... and just maybe let it unravel a bit... cuz that's ok, you know... to not have it all together. Quite ok.
And Linda, I am realizing that it is in the process of whatever, life, creating, etc... that is, in itself, an act of worship because we are being or doing what God created us for in the first place. It's not always about the end product or what will be come of it, but God is honored in the process. For me, to cease creating something because it doesn't have a "purpose", thus my seeking an end result, I am denying my purpose because God designed me to create. It's more about the creatING than the creatED. I am seeing how deeply that must hurt God's heart to watch his precious children waste their potential and purpose for the list of reason we each come up with. Big stuff, huh girlfriend?
ReplyDelete