Just As I Am

[Disclaimer: I should be working on two assignments right now - both requiring a lot of research and writing, both due in within 48 hours, both yet to be started. But there is something about sitting outside on our patio with a glass of water and a cup of tea, listening to the birds and the animals and the wind that just makes me want to write about something other than educational research. It's so healing, sometimes I just ache to write. I'm not very good at it, and I don't have very important things to say, but it helps. So I do it. Even when it's inconvenient.]

Similarly to Mary's verse that I wrote about recently, I've had another thought stirring lately. It stemmed from a conversation Logan and I had with a couple of friends of ours, but I don't actually remember what we were talking about. I remember sitting there, pretending to be listening but really just scanning my brain for the thoughts that currently persisted. I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be funny if I was pregnant right now and didn't know it?" and, "What if tomorrow these dear friends of ours are gone - killed in a terrible car accident? How would we feel?" and, "I need to exercise more. Her arms look great... my arms don't look all that great. But, then again, they never really have. I should exercise more. Oh well."

From those thoughts, I started thinking of all the things I want to be but I fail at, but how these friends of ours and Logan, sitting in front of me, don't care about all of that. They just love me.

I realized in a moment of fleeting clarity that all I have to offer is here. Now. Just as I am. I can't offer the things I haven't done yet. I can't offer something I don't have, or haven't started - and no one is expecting me to. Sometimes I feel like I try to force change on myself by setting a milestone in place regardless of my progress. An analogy to this would be I buy a pair of jeans two sizes smaller because "I'm going to lose that weight." Does that make sense? Signing up to lead a Bible study isn't going to make me more spiritually mature. I'll just end up leading a Bible study when maybe I wasn't ready to.

Right now, just as I am, is all that I have. So what if I am pregnant and don't know it? The point is I don't know it, so it doesn't matter. If our sweet friends tragically lost their lives tomorrow (God forbid!), what does that matter right now? It doesn't because it isn't true.

I don't know if I'm making sense at all - in fact I'm confusing myself a little, but like I said before, I write because it helps me work things out. You guys just get to see the gritty process of that on paper. (My apologies.)

At any rate, I feel freed in that realization. I am here, now, with who I am with and I am who I am. That's not to say I don't need to grow and get better at certain things, but that is a process - and the present is not. I'm going to start operating on who I am instead of who I want to be. I think that maybe in doing that, I will, over time, become who I really want to be.

There. I feel much better now.