4.11.18
Life is kind of strange. I mean, when you really, really think about it, it’s weird, right?
We wake up and convince our bodies to move to the sink where we rub some soft plastic and blue gel junk all over teeth. Then we drag a pokey, grippy thing through the stuff that we actually like to have sprouting out of our heads. (Sorry, dad, this part doesn’t really apply to you anymore!). We mash some [usually] sugary substance between the exposed bones in our mouths and gulp a hot cup of bean water down soon after. By 8am we’re hurling down black strips of flattened rock in our own personal wads of metal on wheels to do the same thing we do everyday. [hopefully] because we’re in love with the redundancy of our jobs… but, more likely, it’s because we want some more of the green paper that we have willed value into. (it’s literally just paper… paper that we let people suffer without and others prosper with… or maybe they’re suffering too.)
See: it’s 8am and you’ve already done some weird, weird things.
It all feels very normal for us to eat breakfast and brush our teeth and comb our hair and drink a cup of joe before we do what we were literally trained to do through our education. But I think you should know this: it’s not.
From a scientific standpoint it isn’t normal that we have opposable thumbs or engineer our food. it isn’t normal that we have evolved to the point of considering the ethical implications of ‘designer babies’. (If you haven’t at least pondered how cool and scary and potentially beneficial or potentially detrimental that concept is, you definitely should pause and think about that.) ‘Normal’ is not a word that any scientist would use to describe the life of a human- I believe a more likely phrase would be ‘incomprehensibly extraordinary’.
In fact, I think I remember quite a few biology teachers in high school being completely enamored by the idea that, in theory, nothing happened to *nothing to suddenly create a mush that somehow, through some tips and turns and maybe a few loops, turned into our modern day everything. THEN we add in the parts of our modern day everything that you don’t have to be a scientist to be enamored at- things like emotions and religion and relationships and war. It all gets a little messy, but it most certainly was never and will never be normal.
One particular season of the impossibly wonderful life I’ve been given to live was rejection. (if that isn’t a mind-boggling concept, then I don’t know what is.) I live in a community that cares about each other so deeply. I am surrounded by people who chose to leave the extraordinary life at home and take-up this new brand of extraordinary that involves travel and service and intentionality. I have people who love people with me at all times (not an exaggeration… we’re actually not allowed to be alone.) So why and how in the world did I feel so, so rejected?
Maybe the group of people standing outside the door accidentally left me on the outside of the circle that day. Maybe I didn’t speak loud enough at the dinner table so no one heard my interjection that day. Maybe I didn’t tell anyone that while I love listening, I also like for people to ask how I’m doing. Maybe I wanted people to think I was completely independent and didn’t need them to check-in on me that day. Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed or was served melon (gross) for breakfast again or no one noticed I was having a rough day. But as I faced the wall with tears streaming down my face in the darkness of a silently slumbering room, I was devoured by rejection.
(***PSA*** I’m about to be really vulnerable ***PSA***)
No matter how many times I told myself to stop being a baby and get over it, it just wasn’t happening. I walked so deeply in insecurities that are rooted in lies that I simply couldn’t remove rejection from the top of my list of concerns. I thought about my day and all the little ways I saw myself being insecure: I can’t walk with my arms by my sides without thinking the whole world is watching me, I can’t wear one of my 5 shirts outside of my room because I think people care that I look like a box in it, I think about everything I say because I don’t want people to think I’m too serious or boring, I didn’t play frisbee with that group because I thought they’d think I was clumsy if I dropped the frisbee once or twice, I ran a little slower because I didn’t want people to think I was a try-hard, I laughed a little quieter and spoke a little less and moved a little more self-consciously until I felt completely invisible.
So, I laid there and cried.. because I’d been so enveloped in insecurity that I’d forgotten who I was. That was it. I knew so much about what I didn’t like about myself, but I actually forgot who the Lord says I am. He made me a little more logical and a little less tall and a little more passionate about hypotheticals. And, this is the best part, He didn’t do it on accident. He finished weaving together my hatred for paper and my love for debating and He smiled. And He said I was good.
So many people walk in insecurity. Seriously so, so many. I think you could visit any college campus or high school assembly or simply look around the room you’re sitting in and find a list of people with eating disorders or self-hatred or self-harm or or or. The point is that we have made insecurity a norm within ourselves and we’ve continuously viewed it as normal and dismissible in the communities around us.
Guys.
IT’S NOT NORMAL.
We weren’t made to be uncomfortable in our own skin. We weren’t made to hate ourselves or walk so timidly to avoid the painful sting of rejection. We were made boldly by a bold God to do bold things. Normal is and should be identifying the lies we believe about ourselves that cause our insecurities and changing our perspectives.
So, the story hasn’t ended yet. I haven’t magically overcome insecurity and rejection, but I have learned that it’s not something to simply dismiss. Insecurity is real and it really does have the power to make you forget who you are.
“I can see your lack of confidence and I want you to know that you aren’t alone in this. You were made this way because someday you are going to influence the world in a way that only you can. Don’t let a little insecurity take that away from you…. or from the world.” -SS.
I want to make this wacky world a little more normal. Won’t you join me?
