Neglecting The Blog

The blog.

Oh, the blog.

I have come on here.

thinking I will write.

planning I will write.

writing and then deleting.

what do I say to the world around me that is so close and yet so distant.

so many people read this blog.

I see it after I have written a post.

but very few, 

if any,

reply.

very few make known that they read it.

instead,

they hide behind the secret number of views.

never to be seen.

but instead,

know me so intimately.

without ever having an opinion.

a word.

an expression

to what I am saying

or what I am feeling.

blogging.

I am torn.

part of me loves to open up.

loves to bare it all.

it is a freedom.

a way to let it out.

but part of me wants to stay hidden.

because I cannot know what others think.

I only know if they express themselves.

Today,

I had a wonderful little conversation

with a friend.

Sarah.

She is a kindred spirit to my soul.

When I first met her,

Luke's first year at Tyndale,

we clicked.

and it's been history ever since.

She is honest.

Real.

Pure.

She had recently wrote a blog about being true to the person God made you.

It struck deep.

because this is what I have been struggling and overcoming lately.

In her blog, she posted part of a devotional she was reading:

“Parker Palmer captures the wonder of Psalm 139:
Vocation does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to become something I’m not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original self hood given me at birth by God.
It is a strange gift, this birthright of self. Accepting it turns out to be even more demanding than attempting to become someone else! I have sometimes responded to that demand by ignoring the gift, or hiding it, or fleeing from it, or squandering it- and I think I am not alone. There is a Hasidic tale that reveals, with amazing brevity, both the universal tendency to want to be someone else and the ultimate importance of becoming one’s self: Rabbi Zusya, when he was and old man, said, ‘In the coming world, they will not ask me: “Why were you not Moses?” They will ask me; “Why were you no Zuysa?” “

So many of us focus on other people.
Focus on the gifts that other people possess instead of  focusing on our own gifts that God has given us.
We want what we can't have or what does not align to our own selves
even when we know that is not who we are.
In this society,
it is so hard to be true to yourself.
I have been working on it lately.
really searching for who God has made me
and what MY gifts are.
It is so easy for myself to look at my husband and feel inadequate.
Not because he makes me feel that way.
but because he is so good at everything he puts his hands on.
He is able to be and do anything.
but even that has it faults.
he is so good at everything,
he lacks being great in one specific field.
Whereas a person can be great in a gift,
but lack in other areas.
God has made us all so unique.
So treasured.
He has made us all our own person so that we can balance out this crazy world.
I mean,
if everyone was "good" at everything
but lacked in being great in a field,
we would not have the specialized people that have so much passion for the one thing they are great in!
and if we did not have the people who are "good" at everything,
well, there would be a lot less people helping others 

because they would feel like they are not good in that field so they can't do it.
Does this make sense?

So here I am.
Finding myself.
I have opened up the gift of creativity that God has blessed me with lately.
I have found it is a real passion.
It gets my heart thumping.
My hands sweaty.
It gets me excited to be me.
The little Lee-Anne God has put on this world.
He has given me a gift to make this world a little more beautiful with my hands.
So that is what I am doing.
I am learning every day.

and it is a long road of discovering myself.

I pray that each one of you are true to yourselves.

That you do not try to become like someone else,

but embrace the person God made you.

We are all unique.

Let's be just that!

Excerpt from: Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000), 10-11
Devotional: Scazzero, Peter, Daily Office: Remembering God’s Presence Throughout The Day (Barrington:Willow Creek Association), 24-25.