two of my friends and i started a little book club and are reading, "the perks of being a wallflower". i just finished part one and already, i love it. there are so many things that i wrote down on the train yesterday and thought - holy cow, even if it ended here i'd have so much to think about.
it focuses on the lives of a few high school students through these letters that one of them is writing to a pen pal. there's this one part where an older friend is talking to the kid who's writing these letters and he explains women to him. he goes on to talk about how every single woman is just trying to fit into a mold to find purpose and challenge. so a guy who doesn't accept her for who she is would be the ideal guy, as she can put all her energy into adjusting herself to fit into the mold he would accept. and thus she finds challenge in her new purpose - to be acceptable to someone she thinks she wants.
i realized that this is a pretty accurate portrayal of many of the women i've dealt with. i've even been that woman. i feel like this typically happens in times of great security. i remember being bold and confident and then i started dating this guy and lost every part of who i was. i started on this hamster wheel that i felt like had a goal: a skinnier, sweeter, funnier, smarter, richer, prettier version of myself. after three years of running and ultimately being told that nothing i could become would ever amount to what i needed to become, masked by a "God told me so", it ended in tears and headaches and not eating and being angry and supreme frustration with myself.
whose mold would i try and fit in now? where was my challenge? how would i find purpose? i slowly (it felt like very slowly) started to ease back into myself. an older & wiser, sweatier from battle & scared from stabs version of the girl i lost somewhere in my own heart. it was super challenging but very fun to dust that girl off.
it took a while to find that security again. took a lot of late night conversations with my sister-in-law, kara, who knows things about my soul that i'm pretty sure i don't even know. took a lot of staring at myself in the mirror and getting comfortable with who i really was - regardless of the changes that could maybe take place if i worked hard enough, ate little enough, wore enough makeup, had a nice haircut. it took a move to new york city. it took a lot of talking honestly to God about who he made me to be and what he intended for me.
but most of all it took me making a firm decision that no person or thing would ever again get in the way of the truths i knew in God and that i would never limit God to blessing what i had going, but i would instead always stay in a place that was willing and desirous of him infiltrating my small-mindedness. although, it's amazing the ways God seems to bless the things you do have going when you pray creatively and aren't limiting him. funny how that works.
there are times when i'm walking the streets of this city i love when i have these movie-like flashing pictures in my mind that remind me of everything i have and all that it took to get to this place of comfortability, confidence, and certainty. i see my family, babies, my friends, my church, my boyfriend, my music, my writing, my art, my home - and say, "ok God! you win! you always do!"
if you're on that hamster wheel, get off. running is good, but in a big open field of you-can-be-youness. find a field that's laced with people who love you for who you are right now, and one that is layered in cushy God soaked grass. go!
and rest.
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