Learning a Lesson

Sigh. I'm learning, slowly. I'm sometimes slow to learn tough lessons. You can tell me "Hey maybe you shouldn't do that, because of x y and z reasons" and I'll nod and say "You know what, that's right. Good plan. I see your point." But as soon as I have a moment of weakness, x y and z fly out the window, and I've made the same mistake again. Then my rear-end hurts from all the kicking I'm doing.

I'm not sure what its going to take for that lesson learned to stick, but I hope I can persevere. The sermon in church today was about perseverance. The ministor spoke about how even in the toughest times, the most pleasing prayer you can offer up to God is one of thanksgiving. I think that's the most difficult lesson there is...being thankful for the hardships that appear in our lives. We all go through the toughest of times, have those obsessions that plague our heads, the weaknesses that make us hold our foreheads and touch our temples and sigh heavily, knowing we've gone and messed it up again.

The one thought that keeps me going day in and day out is that within love there is grace. God's grace, friends' grace, family grace, love's grace. I have to give myself the same consideration. It takes much training, and a lot of repeating the lessons over and over. A famous dancer does not perfect her movements overnight, but learns her gracefulness though hours of difficult, and often ungraceful rehearsal. I digress here but have you ever seen the feet of a dancer? Their deformity, black and blue blisters, destroyed toenails and awful callouses are the pain that they bear on a daily basis to persevere in their quest for grace. Like them, I am building up my own callouses, nursing the bruises to my spirit, the result of so many slips and falls and stumbles.

I'm not someone who is used to failure, but I'm also someone who has never been amazingly gifted at anything either. I made high marks, but my brother always scored higher. I had friends, but my other brothers were given the gift of charisma. I could draw and sing, but I never had the talent that they possessed. To this day I'm not sure what my gift is, and surrounded by so many gifted friends as I am now I struggle daily with my own mediocrity, my own inability to make these hands make anything other than a few words on this website and a sandwich or two. I'm funny but not that funny. I'm smart but not that smart. I'm pretty but not that pretty. I'm a beta around so many alphas trying to figure out what I contribute and where I fit in.

So is it any wonder I keep returning to a place, trying to find a person, that eludes me? The promise, if ever fleeting, of someone to like me for me, retarding my growth towards a more perfect and spiritual self, causing me to stumble and return to that place I know is no good for me. Well, I know the truth is plenty of people like me for me, but the person who did and then stopped is the one I keep chasing...but isn't it always the way? And yet as I chase I see its a mistake and that it is failing the lesson I'm teaching myself, and I'm letting God teach me. He's closed a door, so why do I keep throwing myself against it? I need to take off my blinders and just look out the window that I know is open, I can feel that it is open, because ever so slightly I feel the breeze on my face.