Monday, June 27, 2005

Who am I?

I know this has been oft repeated, but I felt like posting it here today anyway. It came from an Apple Computer advertisement, and I like it.
Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
Disbelieve them, glorify them or villify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
Because while some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
And it's people who are crazy enough to think they can
Change the world,
Who actually do.
Think different.

The youth leader at church last night talked about how prone we often are to "changing" ourselves in order to please others or to "fit in" with some crowd. Now, I think he might've actually meant to encourage the kids not to go along with stuff they know isn't right for them to do... but I heard it and knew he was right on an even deeper level than that. If God made you artistic, creative, unconventional, or out-of-the-box, then you shouldn't be ashamed of that.

I tried for many years to be a typical "homeschool mom" type (you know, the one you always see wearing a denim jumper dress, with six stairstepped children dressed alike, etc.). I thought that to be really acceptable, I should probably grind my own wheat and make my own bread, make all my own AND the children's clothes, and spend my days cleaning house and planning nutritious meals for my family. As you can imagine, I wasn't terribly successful at that.

One of my most notable personality traits is the ability to temporarily "morph" to fit whoever I'm with or whatever I want to be... unfortunately, in many cases it means I try to become something I'm not, in order to somehow make myself acceptable to someone I respect or admire in some way.

In the last few years, however, I have come to a better understanding of who I am... stemming from a better understanding of who God is. No, I don't claim to know God completely, not by any stretch. But I know Him better than I used to, and He's not who I thought He was ten years ago. I simply asked Him to teach me about Himself... to show Himself to me. And He has been... little by little, I have seen more facets of His personality, and I am deeply moved by who He is.

And in the process, He has also shown me a clearer picture of who I am, and that it's not only OKAY to be who I am, but that He INTENDED for me to be who I am because He MADE ME LIKE THIS.

That's also not to say that I am perfect the way I am... I was also born with a tendency to sin. But being creative is not a sin. Being artistic is not a sin. Being funky and eccentric is not a sin. Loving God with reckless abandon, without a thought to what's next... that's not a sin, either. That's just me. And I suspect He likes me that way.

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