Life has been pretty uneventful lately. What I really mean is there’s not been overall soap opera style drama lingering behind each scene in my life. I’ve just had some subtle “great” moments over the past few weeks.
A couple weeks ago I met a friend downtown. It was a totally random thing. It was a Friday night at 11 PM. We were both bored and broke, so we decided just to walk around the city for a while. I love that type of spontaneity—the kind that requires minimal risk and no money. Anyway, as it turns out, it was a perfect summer night for such a thing. The air was warm, the city was lit just right, and good conversation blended flawlessly with the din of light traffic and outdoor patio gatherings. It’s been a long time since I went downtown at night. It seemed the last time I was down there it was a lot more threatening. But this time, there were fewer strangers. I even felt a sort of camaraderie with the homeless and poor that shuffled by. I somehow felt safer than I recall feeling seven years ago when my friends and I loudly assaulted the city, hopping from bar to bar in our high heels, tight jeans and tank tops. This time I was dressed shoddily in my flip-flops, comfy jeans, and a T-shirt. I believe I even apologized to my friend for my casual wardrobe. But the fact was I wasn’t safer, I just had less fear in general. For me, that was a good feeling. Having struggled with anxiety for so long, I am now finally able to see the progress over the years. I wonder how I will look on these years in seven years…
The life lesson I’m wrestling with right now is self-absorption. This is a tough one for two particular reasons. First, I must unlearn what I’ve learned from birth. Namely, that my life is not about me and even more importantly, that OTHER people’s lives are not about me. The other reason this is so difficult to face is because it means I have to trust God in a way that I have never trusted Him before. It’s actually quite a complicated triangle of trust. Since my life can’t be about me, it must be about serving God by serving other people. Serving others requires vulnerability of my time, my finances, and my heart. And if I’m so vulnerable to others, some of whom will undoubtedly take advantage, manipulate, under-appreciate, or disappoint in some way, how do I ever expect to survive? That’s where the lesson comes in: if I do become incapacitated somehow through service, then I know I’m doing it for myself, for my glory and my admiration. I expect I’ll obtain some battle scars, but if I remember that my life is not my own, that it is held in the hands of a loving God who never fails or disappoints, and if I remember that my service is the overflow of the blessings He’s given me, then I won’t be broken.
As for the part about unlearning what I was taught at birth, that is, that life (mine and other people’s) is all about me, now THAT will take some serious prayer. I take comfort in the fact that almost everyone, especially those in my generation, are just as self-absorbed. It’s most obviously displayed in our tendency to blame everyone and everything else for the problems in our lives, that is, our belief in “external control.” I’m reading a book by David Zimmerman called “Deliver Us From Me-Ville.” One researcher he quotes, Jean Twenge, says this about our generation: “The average GenMe college student in 2002 had more external control beliefs than 80% of college students in the early 1960s. External control beliefs increased about 50% between the 1960s and 2000s.” Ouch! So basically, I belong to a generation of schmucks and babies, myself included.
Now that I realize my tendency towards self-absorption, I must act. But it is difficult. The more I realize how self-absorbed I am, the more I realize how self-absorbed I am. Yeah, that’s right...it’s redundant…it’s ugly…it’s thick…it’s sticky…it’s difficult to escape, but I’m determined not to live out the rest of my youth in a bubble devoted to me…a metaphorical womb, if you will. It’s not about me. It’s about a God who knows me better than I know myself. Who knows what is best for me. Who knows all my needs and my desires and who is not and will not hold out on me.
This will be a long and difficult journey, but no doubt it will result in another amazing realization of God’s power and greatness.
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