Well, just before I began to write this post I got a notice saying that my 20 year class reunion is going to be held this summer. Ouch! That really bits! I can’t believe it has been that long! I know….some of you out there are saying, “Welcome to my world!” and others are saying, “You’re only as old as you feel!” and I know some of you are saying, “Dana, get over it!” etc….” Yes, I understand all that but it is just the thought that 20 years have flown by. You may laugh, but I never thought I would live this long, but here we are 20 years later!
I am reminded that a lot of pressure comes with class reunions. You know what I mean?? People want to be able to say that they have accomplised something over the last 20 years, that their lives have counted for something. Some are still trying to gain that love and acceptance from others. They still have not learned that those same old fleshly strategies don’t work. I wonder how many of my classmates have just decided today to go on that diet or exercise plan? They want to show up to impress others with how they look feeling like they have to look a certain way so others will love and accept them and think well of them. Their performance and appearance must be at top notch perfection! Wow….I’m tired just thinking about it all.
Quite fankly, the “old me” use to live this way. I spent so much time, energy and resources trying to impress, measure up, be perfect, look perfect, perform perfectly….get the “perfect picture”?? I exhausted myself and when I took an evaluation at how I was doing, I always came up with the same old thoughts – it was never good enough – I was never good enough. Finally, one day just a few years ago God had put me in the “perfect” sceniro to show me that my fleshly stratagies just wouldn’t work and I was harming myself with the continued efforts to try to make them work. My “perfect” sceniro happened to be the wonderful world of “church work”. My first few attempts seemed to work pretty well so when I moved to Georgia over 12 years ago I continued to pull out the same stratagies to get my needs met and would you believe it when I said I hit a brick wall?? I couldn’t do anything right, keep anybody happy or be successful in anything I did. I was plegged with problems, mishaps, shortcomings, failures you name it! Well, it was over the course of several years that God led me to that place of brokenness. I kept trying to tell him I had been broken enough through all the death and tragedy in my family over recent years but, oh no….I had not been willing to SEE and release those fleshly stratagies that I held on to for LIFE. God had to prove to me that my way of finding LIFE and getting my needs met just did not cut it. So, I crumbled and when I did….ironically….I found that LIFE and identity that I was so desperately looking for. I found the love and acceptance of Father that I so desperatly needed.
Now, I can honestly say I am experiencing more and more freedom from peoples opinions and their thoughts about me. I am living in that “sweet spot” of life where I do what I do because that is what Father ask of me and He has put the desires in my heart to do those things that he has created me to do and it glorifies Him. That is what the sum total of our lives ought to be about anyway….Glorifying Him and Him alone (not ourselves).
For all my fellow “people pleasers” out there – this is the one time that I can truly say….”the grass really is greener over here!” Come on over and join me!
Dana