Guest Blog Post # 2

So I tried to come up with some really clever title for posts from my guest bloggers ... obviously, I wasn't successful. Maybe because I'm tired today; maybe because I'm simply not that clever; maybe because the title for my first guest blogger's post back on December 31 (Be My Guest) really is the best title ever for a guest writer's post, and I can't top it. At any rate, tonight's post is written by a gal I met several years ago at one of my speaking engagements. She's got like a million kids and dogs, a husband, and an ill father whom she cares for every day. She has a giant heart and truly cares for other people in a big way. She writes amazing poetry, and she included a couple of her poems in her post tonight (which made me happy when I first read her post a few weeks ago). Read her words with your heart ... pay attention to her message, because it's a great one. 

"When Terrie first asked me to write a guest blog for her, I was thrilled and my immediate response was, “Yes, of course I will. What do you want me to write about?” It was, I’m pretty sure, at this point in our phone conversation that I was interrupted by one of my five children screaming, yelling, fighting, or needing something. (That happens a lot at my house actually… especially when mom is on the phone.) So when I was able to rejoin the conversation, the question had been left and we never quite got back to it. I have done a lot of thinking about what I would write about for this blog, but nothing really came to me for a long time. Then all at once at 2 a.m. on a Monday morning, it did come to me. I was having a conversation with another friend of mine and we were talking about how we see ourselves. I was telling my friend that I wished that I could show her what I saw when I looked at her. I realized that I had said almost the exact same words to someone else just two days before. That was when it hit me… why do we look at ourselves with such a critical mirror? Why is it that so many people around us can see the beauty and goodness in us and we cannot? 

This is a subject that hits close to home for so many of us, myself included. It is something that I have struggled with my whole life. In fact, I have written poetry about it that I have decided to share here. I am sharing this because I think that it is important for us, as human beings, to share with each other our struggles so that we can grow from knowing that we are not alone, that other people have the same problems. And maybe, just maybe, we can teach each other how to come out on the other side as better people. That’s the idea anyway. So here is a little look into my head and heart… maybe some of you have the same kinds of feelings. 
                                                                 Who I Am
  

It’s hard to know who I am really
I feel like I’m searching for this woman

A woman I am? Or will be?
All these things swim inside my head
Titles that name but do not truly encompass my identity

Mom… Wife… Daughter… Friend
Words that describe but do not define
Fat… Funny… Loyal… Possessive… Messy
To add all these things together
To sift through and find truth
That is the hardest job of all
What does it all mean?
I hope to be more than the sum of the words and titles

I hope to be real… someday


Reflections

Mirrors are not my friends
Cameras are scarcely better
At least the latter allows for choice
Mirrors that burn images into my head that I do not want to see
The only image that seems true is the one I see face close to the water and breathing
hard

She is as shaky as I feel
She is my truest reflection

Unreal and shaky… that is how I feel most of the time. So how do we come out on the other side of feelings like these? I think that part of it is in looking for our self-worth in different places. It dawned on me while thinking about writing this blog that there is no possible way to see your worth in a mirror.  That may sound so simple and obvious, but that is sure where we look to try to find it. We check our mirrors constantly to make sure everything is in place. That’s the problem… it isn’t our mirrors that can show us that… it is our hearts, our souls. It has to come from within. The Bible is full of stories about Jesus showing worth in those that society deemed unworthy. What if we looked to God to tell us if we were good enough? What if we saw ourselves the way our friends see us? The way our God sees us? I think that we would all be surprised at what we saw then... yes, I think we would certainly be surprised."