Remind Me Again

This morning, I met some of my co-workers at 6:30 so that we could stand in the street and sell magazines ... magazines to promote the Kansas City Chiefs home opener on Sunday, with the profits going to the Ronald McDonald House. Though getting up at 4:45 wasn't much fun, spending an hour and a half chatting with a gal who works with the Chiefs charity initiatives was a great deal of fun. But you know what was the most fun about this morning? Being a part of something, being included, being asked to help out, being wanted and needed and appreciated.

I remember when I used to love weekends ... back when they were filled with kids and friends and church activities. Now, almost every weekend, come Friday afternoons, I get what I've come to refer to as my "here comes another weekend of trying to find something to do so that I don't go off the deep end funk." I feel it coming on Fridays, usually around 4:00 when I know it's getting close to time to leave work and head home. Home ... I also remember when I used to love home ... back when it was really a home and not just the place where me and my dogs reside. Since January, I've gotten a ton of messages about my "lifestyle" ... my lifestyle ... really? I go to work and I come home to my dogs. My lifestyle? Really? Seriously? Honestly, there are lots of times when I'd like to punch a few of those people right in the face ... call me a jerk if you'd like (I've been called a heck of a lot worse, believe me), but that old saying about never knowing what another person's life is like until you walk a mile in their shoes is so incredibly, incredibly, incredibly true.

Now I know many of you are thinking I should just get out and make new friends or find a church or join a book club or or or ... and yes, life-saving head doctor, you're included in that "many of you" comment. One would think for as outgoing and social as I've always been, those things would come easily to me ... and one would be wrong. I don't exactly know when or how it happened, but somewhere along the road of the last couple of years, going places alone and trying to find where I fit has become next to impossible. The truth is that a lot of weekends, I have to make myself get out of bed ... well, actually Julie and Ollie make me get out of bed. I know full well if I didn't have to get up and take care of the two of them, most weekends would find me sleeping the hours away until Monday arrived. I've said many times over the last couple of years that having to get up and go to work each day has helped to keep me breathing ... of that I have not one shred of doubt.

Obviously, I'm a big funk tonight ... some weekends are just harder than others. This weekend last year, I was speaking to a large group of women at a Christian camp. It was a bittersweet time for me because I knew deep in my heart that it was only a matter of time before the truth about who I am began to leak out. I knew that everything in my life was about to change ... I knew that was possibly the last time I would stand before a Christian women's group to speak ... I knew there was a very real possibility that the friend who had traveled with me to sing for the weekend would feel the need to distance herself and her family from me. Maybe that's part of why I'm in such a funk tonight ... why the funk started earlier this week than it normally does ... perhaps it's because all of those things I feared would happen did. 

So ... because I'd much rather write from a positive place than a negative one, unless some overwhelmingly amazing idea comes to me or something incredibly fantastic happens over the weekend, I think I'll sign off for a couple of days and see if I can pull a Peter Pan and find my happy place. I've quoted the lyrics to the following song in a previous post (maybe even in a couple of posts) but today is one of those days when I need to read them again ... to hear them again ... to believe them again. Today is one of those days when I need to be reminded again of who I am ... of Whose I am. 

"When I lose my way,
And I forget my name
Remind me who I am
In the mirror all I see
Is who I don't wanna be
Remind me who I am

In the loneliest places
When I can't remember what grace is

Tell me, once again
Who I am to You, who I am to You
Tell me, lest I forget
Who I am to You, that I belong to You
To You

When my heart is like a stone,
And I'm running far from home
Remind me who I am
When I can't receive Your love
Afraid I'll never be enough
Remind me who I am

If I'm Your beloved, can You help me believe it

Tell me, once again
Who I am to you, who I am to You
Tell me, lest I forget
Who I am to you, that I belong to You
To You

I'm the one You love, I'm the one You love
That will be enough, I'm the one You love

Tell me, once again
Who I am to you, who I am to You
Tell me, lest I forget
Who I am to you, that I belong to You

Tell me, once again
Who I am to You, who I am to You
Tell me, lest I forget
Who I am to You, that I belong to You
To You"

---Jason Gray