Do You

A few years ago Jada Pinkett Smith was recognized at either the Essence or NAACP Image Awards. I wish I had seen the broadcast, because I read that she did something quite profound when she accepted her award. She simply walked to the podium, took award in hand, leaned into the microphone and uttered these two simple words:

"Do you."

And then just walked off the stage.

Man...

I'm reflecting on that this evening because right now "doing me" seems pretty pitiful. It's the feeling I have when I find myself in the sorry state of comparing myself to those around me and then dealing with the emotional letdown because I always feel that that I fall incredibly short. Paul actually warns against the sin of comparison in 2 Cor 10:12 and yet, sadly, I find myself a victim of it over and over again.

At the root of this habit is my insecurity and at the root of that is my simple misunderstanding of who I am in Christ. I can't seem to incorporate the truth that in His eyes I am fine just as I am and what He doesn't like, He will fix. He can fix. That the gifts and talents I have were designed for me to have and what I don't have, that was His design as well. And the gifts and talents He's given to others? That was His design, too. I can't chagrin or resent this truth. I have to celebrate it and celebrate how He is working in the lives of those who I tend to believe are so much better, prettier, smarter, holier, wittier, and on and on, then me.

Probably the one area that trips me up more than any in the world of comparing myself with others is in the degree to which I believe I'm either holier or less holy than another person. I call it my pharasiac complex and I have been in bondage to it for so long that it's become pretty dehibilitating. I suppose it's a problem that only the religious-minded grapple with, i.e., people like myself who consider themselves worthy of Christ and can only accept His love for them if they are crossing all their t's and dotting all their i's - and making sure everyone knows that they are.

My life right now is sorta messy. No, it's very messy. Details are for a future blog entry. Needless to say, I'm in such a weird state about the "mess" because in my heart and spirit there is a rightness about it that I can't seem to shake, even though my religious self is beating me to a pulp. And the religious self is seeing others around me pursuing God in a deeper, more significant way and living right before Him in a way that I curently am not and I feel less of me and that translates into a little voice telling me that God feels less of me and is turning His head and heart from me. My comparer self throws shade on the rightness of the "mess" -- a situation that I believe so strong in my heart that the Lord is using to transform my relationship with Him and who I am in Him and doing the same in the life of the other party to this "mess". For some reason, I can see my Father glorified through the murkiness of this situation , and I see myself living more under His grace, more accepting of myself, and more accepting of others -which all adds up to me being the kind of accepting, loving, kind, encouraging, neuroses-free mom that I long to be for Jonathan. It's as if I have to go through this "messy" situation to get there. However, that doesn't make sense to my religious self - so she fights me. She compares, she contrasts, she beats me up, she tells me I'm not enough, I'm lacking, I'm screwing up, I'm not "as" this, "as" that. UGH!!! I so just want her to shut up so the Lord can do what He needs to do - even through something that my religious/comparer self thinks He cannot.

In a nutshell: I'm feeling sorta bloody and bruised right now. I took a good beating today. Comparer, perfectionist, religious Kim saw her weakness, her faults, her sin in glaring red against the purity of others pursuit of Christ and the cleanness of their lives, without regarding the fact that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that we're all in need of His grace, His mercy, His counsel, His comfort, His rebuke, His forgivenness. That I am I with all my imperfections and He's doing a work in me even in my mess, despite my mess - using my mess - and He's doing the same in others.

Oh, Lord, please help me to simply admire and praise you for the beauty of your work in others -- their growth in you, their desire to live for you, the gifts and talents you have given them -- and help me to experience more clearly that "doing me" is just fine with you...and that Your word remains true:

Psalm 139:1O LORD, you have searched me [thoroughly] and have known me.
2You know my downsitting and my uprising; You understand my thought afar off.
3You sift and search out my path and my lying down, and You are acquainted with all my ways.
4For there is not a word in my tongue [still unuttered], but, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
5You have beset me and shut me in--behind and before, and You have laid Your hand upon me.
6Your [infinite] knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high above me, I cannot reach it.
7Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence?
8If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), behold, You are there.
9If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10Even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.
11If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me and the night shall be [the only] light about me,
12Even the darkness hides nothing from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.
13For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother's womb.
14I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well.
15My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery].
16Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.
17How precious and weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, [could I count to the end] I would still be with You.