I like to be understood. I hate walking away from a conversation feeling like I could have explained myself better. I mull over it for hours, and I do it often. And I HATE it about myself.
So many times I wish I could just move on from whatever conversation I wasn’t satisfied with. So many times I just want to let go my feelings of contempt for the person who I feel explained themselves better than me. So many times I wish my brain would slow down enough in those moments so that instead of thinking, I could never explain what I’m thinking, I’ll just let them think they’re right, I wish I would just say, “OK, well actually, I was thinking…”
I am reading right now a book that a friend lent to me about a girl named Katie who is 22 who moved to Uganda after she graduated high school. She had literally no plans with her life there, but ended up becoming a kindergarten teacher to 138 students, starting a nonprofit to sponsor kids to go to school, and adopting 14 of her own children. All by the age of 22. My age. It astounds me when I read her writings. She was so wrecked by what she confronted in Uganda juxtaposed to her lavish American lifestyle – kids who grew up eating cakes of salt and mud just to fill their stomachs, caring for multiple siblings with disease, unable to go to school to end the cycle of poverty. And in this book, Katie emphasizes over and over and over the love that God has for her that she can extend to others.
Tonight, I had both of these experiences – the “I’m so mad at myself because I don’t know why I let myself walk away without explaining” and the “I’m so inspired by Katie’s story, and I want to share the love of God like she does” thoughts. And so after praying for a bit, asking God if he could show me why I care so much about what others think of me, about why I always need to explain myself… I simply heard, Jill, I love you. I just love you. I just love you. I just love you. I just love you. I just love you. I just love you.
And when I get a small glimpse of God’s love, and it overwhelms me, I just accept who I am for who he has made me to be. I smile - I'm loved despite who I am.
