Tuesday Thoughts

I have been thinking that I need to change the name of this blog because when I started it I primarily talked about rock music but I haven’t done that in a long time. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what to call it. Maybe you can help me figure it out? Pretty please?

So apparently today is Middle Child Day, which has gone largely ignored, as is the case with middle children. How appropriate. This article highlights the “holiday”, and, to top it all off, the link to famous middle children in the article actually links to an article about first born traits. Seriously? Are they just trying to permanently wound us?

The middle child syndrome is a non-clinical ailment that affects many middle children as theyoften  feel overlooked, ignored, passed over and “unfavored” (in comparison to first borns and last borns). I used to feel like this but I got over it. I just like to wield it as a weapon when I can get away with it 😀

Another thing, what’s with apocalyptic movies these days? Is there a message being passed or are we just very fascinated by the end of the world? Did anyone know that World War Z was about zombies? Yeah, I know, the ‘Z’ should have been a strong hint, but not to me.

On the prevalent quarter-life crisis affecting my friends and peers worldwide (since today I have an opinion about everything; I mean, isn’t that why you came here, to seek my valid opinion?), I read something very interesting today: millenials, i.e. products of the current generation, are in a world with limitless options. This makes making a decision so much harder and we are often caught in analysis-paralysis, unable to make a decision. The article advised that we should do something. If there is something you are interested in, do it. If there is something you suspect you could be good at, try it. Among all the options you have in front of you, pick one. It doesn’t have to be perfect, well-thought-out-to-bits, or have more pros than cons. Honestly, I’ve wasted so much time analysing instead of DOING.

Just do it!!

 

Prayers and Dreams

One of the scariest prayers I ever made was when I asked God to show me my purpose. I thought it would be a one-sentence answer, but it has ended up being pages and pages of of a book in which I have had revelation of who I am and who He wants me to be. I didn’t think it would be a journey, I thought it would be an instant thing. It has ended up being a meandering path that takes me back to the past and then to the present and back again, as I look at a future that gets clearer everyday. Ever heard the phrase “You can’t move into the future until you let go of the past”? It’s absolutely true.

To capture my dreams I had to go to the past and let go of all the misconceptions I had about who I am. Then after doing this (it’s still an on-going process), only then could I clearly see myself the way God sees me, and see into the future He would like me to have. With this view, I realized that the dreams I thought I had were so small compared to what He was awakening in me. God deals in BIG dreams, and He wants us to have them and trust that He can make them come true.

I make it sound so easy; it isn’t. It’s a difficult process that I had to be willing to go through and not give up (also, the ever-increasing level of discontent with mediocrity was a very strong driving force).

So today I make another scary prayer:

May I never be content with doing less that I am capable of

May I never let great opportunities pass me by

May I seek to be excellent in everything I do

May I dream, and dream, and dream some more; always, each bigger than the last

May I always be repulsed by the idea of sitting on a desk whiling away the time in a job I am ill-suited for, that drains my energy and suppresses who I am

May I never hesitate to express my creativity, even when there is the threat of criticism

May I always believe that God, the author of dreams, can make them come true…because He who begun a good work in me will be faithful to complete it

Amen

What were you made for?

I looked outside the window the other day while at work and saw this flock of birds flying in the sky within my line of vision. I love to watch birds so this was good luck :). Anyway, maybe it would be better to say they were soaring. My office is pretty high up and still they looked pretty high up so I’m guessing according to Newton’s Law of Gravity and Bernoulli’s Principle and Onyango’s Theorem and all those Physics laws (bla bla bla), they were pretty high.

Sooooooooo anyway, it hit me…the birds are doing what they do best; what they were created for. God made them with wings and hollow bones and streamlined bodies so they could fly, dip, soar. How faithful they are.

I wondered, am I doing what I was created for? Like how did the bird know it was made to fly? (OK, the wings are pretty hard to miss, but still…). I am a being with a mind and a heart and a soul and a spirit and a body. Already there are four disinct functions that I can perform (seeing as I am in four parts, or rather three…soul=heart. Please, let us not debate about this yet, in another post, I promise). So, already I have three functions. Each of these functions has other mini-functions; take the body. The body has so many parts with sooooooooo many functions (no wonder I didn’t like Biology…mind-boggling stuff).

So in light of being a being, I am a woman. I have a function that I uniquely fulfill that a man cannot (because he has his own function, not due to any weakness on his part or anything, you can put the Men’s Rights placards down). So I have that too. On top of the various biological, social and spiritual roles.

Now the part that really puzzles me is the unique part that I play in the world. What is my function? Like the birds were made to fly, what was I made to do? To be a wife? To be a mother? To be a friend? To be an accountant? To be a Sunday School teacher? To be all of the above? But then how is that unique?

Or is it not about uniqueness? Are we all the same? Should we all just be humans? Is that even a thing? 🙂

Is it OK, then, to have dreams? Are those clues that God sends out to help us discover what He created us to do? Are some dreams cooler and more awesome than others? It’s all very confusing.

Growing up is weird, it’s like nothing makes sense anymore. Or am I the only one who feels this way?

What are you made for?