i changed my mind

When I was in college, the dorm where I lived and worked had a chaplain assigned to it-- a seminary student applying classroom knowledge in practical situations. One chaplain somehow came to be a shining star in my cupboard of role models, and without realizing it immediately, I came to somehow covet her life. I wanted to be obedient to God, interested in social justice, silly despite my maturity. I wanted to marry a prince at a slightly more advanced age than the rest of the child-brides around me, and then move to an exciting new country to work. I saw her life as an amalgamation between liberal Christian and fairy tale-- where the heroin enjoys all the satisfaction of a materially-comfortable life, but still gets to stand for something greater: equality for the oppressed, reaching out to the wretched, spreading the Good News.

Let me not discolor this person in any way. She fully reached out with arms open wide, accepting, loving-- unflinching in the face of the boils and open wounds of the ones she received. She gave fully, and was one of the most genuinely good people I knew. I'm sure she still is. She was a major player in the early stages of my walk with Christ. I have much to be grateful to her for.

But I, who is far less good, accepting and loving than that, saw the merger of two worlds embodied in her life: the secular and the service-oriented, and I struggled in wanting them both. It ties in so closely with my conceptual struggles regarding the Southern (Christian) Wedding: Good Southern Baptist girls get the rock, the reception, and the relationship. None of this money or love business. You can build your marriage on the solid foundation of the love of Jesus Christ, but you can still spend daddy's dough on the matching bridesmaids gowns, the popular photography poses, and the honeymoon. I just can't see spending so much money on a party that will last a day, when you still have your whole lives ahead of you together. You shouldn't need the material things. But ask me if I want a diamond and the answer is currently still yes.

Ahem, back to the topic at hand. I moved abroad and applied to grad school, heard and answered my own calling to seminary. And then I found myself here, doing the numbers game, trying to plot the perfect time to marry the non-existent perfect man, imagining a life of travel and service together with him-- and the right age to bear the unborn children, all the while still imagining silly material things like our house, our china, and our technology (eventually, we'd be a mac house). I tried imagining all of these things so that I'd have the parts of her life that I wanted. As if you can plan to get married or have babies at a particular age.

But how boring would it be if I could have someone else's life? I've already seen it once-- I don't need to re-enact it. And how much better is true life going to be than anything I could possibly cook up? My friend I've been speaking of has recently had a baby. She is an ordained reverend, and she's working for a church. Her husband is working on a doctorate. They live in the US now. I was thinking over these facts recently, and it just hit me.

I wanted her life. But now I want more. I want more than that-- I don't even know what more is, but I know I can have more. It's not that her life is not enough, it's not that her life is deficient or lacking or malodorous in any way, it's just that it's not mine. It's not for me and I can't have it. I've been limiting myself even in fantasy about the expectations I have. Someone said to me today, "You don't even realize your potential. If you could only see your potential, you wouldn't be able to function." I think that might be true of all of us. If we knew what we were able to accomplish, we'd be overwhelmed to the point of paralysis. Each of us--our own self-- is the one who holds us back-- we are the doubter, the one who says we can't. We are are the diminisher, who says I am capable only of so much and not more. We are the reason we don't, each of us, down inside, because we aren't willing to say, yes, I know that I can, and therefore, I will.

But today I changed my mind. I won't be limited by wanting someone else's life when I can have my own. And I won't be the one to hold me back from claiming my potential. It's scary, but I know God is capable of great works through me, and who am I to limit what God can do? We should all ask ourselves that the next time we are tempted to name the limitations of our capabilities. If I can change my mind, so can you.