I Gotta Be Me

"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy."
Norman Vincent Peale

Passage Psalm 131:1: 1 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.
Passage Psalm 139:13-14: 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

I am not a very organized person. I often wait till the last minute to finish (start?) projects. I am capable of seeing details, but the big picture is often more important to me. Math is a foreign language to me. I have a deep fear of failure. All of these negative things have a positive counterpart, but sometimes it is easier for me to dwell on the negative, especially when I am in a position of leadership. People are counting on me and I fear that the appearance is that I don't know what is going on.

I am the President of my PTA this year. The previous President was super organized and always on top of things. She is a great person and I admire her a lot, but I'm not her. I don't work the same way she does. When I was younger I would have tried to emulate her and driven myself crazy trying to be something that I am not. I have to do things the way that my instincts tell me to. It flows so much more nicely when I don't try to force things.
I am a creative person. I can only work on one project at a time. I may have to look things up (but I know exactly where to look). I learn by doing, not planning - I won't have a check list or a diagram. These traits can drive a left brained person to distraction because it may appear that I don't care or that I am not going to follow through as planned. Not so. I am dedicated and dependable, if not predictable.

This is the way I was made. For some reason God wanted me to be this way. I have to embrace that; it is the only way to have peace and success in life. Everyone is the way they are for some reason and once we quit trying to force ourselves to imitate others and be the best that we can be, the better things will fall into place. What we need is a healthy does of humble self esteem and life is good.


Fingerprints of God - Steven Curtis Chapman