I drove 21 miles home tonight and then backtracked 46 miles to work and back just to go pick up my laptop so I could write
tonight…so you KNOW what I have to say is pretty important………
Or “getting my laptop” was just an excuse to
take a much needed late-night drive…
I guess I’ll let you be the judge of that.
While I am not yet done posting all of my
lessons from my “Oh How He Loves Us” “series”…I feel an intermission is much
needed at this time.
I feel there is a lesson that God keeps
trying to teach me over and over. And it really is a sucky lesson. Every time I
think I have learned it and I am “ready” to move on to the next
lesson…something smacks me in the face and lets me know I still have a lot of
work to do in that same area…
So I keep re-living this lesson…over and over
and over and over
and over and over and over…
When will I ever learn…
Sometimes…people just plain suck.
And the fact that people just plain suck at
times…isn’t entirely my much-needed lesson – my much-needed lesson is learning
to not put so much faith in people. Because…they are…people…just regular human
beings. Just like me. And we all suck.
And no matter how much I love them or how
much I respect or care for them and no matter how high up they are on that
pedal stool…they are STILL people.
And they always will be.
And they sin.
And they always will.
Last week I finished reading a book called
“Paper Towns”. I decided to read it because I had seen the preview for the
movie coming out and I thought it looked like it might be a movie I might
like…and I have learned that I CANNOT watch “the movie” before I read “the
book” because it honestly – it just…I just…no. I can’t. The Harry Potter movies
are some of my favorite movies of all time. But I have tried to read the first
book probably…AT LEAST 5 times…and I just cant. It’s so boring to me…the
furthers I got was…well…I’m not going to act like I remember…it was just too
much effort…But I think it is just because really – I have an awful
imagination. And I can’t make my brain put any other storyline to the story because
I have already seen it. Now Lord of
The Rings…my OTHER ALL time favorite. I read the books before I saw the
movies…and I LOVE both the books and the movies…………….I used to fall asleep to
the movies every night in college…just one of the ways I drove my roommate
crazy…
But anywho…that was seriously ALL irrelevant…
So this book…”Paper Towns”…I really can’t
even decide if I liked the book…or if the author is even a good writer at
all…like…it was so anti-climatic….and so…dry….and just….I don’t know…maybe it
was because no magical land or creature was involved…it was just…meh. Or maybe
it is because it is for a much younger audience than me……I like those cheesy
teenage movies though…I guess I figure as long as I look like a teenager…I can
have the emotional instability of one…
But there were a few times where the author
just totally caught me off guard…
“What a treacherous thing it is to believe
that a person is more than a person.”
This guy…I really just finished the book not
even a week ago and I can’t even remember the main characters name…but it’s a
boy. So Boy thinks he’s like madly in love with this girl named Margo and this
whole book he just fantasizes her into someone she isn’t at all. He grew up
with her but he barely knew her…then one day she just decides to run away
because she’s crazy and just needs attention and is insecure or something who
knows and Boy does all this research about how to find her and just builds her
up so much that when he finally does find her it’s like….such crap. They
finally kiss and then they both go their separate ways. Actually…maybe it is a
GOOD book for teenage girls to read these days because we seem live in such a
society where these dramatic/tragic love stories are around every corner,
depicting such unrealistic views of love…like the movie If I Stay…we even had a
discussion on that movie in a bible study with the high school girls not too
long ago because of the negative influence it was having on teen girls…I mean
don’t get me wrong…I loved that movie…I bawled the whole way through it…I told
you – I eat that crap up…but it’s just not realistic. And it’s very unhealthy
for girls to fantasize/obsess over finding “a man like so and so” or a
“relationship like theirs”…it’s just cray.
Anywho…I digress again…how do I keep doing
that…
So…”Paper Towns”…Boy fantasizes over Margo
(awful dumb name for a teen girl first of all – but I think unusual/unexpected
is the point here…sorry if you’re name is Margo…I mean what do I know…I’m a
girl named Michal…I have older people tell me how awful my name is at least
once a week…at least…anywho) turns her into someone she isn’t…leaves…he finds
her…she’s mad he finds her (A very realistic portrayal of an immature teen girl
actually)…they kiss…go their separate ways…wah wah. But…I actually was so
intrigued by how much the author stressed how crucial it is for people to not
look at other people as anything more than…people.
And this is my never-ending lesson.
I idealize people way too much. I always have.
And yet I am such a judgmental person. I have
learned to be full of grace – mind you – but my judgments are endless…those two
don’t seem like they make sense at all…
Some times I think I have too much grace for people. Is that even
possible?
There are so many times recently where I
question who I am. I would do anything for my friends and the people I love –
but lately – I feel like maybe I do too much for them. And maybe – the things I
do are just taken for granted. Not that the reason I do what I do is to gain
anything in return from anyone else…because that’s just who I am and it makes
me happy…but I don’t know…
But I don’t want to change who I am.
Sometimes I just want to be alone for days
and lose touch of everyone around me…
It’s just always been quite the challenge for
me – love but don’t idealize.
It’s been the foundational downfall of most
of my relationships…and myself.
“But isn’t it also that on some fundamental
level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in
the same way that we are? We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals.”
It’s just SO dangerous for us to allow ANYONE
to take the place of God in our lives – ANYONE or ANYTHING. And I know that…it’s
just I need to REALIZE it…
It’s hard to accept that everyone else is
human…just like us. We all sin…even if we do it differently.
I don’t know…I guess that’s all I have to say
on the matter right now…
“The fundamental mistake I had always made –
and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make – was this: Margo was not
a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She
was a girl.”
Sometimes it sucks being a person and living
in a world with a bunch of other persons…
