reading

So many books and not enough time.

These books, whether they are self-help books, biographies, or fictional, will teach me something. I will close the back cover upon reading the last word and I will somehow be better for reading the words contained inside.

Some will teach me about the lives of real people, how they met and how they lived their lives. Some will teach me about history and how others lived in a different time and a different place. Some will teach me how I should be living my life, now and for the future.

Some I have started, read the first chapter and put it down in order to finish another book that was started days or weeks before.

This stack won't get any shorter because there will always be more books to add to the stack.  

Inside the pages of books is where I go to lose myself.

"Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are."    ~ Mason Cooley

who am I?

Who am I? There are days when I can't answer that question. 

There are days when I am lost in a mind fog. There are days when I wonder why am I this way. There are days when I wonder why can't I be like (fill in the blank)?

I have always been an introvert. Growing up I never knew there was a word for the way I felt. I just knew that life outside of my own home and family was sometimes difficult. I have always felt self-conscious of how I looked, of the clothes I wore, how I talked, what I said, and on and on. If I thought for an instant that someone might laugh at me for doing something or saying something, then you can be sure, I would not do it or say it.

I just read in the book, Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, that "what people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here". I wish someone had told me that years ago.

And then there are the times when I get really brave and say to myself, "don't worry about what they will say! Go, even if it does make a mess." Then there are days when I do things because I don't want to become what is expected of me because of my age, my standing in life or even because I'm a girl.

I will never be famous or even infamous. I am and always will be just me. The girl who will struggle with an identity and the girl who knows exactly who she is. 

But...this week I was told by a Christian sister that she thought it was a pleasure to do ministry with another woman who has just a hint of rebel in her. I like that!

Rebel –– today that's who I am!