He's our you.

After tonight's talk I started thinking about earlier this year when I applied for and was seriously considering "relational leadership." Leading based on the foundation and fostering of relationships with other people. It was something I really wanted to do at the time, one of the reasons I really wanted to get more involved in IV to begin with. But then I remembered having that talk with Becky and how she wanted to do LG team because it she didn't want to small group leading get to her pride after a year in the dorms. And then I wondered, what really was my reason applying there? Pride?

Do I really see myself as someone who can relate to people in the way a leader can? Lately, I've just been seeing reasons to doubt myself all over the place. I get incredibly jealous when I see people I know talking to each other for no particular reason other than, I want to be involved in the conversation too, but then when I do get an opportunity to involve myself I just make myself hard to get. Denying something I want. And then a lot of times I feel like I'm not capable of showing the kind of commitment and earnest devotion of people that I see in the leaders in IV.

I went through this phase for a while where I was just sick of dealing with people in general. Sick of trying to reach out to them but just getting shrugged off, treated like the way I acted was unnatural and creepish. Maybe having Josh tell me to go away in middle school just really adversely affected me in some way that now I try to avoid the possibility of being rejected by people altogether, and I'm just not willing to take the risk to reach out to them unless it's convenient for me. I don't speak unless spoken to. That's how it's always been.

Taking risks, was it? Perhaps being in LG team has made it easy for me to fall into that position where I feel like I'm doing things without noticed by anyone. And then I start feeling self-pity again. Such a pitiful cycle I keep falling into. As if the appreciation I do get isn't enough already. As if God's appreciation isn't enough already.

I suppose being on LG team has been a good thing, in some ways. I enjoy Bible study, but I don't feel like I'm emotionally/spiritually ready to actually take on the task of relationally leading if I keep feeling vulnerable to these kinds of feelings on a daily basis. Like maybe this is my challenge this year, to learn to grow above them. I know that I'm not exactly the friendliest or the most outreaching happy person out there (in all actuality I'm pretty cynical... or otherwise indifferent), but that is really more of the way I am in general. I keep telling myself I can change, but it's not like I can just change who I am. My personal identity. Maybe there's just some things I'm not personally capable of that others are.

I wish I could just accept myself for who I am now, and not fall into this trap of never being satisfied with myself. There's always something I could be doing better. But no, I just start sulking and having those moments like that night I walked outside for a while. Just sulking and thinking about ways I could get hit by a car or shot at or bashed in the head by. And not thinking too hard about the consequences. And then suddenly panicking when a real threat does show up. I'm a coward. Of course I don't want to die yet.

I am who I am. I don't need anyone else telling me otherwise.

ageless beauty
cruelty makes its holes but
on the shoreline
time will hold its promise

we will always be a light
you can see it from the surface see it
we will always be a light

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I haven't been thinking a whole lot about anything for the past while now. Well, actively thinking, anyway. I feel like I've just been passively doing things that I'm required to do or otherwise on a spur of the moment, without actually planning and being proactive about my goals. Wait, what goals?

and at this point my mind is blank.