Breaking Pride

One of the biggest things that I struggle against in my life is pride. It infiltrates into every part of my life. It is based on insecurities and my unwillingness to have these weaknesses exposed to the world. This has been such a controlling theme in my life for a very long time that it has without a question shaped the path I follow and the person I am. 
What I mean by that is this. I have long fought insecurities of many different kinds. I did not want to be seen failing at something. I for some reason felt that whatever I do, I should do it very well. If I was really honest, I waned to be the best at whatever that was. If I wasn't good at something right away then I would scrap that whatever that was. I often compared my status to others. 
My little sister is a wonderful athlete. She can usually play any sport and be competitive at it. The only sport two sports I ever played were basketball and rifles. Brittany is good at basketball. This year, her senior year of high school, she decided to go out for the basketball team. She had never played on a school team before yet she started in the first game! When we began shooting rifles, she was eight and I was ten. She easily outshot me right from the start. It took me four years to make it to the level of shooting it took her six weeks to attain. We did end up being on the same team going to the international competition so I am glad we got to share that experience with her. I did not really find joy back then in what I did because I was not the best. She was. I hated it. It hurt my pride deeply. I was older. She was the baby. She beat me. I didn't like that. 
Neither, Brittany nor I are musicians though we did play the trumpet back in middle school. We did for a period time take guitar lessons, but neither of us stuck with that either. However, in her class, she was in the top two or three chairs while in my class I was last in mine. I couldn't even clap on beat. I wasn't succeeding once again. I wasn't the best and I quit that too. 
Brittany and I also showed livestock. Brittany won more awards. I have three trophies and she has over fifty. 
Sometimes, the battle in my head  wasn't with my sister. But it was always someone or some ideal I had that I must live up to. In all reality it had nothing to do with her specifically. She was and is the person that I am closest to. 
I limited things that I didn't think I would succeed with and didn't give them a shot. I did not want to embarrass myself. I didn't want to be seen making a mistake. I never attempted sports. I didn't dance. I didn't learn a foreign language. I did not try to play music.
For that matter, because I could not master music, I didn't want anything to do with it. I hated it. I didn't listen to music hardly ever.   This was the same with art. I was a terrible artist so I didn't like art. 
I did not want to work for anything. 
There was one thing that I did do well. School. I could do that very well without putting that much effort into it. I was that kid who was heartbroken by a 95 and asked to take the test again. As with everything, I expected to be the best at this. I fully intended to be the valedictorian. I was Salutatorian. Was I happy about it? Absolutely not. I wasn't the best. I was second. Again. I will remember my mom's words to me forever. She told me, "Jessie darlin, you have done better than anybody in this family has ever done. Neither your dad nor I could have been close to being Salutatorian but here you are. You did a good job. You did your best. That is enough." 
I mulled that thought over and over and over again in my head. My best had to be enough. I hadn't cared if I was doing my best. I simply wanted to be the best. 
When I came to college, I had a lot of people pouring into me and it was a very wonderful thing. I grew a lot spiritually. I came upon the realization that I will never be enough by myself. I needed Jesus to complete me and to bring whatever I was doing to fulfillment. That was a very humbling thing. It opened up my world to a whole new range of things that I didn't have to be afraid to do. I remember when my friends talked me into going swing dancing and then to ballroom dancing. I ended up loving it though I made a bunch of mistakes at first. I even played on the Intramural softball team in the spring. I was terrified of athletic things. I was absolutely awful at it. The most embarrassing moment of my life thus far happened out there on that softball field. Will I play again? Probably. (If they will have me.) 
This year I finally took a foreign language class I have been dying to take and succeeded. It has been a serious mental break through that is still fragile but it is out of its shell nonetheless. One of these days I might even conquer some kind of running or biking event though the thought scares me silly.  
That is what this whole process has become. Breaking fears and learning to stand up by the grace of God. I realize now that I will fail and that doesn't make whatever happened okay but I know that I have a God that loves me and is there for me even if no one else were. Praise the Lord though that there are so many people who stand behind me and and support me. I wish I had realized this earlier. However, the Lord has taught me many things that I might not have learned without going through such pain. It has taken a lot of breaking pride to get me to this point along the journey. I have a long way to go but at least I have a much more optimistic and joyful outlook. 
Oh, my sister is going to be the valedictorian of her class and I couldn't be more proud. Love you little bit!

Navigation Problems

As I get older and as I am now better in control of my attention deficit disorder, I have become much better at navigation. It was such a problem at one point that when I first had a driver's license, my parents would send my younger sister with me to navigate. Then, when I got a car, I also got a GPS. I firmly believe the key to navigation is paying attention; a skill I haven't perfected. 
The first day I was back in Metter, I was at my church. While my dad was installing the new speakers in the sound system, I decided to say hello to my pastor. He and I have always had a good relationship and he is always very welcoming to whatever questions I might have. If you know me, then you know that I tend to have a lot of questions. We got to talking about how I would be graduating early from undergrad and about the different possibilities beyond that. I told him I honestly didn't know. I knew that I was supposed to be where I was right now, but I didn't know my next step. We talked about how we never knew God's full will and that was okay. But then he explained to me one of the most striking examples that I will remember for a very long time. 
He said "You know what Jessica? God is not a MapQuest. He is more like a GPS. Because you can see the full outline and map of your trip on a MapQuest, but on a GPS it just tells you the next step. And when we get to that next step we take it. Then it might say go straight for a while. It might say turn this way shortly after. Either way we don't know the next step until God wants to reveal it to us." 
I sat back and marveled at the wisdom there. It made so much sense. It was so true. I could relate very well. Sometimes, it kills me, not so much as it used to do, but I want that whole plan like MapQuest. However, like we often just have to trust our GPS, that this series of steps will lead us to the right place without showing us the full map (though it is capable), we have to trust that God is picking the right series of steps without showing us his full plan (though He is capable. 

They Shoulda Seen Me Before...

My grandfather, my mother's father, died over twelve years ago. I don't remember everything clearly about his death and funeral but I do remember several things distinctly. My grandfather chose to be buried in his everyday clothes. So he was dressed in blue jeans and a plaid flannel button down shirt. He also chose to have a closed casket funeral. You see my grandfather died of lung cancer so he was able to make choices for such an occasion because of the forewarning that his sickness provided.
I think however that these two choices speak a lot about who my grandfather was. He didn't want to be dressed in a suit because he never wore one. He didn't want to ever be anything other than himself. He was Vernon Maurice "Rock" Putnam. A retired military man from South Carolina. He was true to himself to the very end and I think that is very valuable in a world full of facades. He chose to have a closed casket service on the statement "they should have come to see me when I was alive." I think this non-traditional viewpoint however, is very valid. We should take the time to be a part of people's lives while we have the chance. It is the living person that is important. It does no good to look at a dead body because you can't change anything then. So, I urge you to invest in people while you have the opportunity. This is not limited to a physical death either. People may be taken out of your life physically by a move to live in another place or they may simply become  hardened to whatever you might have to say or do to or for them.
It might just be that on a day in May, a life will slip away. Just like my Papa Rock.

Pain Management

As many of you know, I have broken a bone in my foot. It is the pinky toe bone, but the broken part is actually within my foot. I know it doesn't really make sense but you can be sure it makes a lot of pain. I have learned several things from this whole experience that I honestly couldn't have learned any other way. 
I learned that just learning your lesson doesn't free you from the lasting and painful consequences of your actions. No matter how many people I can tell not to do what I did. No matter how much I profess I was wrong. I will still have to suffer the consequences of the stupidity I allowed. Of course, God could miraculously heal my toe and still might. 
I learned that you can always be thankful for something. This helps me to deal with the pain. I think to myself well this doesn't hurt as bad as this other time. This doesn't hurt as bad as what it must feel like to be going through what that person is going through. At that time I am thankful that I am only experiencing what I am.
I learned that it really is true that God will not put on you more than you can bear. I will admit to you that I am historically a terrible patient. If I am not feeling well, in the past I have been known to be moody, irritable, and full of complaints. The happy go lucky person from normal times is out the door. However, it doesn't have to be that way. I can praise God in more situations than the ones where I feel perfectly healthy. That is hard to remember at all instances but praise the Lord that it  is brought to the front of my mind again and again. 
It drives me absolutely insane that I have to sit down and not be able to do everything that I want to do. But as in the verse at the heading of this page says, I must learn to be content in all things. So this is my prayer this Christmas break, that I might be content in the situation where I currently sit-literally, off my broken toe. 

Be Yourself

I remember talking to one of my friends in Athens and telling them about how I was different at home than I was at UGA. They told me that I needed to be myself. I thought that is easy for them to say! However, now that I think about it, it probably isn't. When I wrote the post about Home I found that so many people were looking to find a safe place to be themselves. 
What I was referring to in this particular situation was my accent. My accent is unmistakably Southern. Some might find it charming but a large part of the time, people find it laughable. I cannot count the times where I am asked to repeat or pronounce various words such that it can provide entertainment. I can agree that it could be amusing to hear words pronounced in a way that you are not accustomed to but it gets awfully old upon repetition. Also, I sometimes get the feeling that judgments are made upon my intelligence or character because of my speech patterns. This unsettles me. So, in order to avoid these situations, I have altered my speech such that it is less noticeable. I try very hard to articulate and enunciate. It is a conscious effort at times.  
I do not say all of this to make you feel sorry for me. This is not one of those "Mommy, they are picking on meeee!" situations. It is just something that has been a part of my life that makes me realize some of the bigger picture. 
In order for us to reach that feeling of home where we are free to express who we really are, there needs to be a level of comfort and trust among each other. That means we should accept others and not make them feel bad for who they are. This of course does not mean that people should not change sinful behavior. It just means we should love each other in such a way so as to foster this trust that leads to home. 

Apple Trees

My daddy has this favorite phrase that he says: "Apple trees produce apples." I think it is some version of 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.' However, I remember growing up when he would say this I would always retort back "Well, I am an orange!" I didn't feel like I belonged. If they were all apples and apple trees then I must not be an apple, therefore I was an orange. This of course was extremely silly looking back because I realize that I do belong and always have. It wasn't until I had matured enough to think more outside of myself that this was the case. We were a family and of course no two apples were the same. I didn't have to force myself to be on the outside. I was just scared.
I had forgotten about this until the other night when a young man who I go to college with said to me "Well, I guess you are the odd one out then?" It hurt my feelings way more than he could have ever known. I had been talking about my family and he chose to draw this conclusion. However, I was glad that the Lord had shown me this wasn't the case and that I didn't have to accept what other people said about me as fact. I could know where my value was because it was in the Lord. And He said that I was His.
I am sure that this guy was just joking around and didn't mean to hurt my feelings but it did. However, I am so very thankful that the Lord swept in and intercepted those dangerous thous self-incriminating thoughts before they could take hold.
Apple trees produce apples. I am not an orange.

American Dreamer

I was talking with some of my friends a little while back about family origins. I came to the repeated conclusion that so many of my friends had families that were recently immigrated to the United States. As in their family had came to the United States within the last few generations and especially within the last century. I realized that I didn't have a cool story. I was not international. I remember telling them that I was about as American as you can get. 

You see, both sides of my family have lived in the United States since before the United States was the United States. On my dad's side of the family, the Spaids, which was originally spelled something along the lines of Spaight with a good dose of German phlegm,  they were Hessian soldiers. If you are up on your US History then you know that the Hessian soldiers were the ones hired by the British to help fight against the American patriots in the American Revolution. My mom's side of the family is from German origin as well also predating the Revolutionary War. So, that is a cool story. My family started out as soldiers who lost the war and stuck around. Cool. 

So, I got to thinking "what does it mean to be American?" I mean, I wasn't a German American because I really have no ties to that country. We Spaids have been Americans for as long as it was a possible nationality. 

When I think about American culture, I am always reminded of the vast contrast that is within our borders. I love the diversity. However, I can only know my specific culture well. My culture has been shaped by being in a family where most of the men have been career military or involved in agriculture, sometimes both. The women have traditionally become teachers or nurses. We are a very stereotypical Southern bunch. I can think of one outlier I would like to brag on briefly. That would be my cousin Donnie.

Donnie grew up in Metter where everything is better. He went to the University of Georgia and became the valedictorian. He was also awarded the Fulbright Scholar award fellowship. He then traveled and studied in Europe. He is a very talented musician. He married a German lady and they moved to New York City. They live in Greenwich Village. 

Anyhow, my family being from such hardworking and conservative backgrounds, has a culture that I have found commonly among many people around which I know. So maybe you have heard either of these phrases with or without the Southern twang or grammar. 

"If I can do it myself, I ain't about to pay somebody to do it." 

"If you want it done right, do it yourself."

Both of them suggest a sense of independence and self sufficiency. Both of which I feel are decent qualities. However, oftentimes what comes with these phrases is not as great. So many times, I have seen families project themselves as picture perfect when in public. I don't know how many times I have sharply whispered "not in public!" While I am not suggesting that people should lay all their problems out for the world to see, I am saying that it can be very dangerous to be so obsessed with this image of having it all together all by myself. This is something that I continue to struggle with. I find it difficult to accept help. I am always wanting to help others but I will make extra trips or carry that one last thing just so I can do it all myself. Surely I am not the only one. The two phrases I listed earlier have applied to my life in different areas and different times. 

Often, I don't let people help me. I can do it myself. This is somewhat like the American Dream. The best definition I have seen of the American Dream is that if you work hard enough everyone can reach a certain standard of living that is cliche-ly referencing a big house with a big yard and a white picket fence, a dog, and a couple kids thrown in the mix. Supposedly when people do have these possessions they have reached a level of success that they earned by working hard and hardwork is one of those key American values. 

I don't look down on people who have that as a part of their life. I think that it is a wonderful blessing because that is what it is, a blessing. Sometimes, in this world people can work hard for something and still not get what would make the American Dream. Sometimes, there are also people who just loaf around and "have it all." We could also vice versa the situation and some would call it what they deserved. 

I think we, especially me, should learn to be interdependent. However, as people will fail, our hope needs to be in Christ. That is what matters. That is what lasts.