the yardstick

Ladies and gentlemen (and all you other people), I have a serious confession to make:

I scamper.

I do. I scamper. And on a fairly regular basis, too. I scampered to my car this morning, partially to keep the snow from overwhelming my shoes, but also just because I felt like it. I scamper a lot around the house. The hardwood floors make it easy. I jive, baby, sliding into rooms and around corners. I also tend to dance around when I'm in the kitchen, but that's another story. (I need to get curtains in my kitchen, too, but that's also a tangent.) Today, we focus on the scamper. It's not mature, stately, sedate, poised, or any of those important grown-up adjectives. And that got me thinking--what was wrong with me? I'm twenty-eight, for cripes' sake (which is quite different than for crepes' sake, which is much tastier and more French). Who was I to be acting so juvenile?

And then I realized I was falling into the same old trap again: measuring myself by someone else's yardstick.

Who I am is who I am, and the details of that are between me and God, not me and the world. God made me special. (And "special," too, depending on the day.) I've always done things at my own speed. That speed may be "slower" than some other people, but I'm the only one walking on my road. I've got my own speed limit, baby, and no one can tell me my road isn't as good as anyone else's. I'll scamper until I no longer feel like scampering, no matter how "old" and "mature" I get. Maybe I'll never stop.

I hope I don't stop. I hope I can keep remembering that the Bible never tells me to be suave or polished. I don't need to be sophisticated--which, to me, usually just feels worldly. Wait--I have read something in the Bible about being worldly...what was it again? Oh, yeah: DON'T.

Maybe I'm gauche and naive. Maybe I run around like I'm still in a ten-year-old's body. So what? I don't want to hide behind a facade. My mind and my heart are not childish. They still need work, no doubt, but we'll never stop growing. Isn't that awesome? We're all growing up, together. In our own way, in our own time.

And yes, I did just reference myself in the plural. Suck it up, cupcake.