Okay, randomly yet not so randomly, my 'shyness' has been questioned allllllllllll week long. Fun times, but not really at all. Everywhere I went. No place was safe. All corners of the Lisa life were questioned. I thought I'd tackle it with humour, because... why would I not?
The thing is, I'm not really shy. Sure, I'm quiet sometimes, but mostly I'm just awkward. I have problems initiating anything outside of set boundaries. I hate spontaneity. If I don't know I'm going to see someone then I'm thrown off by seeing them - it doesn't matter how much I like the person at all - I've been thrown. I have trouble picking up my own phone sometimes. Put me in a fixed place though, like at work, put a barrier or job in front of me and I'll be the loudest person in the room... and that's more me than anything else.
My dentist story tells it bests. One of my most over-used words is 'just' (also sure, for, like, muchly, fractal, awesomeness, - these are ones that I use when I'm content). I put just where it doesn't belong quite often, mostly when I'm nervous. I was pretty young. My mom dropped me off at the dentist. That meant I had to go in and tell them I was there. Not a great situation for me. I went in and stuttered through saying 'I'm just Lisa'. Then I hit the video game console. Got through my appointment, during which time my mom had come back. While paying, the receptionist sweetly told me I should never say I'm 'just Lisa' again, that I should announce my presence with gutso. I was so mortified. She was so nice, but ouch! that hit high on my awkward meter. Oh, the many lectures I would get as a kid. My parents would sit me down and say 'We're really concerned about such and such'. The thing is, I get their social concerns, but I wasn't given very many opportunities to be myself, or even to be mildly comfortable. By grade 7, school was an outlet, a place where I could be myself. I lost that in the absolute terror that was my University years though. I didn't transfer that. I got stuck in so many ways. Here in Kingston, I'm most of myself with family, on my blogs, and at work. That's good, but still sad. I've been here a year - I've got to hit an all around comfortable state soon. I've been trying to work on it, but it's an uphill battle because I'm such a nut.
Seriously, to explain the mixture of me is quite impossible. To put it simply, I'm an odd duck. I know it. I've been told I'm the weirdest person some have ever met (though I find that hard to believe). I think I was about 13 when I decided to stop trying to put up a person front. I got sick of that teen act pretty quick - I didn't like who I was becoming. The things you mean to keep surface level present some of the most dangerous challenges - those things, those attitudes and basically just sin itself, sink in quick and deep and are almost impossible to remove. I didn't know God yet, so my decision was made in rejection. I knew I couldn't fit anywhere in the world, so I decided that I didn't care - that I'd go down being myself. I did care, but for a person living a non-Christian life, I was still firmly in a God-bubble.
Becoming a Christian was a whole other issue to conquer. I'd been me for so long, but I struggled with being loved and accepted by God while being me. That I could live not of this world. That I could find acceptance in Him and Him alone. Scary things. I was scared by the good things He offered. I was scared of not always being scared. I was scared of living a no strings life. Scared of freedom. Scared of being loved by Him - my whole person would revolt from it. Still struggle with that one. I've never ever wanted to run as much as I did on the day of my salvation. I knew He was there. I felt His love. I felt Him coming and, against everything I defined myself by, I put up my hand. I stood still and He hugged me. There's no other way I can put it. I was wrapped in His comfort. And it was familiar. It had been wrapped around me on my hardest days. While broken, I had been patiently surrounded. Now living in Him, I would begin to be mended.
All that to say, I was messed up. My people skills got lost and abandoned along the way. Losing all patience for fronts is annoying - you see too much and it's hard to come back from that. Most of the time, most of my life, I worked hard not to see people. I would only let myself see the people, friends, who I actually knew, because they were the only people I felt comfortable talking to. Before I was a Christian, I blocked things. I would know things, hear things, and I would distract myself. I would shut myself down. I think it started when I was a kid. It's silly, but I used to think I was Supergirl. I would know when people needed help (especially when they looked like they didn't), then I'd be weighed down... but I couldn't do anything. It was painful and frustrating. In a crowd I would feel as though I'd failed. That I'd failed those in need. I didn't know that what they needed was God. I had no clue. Instead I took the pain and decided to remove it from my life. I decided to not see. You can't take out what God's placed in you though. I imagine that we all learn that the hard way sometimes.
I flipped to the other side of the coin right out of high school. Right after becoming a Christian. I went from not wanting to see to not wanting to be seen. There is a balance. I know this. I've been struggling while working towards it since I moved here. One of the key days for me was at the altar during service right after I moved here. I'd always fought against seeing too much and I fought hard and stubbornly. I've always felt such a separation in it. Then we were asked to cry out for a burden for people and it finally connected that that was what I'd been struggling against having. God changes things so amazingly epicly. Suddenly, it was a joint task. What I had carried alone was a responsibility that was held by a body of believers who were raised up by God, saved by the blood of Jesus and operating with the Holy Spirit. Being a non-churcher that was an unexpected find! I had no idea. Noticing/seeing so quickly moved from being an overwhelming weight to a prayer pressure. I learned to seek God in it. To drop things. God cut off so much of my junk through that revelation. It was amazing.
There are God moments that have totally and completely changed my direction. I know I'm walking towards one now. A year ago, I knew one of the things that would hit. It took about 7 months. His time, not mine; Thankfully, because otherwise I would have not even been able to stand or move forward - I would have remained at a standstill. I don't know when or where or how or even what, but I know I'm getting ready to step out of a lot, of maybe everything I have left. I know it because I want to run. I know it because of the way my thoughts are changing. I know it from the time I spend with Him. I know it from the shortness of the time I have in myself - He won't let me stay in anything not of Him. I know it and it scares me. I know it and I'm excited. I know that my future's about to be dramatically for Him. I'm an internal person, I just am. Always have been. I'm a homebody. I'm a reader. I'm a writer. I live a quiet life. Surfacely, not much changes day to day, I'm boring, but wow, the works He does in me. How I grow and change are marked by Him. Everyday is a new day in Him. That is never boring.
This wasn't funny. Some things aren't funny. Still, I want this post on this blog because you can't have funny without having some serious too. Both would be worth nothing; It'd be so boring to be only serious, and so flippant and surface level to only be funny.
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