Snippets

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Well, I've had good intentions for the last month to blog about a few things, and today marks a month since my last post. Maybe instead of "hell" the above quote should say "boring blogs" or something of that nature, but you get the point.


Blue and Pink Lenses

To begin, a conversation I had with Nathan after getting some guidance on how to improve my resume:
Me: "I feel so much better about life now that my resume has been critiqued."
Nathan: "Hmm... don't you mean you feel better about being able to get a job."
Me: "No, I feel better about ALL of life."

Later I was thinking about this conversation and I think it reveals a lot about the difference between men and women. Females tend to see connections between all parts of their lives, while males are more apt to be one-track minded.

A good illustration I've heard is this: imagine a set of drawers. If this set of drawers were male, it would only have one drawer open at a time at any given moment. In contrast, if this set of drawers were female all of the drawers would be open at all times in varying degrees and the clothes would probably drape from one drawer to the next. Another helpful example is that men are like waffles, their minds are compartmentalized, while women are like spaghetti, with all things being connected and overlapping.

This explains why I felt better about ALL of life because ONE part of it was in order. If it were Nathan, he would probably not have felt the heightened stress that day anyway, and once his resume was complete, he would check it off his list and go on to the next thing. (Or something like that... I say that as if I've figured men out, but I promise I haven't!)


Comparison

The other thing I wanted to write about has to do with remembrance. I was reading through my journal from the Forge and came across something that seemed so logical and freeing at the same time. I think I originally got the idea from the book, Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller.

In my humble observation of life, I've noticed that everyone seems to almost constantly compare themselves to everyone else. This is a tiring and often frustrating thing, and to further that thought is a much different conversation. The point I want to make is this. We are created in such a way that we find our identity outside of ourselves. We intuitively search for someone else to tell us that we are valuable and that we have a purpose and a reason for being on this earth and living and breathing. Our insistence upon comparison points to our innate desire to know and be known by God. This seems to be a better answer than "simply stop comparing yourself." Let your desire to compare yourself to someone else (and therefore add or subtract value) point you to the One who says you're so valuable that He sent his Son to die for you so you could have life.