meddled cobwebs

It's funny as you get older (wiser) ;o) ...how one's perspective changes...the older I get the more I realize I don't know. It seems in college I lived by such absolutes with not much room for grace. And as the years have gone by, and as I have "experienced life," I find myself giving the humbling answer to life's difficult questions, "You know, So-and-So, I just 'don't know.'" I also think as we get older, and I am sure that you would all agree, that our priorities change. My attitude has changed about many things. I think that a lot of my motivation behind my actions in my formative years were to please others. I don't think, I know. I lived based on expectations and a lot of that stems from my childhood and the dynamics of the relationships with my mother and father. Whether it be my role as an athlete, crazy personality, artist, teacher, coach, youth director...my life was under constant scrutiny (or at least that was 'my perception'). Being an extrovert to begin with and then going into teaching and youth minstry really effected me in the long run because I eventually burned out. After five years, I "gave up." The expectations that I placed not only on myself, but the ones that were placed on me by my friends, family, kids, and their parents closed in on me causing me to question my motives and really who I was as a person. Of course as we get older, we mature, and I know it's hard for some of you to believe that I could become mature, but it's true. Marriage has sedated me. There are no words in the English dictionary to describe how much I love my husband and our marriage. In these past few years, I have been learning and David has been encouraging me how to live my life as 'my own' and not for students, parents, youth group kids, my parents, teammates, peers, boys (pre-marriage days) ...and it has be really, really DIFFICULT. For a person who naturally wants to please and perform and is a perfectionist, I am having to learn to do a heart-motive check and often re-form that energy and learn how to turn it into an act of worship to God (which ain't always easy my friends). My heart's desire is to be "real" and to be "honest." I have so many masks that I wear and so many roles that I play that I am confused and am trying to figure out who I truly am in Christ. I definitely feel like I am in the wilderness at times...sometimes a journey...sometimes a holding cell...sometimes solitary confinement...I get glimpses, but I am still in search. The Lord is working. I feel Holy Spirit. It is good, but so much to meddle through.