I Do Me

***My blog has temporarily turned into a contemplative gloom-and-doom what-is-this-life-all-about warehouse but this is a heavy week for many reasons. I promise it will return to its normal state of boring lists and surveys and sarcastic commentary. Until then...

"I Do Me."

Has anybody heard this statement yet? My guess is that if you don't work with students or listen to hip-hop or watch MTV, you probably haven't. However, in a not-so-hip-hop way, this has almost become a mantra for me.

As the most wise man in my life (ahem...my daddy) just reminded me, all I can do is be me. I am me. I can't try to mimic others' actions.

Lately, I've been somewhat looking at other people's lives and sort of "wishing" I had some of the same things. As I've stated before on this blog, I've felt very stuck where I am in life and I've been searching for ways out.

My prayer to God has been to help me be grateful for where he has me right now and help me prepare for where he is taking me because "right now" is a stepping stone for the future. I've had feelings of wanting to do bigger things, bolder things, and I think God is preparing me to do those things. But those things take a lot of sacrifice and I think the reason God is keeping me where I am is to help me build up to those sacrifices. God knows I'm willing. I tell him that everyday. Now he's in the process of showing me how to go about having that abundant life that he's promised. It's in committing to the little things that I'm able to do the bigger, bolder things.

I've thought a lot about who "me" is lately. The other day, as I was driving home, I laughed at how different a person I am.

We are all different, so I'm not really talking about different in the weird-creepy-she's-a-winner type way. I'm talking about all the different quirks that make up "me".

There's an old Michael Keaton movie, Multiplicity. Not one of my favorites but there's some funny truth in it. If you haven't seen it, here's the rundown. Basically, Michael Keaton's character has a little too much on his plate. He's a husband, a contractor, a dad, a son, a friend. He's got a lot of balls in the air and not enough hands to juggle them with. So he decides to go scientific with it and clone himself. Except the experiment goes haywire. Take a look.

I laugh at the thought of this Katie split into multiples. The little quirks that make me up in human form. I can envision a Katie who sings everything and has a dramatic flair to everything she does. A Katie who leaves things around in a mess and then a Katie that goes behind that Katie cleaning it all up. A Katie who is an extrovert and then an introvert Katie. A sports Katie and a girlie Katie. An evangelical Katie and a walk-on-the-wild-side Katie.

It would be funny to see all of those Katies interact with each other. Surely it would be mass chaos.

But that's the great thing about God. He took all of those different Katies and made one big Katie, a special Katie, so I'm told. All of those different quirks work together and balance each other out to make the Katie that I am. And I can't make any excuses for who I am because God made me that way because He wanted me to be that way. He made us all to display His glorious splendor (Isaiah 61:3) and I can only hope that I am doing that purpose justice.

And I'm different that all the other Katies in the world. Believe me. I'm met and known many other Katies and not one of them was like me.

So, because God made me Katie Walden, that's exactly who I'm goig to be. Not Katie Couric or Katie Holmes. Not any of the Katies that I knew in college. Not the Katie I met on that trip one time. I'm going to be me.

I do me.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139:13-16