"the beginning" i suppose

I was sitting at a hibachi grill "that will change your life" (or so it's 

been said...), and in between conversation about mixed martial arts 

and ninja warriors, Ben and Chris motivated me (through song and 

dance...or something like that) to start a blog. They're not the first to mention it, though. Although I'll go ahead and give them partial 

credit. They need it.

The problem is that my over-analytical nature doesn't allow me to write anything quickly. It takes me forever to construct even a single sentence. If you were to see how many times I deleted and rewrote the previous 2 sentences, you'd probably go crazy. And in between this sentence and the last, there was about a five minute window where I got distracted by some statistics on Randy Johnson's career number of strikeouts...

I am a writer. My thoughts appear in my mind like words on a page. I love telling stories. I find it easy to talk about myself. They say that writers are quite possibly the most narcissistic people in the world. I've never claimed to be an example of great humility, so that may occasionally be true of myself. 

But my writing doesn't usually come out of a self-love. Rather, it's a reminder of my humility. When I kept a blog in high school and college, I would occasionally go back and read my earlier posts. And it was like looking at an old photograph album. I couldn't believe how young I sounded...how much I thought I had the world figured out, when in reality I had very little discovered. It was always tempting to delete these posts and start fresh. I didn't find it very enjoyable to have my imperfection displayed for everyone to go back and read. 

There's something beautiful about a person who is fully aware of their imperfection. Perhaps this is because imperfection is real. We see it everywhere--in our family, in our church, in our world. And somehow, we always react as though we are surprised by it. We're always talking about people's mistakes as though it is shocking news. "Do you know what he did?" "Can you believe what she said?" To assume that worldly things will be perfect is believing a lie...and psychologically speaking, that defines you as insane.

I want to be a person that knows that imperfection is reality, both in myself and those that I am called to serve. Because when I realize my own imperfection, I recognize my desperate need for a love that transcends our humanity and a grace that is given to us despite the fact we rarely have things figured out like we think we do.

your sister,

Amy