Perspective

Today I attended a funeral for a classmate from high school. The people I saw at the service were friendly and kind.  It was good to see them and to remember Nicole.   

Being back with people from high school was interesting, though. What it brought up in me was a old familiar and unwelcome feeling of smallness.  Not youth…but smallness.  It didn’t have to do with them; it had to do with who I was growing up.

I don’t know when the feeling started; I would guess it was during sixth grade when I was shunned by all the girls I grew up with, but it could have been even earlier. I started to feel small, unimportant, even invisible. A lifelong struggle with self-image ensued. I was quiet, I was shy, I did not stand out, maybe I was a wall flower.  I hesitate to say that because I definitely didn’t feel like a flower most of the time.

I did have friends, and I did have a few places where I could be myself and not feel small. Church, the band room, a few of my classes, but other places I was just the soft blue flower on the bathroom wall in my house growing up. Blending in.

In July I skipped my high school reunion. In some ways, I have regretted it. I may have made connections with some of the great people I saw today. But I can tell why I didn’t go…it was that feeling. It was the idea of being small again.

I don’t feel small in my life right now. Even though I know I am just a piece of God’s puzzle, I know that I am significant to Him and that I have friends and family who cherish me. Wow!  But that’s not new…just my ability to see and feel it is. 

Thanks Jesus for slowly building my sense of myself into a woman who is small, but who You make important and special because of who You are.