Word Problems

Sometimes I wonder if I should delete this entire blog.  I know that sounds drastic (and/or dramatic), but I'm so bad at updating it.  And on top of all that, as I reread my posts (which is more often than I'd like to admit) I realize that I don't actually agree with myself.  I guess that's natural.  I mean, when we think about growth, in essence, it's progressing into something that you weren't before.  So maybe it's a good thing that I think younger Selbouez was a bit off.  What's important, and also the point of today's entry (yay!), is that I'm still off.

I ask myself why I don't update half as much as I used to.  Since 2008, my posts have been on a steady decline.  Check the stats, my friend.  It's just that every time I want to write my newest and greatest revelation, I think about its reception.  Mainly from people thinking I'm a heathen and blasphemer, but also my own.  "Am I going to completely hate myself for putting this on the internet?"  That's basically my thought process.  And for some reason, that thought has been overwhelming lately. 

The more I learn, listen, discover, and accept, the more confused I am.  If I was dumb, I'd be jealous of the days when I was an idiot.  The trick that I'm finding is to not let that sense of confusion become discouraging.  The way I think about it: if you got to high school and thought "whoa, this is harder than anything I've experienced"…would you have quit school?  Would you have decided that since things were more difficult than they ever were, that it was time to resign?  That sounds ridiculous.  Especially in retrospect.  Because now I laugh at the idea that high school was "too difficult."  (note to self: write a letter to 17 year old Selbouez and tell her to calm the eff down)

The more I spend time trying to figure out how God and I are meant to be, the more frustrated I get.  It's like calculus all over again.  But it's a word problem worth figuring out.  God is infinite, but personal.  And I will never figure out how He works as the former, but I can definitely figure out how He works in the latter.  Step one of this whole process was figuring myself out.  Now that I'm full-steam-ahead on that junks, I'm trying to piece together how I fit in with God.  What does He want from me?  What is He expecting of me?  What does He think of me?  What makes Him happy?  What makes Him sad?  What makes Him lean back in His celestial chair and say "That's my girl!"?  

A word of caution: that part isn't easy (well, none of this is easy.  I'll save my elaboration for another post).  Because the moment you think you've got a piece of the puzzle, someone somewhere contradicts it.  And that's when I feel like projectile vomiting everywhere (that was graphic).  But it's ok.  This isn't their story.  This is mine.  And I have to accept that our stories and our Gods could sound very different; and how that doesn't mean that my story is any less true.  I need to stop trying to figure God out in the context of generality.  It works a little bit.  But it doesn't work a lotta bit.  

Here's to math!