Do you ever think of yourself and what you are known for? I do, all the time, mostly because people like to tell me…recently I spoke to someone from my hometown, had seen them only a time or two since leaving almost 35 years ago and they told me they were proud of me for writing and that they always knew I would do something like that because I was ‘known for being smart and bookish’…I smiled and thanked them and wondered, “What if I hadn’t been known as smart and bookish and still wrote books, wonder what they would have said?” Yes, I’m always wondering such things, probably why I make up characters who provide me with answers.
It also made me think about one of my books, SCHAE’S STORY. Schae was known for being a woman who had many men and was all about money, but, when she found Christ and started to live a better life, no one was trying to hear all that and reminded her constantly what she was ‘known for’. I talk to so many people who are stuck on who and what people used to be known for, they cannot see what the person has become good, bad or indifferent and they judge the person forever by that criteria. I love being known as smart and bookish, I am, but sometimes I am other things, like irritable, and opinionated, and divaish…yes, I know me. And my point is those things don’t make me any less or any more, they simply mean that I am a complex HUMAN~
What really gets me is when people say what Christians should be like, I often tell them that Christians are like any other person, with the difference being they are always working on doing better and continually immersing themselves in the WORD and believing prayer. I know of a woman who is in her 80s and there are still people who cannot get over the person she was in her forties…I am serious about this. The woman is devout and lives her life as best she can, but, the old stuff just never goes away.
I actually understand why that is, because it boils down to, IF YOU HAVEN’T CHANGED, PROSPERED, PROGRESSED OR TRANSFORMED, it is hard to accept or appreciate the fact that others have.
Years ago as a Job Corps counselor, I was astonished by parents who didn’t want their children to prosper, they constantly reminded them of ‘who they were and where they came from..” But, with prayer and understanding I came to realize they were just scared, scared that if their children outdistanced them, then they wouldn’t love them or respect them or something…and you do know that at the end of the day we all want to be loved and respected, particularly by those we love and respect. So if ever someone feels the need to remind you of who you are and it is less than flattering, remember, they probably don’t know you at all and they are speaking from a place of their own pain…Be gentle with them….
BE PEACE~~
Angelia
www.angeliamenchan.com
