Come as you are

I really like appearing as if I have everything together. I hate when people think I am incompetent. I love when things fall into place and my day just “jives”. I can’t stand when I mess up.

I don’t know many people that don’t feel this way, but because I spend 99% of my life in this body (what? Ever heard of ‘out of body experiences’?), I will speak for myself, and only myself. I hate hate hate when I do dumb things and this week I have been feeling a little "off" (so I can sympathize with this pooch).

This is a list of dumb things I have done in the last couple of weeks leading me to realize how much I hate doing them:

• Pressed ‘copy’ meaning to hit ‘fax’. Entered a ten digit phone number. Pressed ‘Start’. Walked away. Whined for about 10 minutes about the stupid person that was backing up the printer while printing a whole ream of paper. This idiot was me. That’s right, about 800 copies.
  
• Got two parking tickets when I get free parking in the lot 2 blocks away
• Lost my keys. Panicked. Cried. Called AAA. AAA unlocked my car. I found my keys 5 minutes later in the couch.
• I wrote a blog about my athletes foot
• Told my roommates boyfriend his Valentine’s day present from her on accident.
• Forwarded an email that said “wow, he was thorough” (in a clearly sarcastic tone) to the person that sent it instead of my co-worker.
• Told the whole World Wide Web all the dumb things I have done.

Told you I was having an off week. But appearing as if I have everything together is the exact opposite of how God calls us. He said “come as you are”, and I surely am not all together. I say this to remind myself and you that doing dumb things are small, tiny, miniscule glimpses at how screwed up we are. There are many, much bigger things that prove this far better, but these moments of, “Why the hell did I do that?” should cause us to be humbled and reminded that we are who we are—human. We surely do not have it figured out or perfectly calculated as to how to avoid these things, though many of us, myself included, try very hard to do so. That is no way to live. And in this state, exactly where we are, exactly where our roommates are, where our younglife kids are, where our parents are, where our friends are, is where we are supposed to show love and be loved, even with the list of dumb things we all do on a daily basis. So instead of feeling silly for these moments or trying to make excuses for them, just stop. All you need to do is come as you are.

Feel free to tell me the dumb things you have done recently I promise to a) feel better about myself and b) still love you.