I'm Not Who I Was

 There is an age old proverb about self awareness that goes:

 

We have all known someone that refuses to see their actions as wrong or selfish-at least in the moment. It is as if the world really does revolve around them-it's their world and we are just living in it.

I think it is safer to play the victim than be guilty of acting a fool.  Being the victim to life's circumstances is like laying on the couch in your sweats, wrapped in a warm blanket, watching football.  It's  oh so comfortable .....I can almost smell the chilli cookin' on the stove.  

Speaking of football, Graham Gano, Kicker for the North Carolina Panthers, wanted to show us all what it is it like to be an entitled victim during his warm up time a couple of weeks ago:

(For those of you reading from your phone and can not see this video click HERE )

Thanks, Graham. Got it.

Wonder what Graham was thinking as he took the field to warm up?  I know what he was thinking, because I have had similar thoughts in my own life's circumstances:

"They are in my way!  I have to warm up! This is MINE! I never get to __________ because _________________.   ME! ME! ME!   I! I! I!"


His own voice was so loud in his head that he could not see anything else around him.  (Or, in his case, he couldn't hear the trombone that was literally playing in his ear.)


I wonder how many times, I have done this in my own life?  How many times I have been so fed up with my circumstances, that I could not see what was happening on the field because I was blinded by my own intentions?

How many times have I shoved a trombone player out of my way so that I could, once and for all, have my own well deserved moment on the field?

Chances are, after seeing it played over and over and over on national television, this guy is humiliated.  He may never live this one down.  Lucky for us, we are not public figures and we do not have to live the agony of late night talk show hosts making fun of our moments of self indulgence and temper tantrums.

 I have been Graham Gano many, many times in my day and can not promise that I won't again.. but I can promise that I will always try to see my self and how my actions will reflect who I say I am.

Do my actions match my words ..or do they scream:  "YOU OWE ME!"

I hope that  I  can live a life that proves that I am not who I was.

The Law of The Referee

I am not a big sports fan-but something I have noticed about referees is that not many actually like them. 

Why?

Well, I think it is because they don't actually play the game. It seems to me they just blow their whistles and point out when players have done something wrong.

We all have "referees" in our lives.  You know, those people in our lives who don't actually know us, but think they do and seem to delight in pointing out everything they think we do wrong....

Nobody likes a referee.

I used to think that I was being held back professionally by someone else's ego.

The frustration, the hurt, the sadness, and disappointment often felt suffocating.

Anger and bitterness became tension I carried around like a hot, wet blanket.

I poured and stirred gallons of effort to prove myself worthy- thinking that if everyone else could see how much I cared, then someone would fight for me.

The more I tried, the more misunderstood I was.  What was meant to be seen as passion and energy for the organization was taken as overbearing and questioning of authority.

Painful lesson, after lesson showed me that no amount of energy or earned popularity would get me far enough with my referee.

I was peddling 100 miles a minute on bike that never moved.

What seemed like common sense became uncommon sense.

All rational thinking was out the window.

 I had fouled out.

I was bad news-a loose cannon.  Too radical and pushy.

I felt black balled.

Inferior.

Offended.

Slap after slap, kick after kick, I was wounded but oddly, not tired. I still had the energy and the hope that God wanted to use me.

I decided I was going to leverage this space in time to ask hard questions about myself to trusted mentors.  What frustrated me most was  my referee was blind to how they were coming off.  It was like they had no self awareness.

I decided that I would be self aware.  Even if it broke my heart, I was going to ask those around me to give it to me straight-by telling me what I most needed to work on and how I could better see myself.

If anything good were to come from this hurtful situation, it would be that I would grow!


I refused to be the victim!

 Because I was "unqualified " to work at the job I wanted, I found myself at home with free time.

I was fueled by the hope that I had in what God could do in my life long term. God began stirring in me, the dream of "what if!?"


 In the midst of brokenness and bright flashing stop lights at what seemed like every turn....
God was actually giving green lights in other ways-I just didn't notice them yet.
I began to see my hard work pay off with opportunities opening to reach a larger community than the current  "gag order" that I felt sentenced to.

I wondered why I was empowered by this huge area of influence that saw my potential and gave me a voice, but the smaller area of influence that I had been rejected by, saw me as a nuisance?

The good slowly began to drown out the bad.

The once loud ego driven "referee" who blew their whistle and pointed out my fouls, was now drowned out by the cheers of those who believed that I am not defined by one person's ideas of me.


Now, I can see that God was using my brokenness to fuel my passion.

 I don't know if I believe that God used this referee in my life to teach me a lesson, but I do know that God leveraged my reactions of it to help me see that I am not in charge..and that his ways are bigger and better than my ways.

Let's all be life long learners instead of victims, and STOP listening to the referees.



C.S. Lewis once said:

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.


.. or, what Britt Nicole says.