Wednesday, December 22, 2010

My Bad

I have some recurring issues.  You don't have to speak with me for too long to figure out what they are, and you might even get bored of hearing about them, given my intense pleasure in relating them, over and over and over again.

Tonight I decided to do a little research to see if there is a cure for what currently ails me.  So of course, I looked up the ailment.  And as I read about the best ways to fix this, I was forced to admit that the only cure is a cure of me, not a cure of The Other Involved. And in fact, probably no cure is available, maybe just some maintenance treatments that take the edge off.  I hate that.

I only want solutions that let TOI know that they are Wrong and I am Right.  Ideally TOI would confess their Wrongness publicly and then be transformed into another person who relishes my Rightness and enjoys only telling others about said Rightness. 

But even as I type this, I realize that this solution would not be sufficient for a cure.  Because I would still be me and would still need to be Righter Than Her.  I would find another object for my scorn and derision and at the end of the day, would still have to face my black heart with all its Wrongness.

I think Paul said something about a thorn in his side, right? He asked God to deal with it, but God said back, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”   And then Paul said, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

I don't know what I think of Paul really, but I suspect that probably this thorn in my side (namely, my mean-ness and impatience and Need To Be Right) won't go away anytime soon, so maybe I could consider a more pauline nature and trying to delight in this weakness and difficulty, knowing that it is probably True that God's power is made perfect in weakness.  I mean, I think I would like to know what it's like to have Christ's power rest on me.  I think.

Oh Life.  So full of goodness, even in the darkness.

3 comments:

Nadia said...

Did you Google your ailment and cure?

ACJ said...

Because God is a jokester, this happened: I searched my ailment on Moxie and found a relevant post right away. Read through it and all the comments. Somewhere on page two, I started reading a comment that seemed so pertinent and helpful. Around line three, I realized it was my own comment. F*&k. So, I guess that means that in the end, I googled for a cure and found the prescription in my own frikkin' handwriting. How awful is that?

Navigating Madre said...

Not to take pleasure in reading your pain, but that is the funniest thing i have read in a long, long time. So great. If only i could be as brave as you to share my weakness, but i am still so vain that I couldn't even begin to tell you what they are. Maybe i need to rid myself of vanity in order to move to the next weakness. ugh.