Everything is Not About You

I feel a little strange broaching the subject of selfishness in a blog, because blogs, in essence, can be so self-serving. Bloggers vent their frustrations, share their secrets (be they intimate or food-related), and generally use their blog as a public diary, sharing things a bit too long to fit neatly as a Facebook status.

Now I won’t say I have never or will never use my own blog in this way, because I think there’s something fundamentally healthy for each of us in writing things out. I think when we explore certain topics in writing, we are able to reflect on our own thoughts and feelings a bit more objectively as we articulate them and reread them. That being said, I always have the intent to use my blog to share what I believe to be pieces of wisdom.

A post about selfishness, and here I am, taking about ME. I mean, after all, this is MY life. Shouldn’t I do with it what I please? That’s a fair question, and I think the answer is yes. But I don’t think that doing things for the self is the issue. I think the issue is not doing that which pleases us, but WHAT it is that pleases us. Are we doing something because of what we hope to gain out of it, or because it might benefit someone else? Can it be both?

I have what may be a radical belief as part of the foundation of my person. I believe that true maturity comes with the realization that the joy of others is essential to our own. “Joy” here can be substituted for “happiness”, “satisfaction”, or even “fulfillment”. I like “joy” because, to me, that word encompasses the others. If you are seeking joy, but are thinking of only how to obtain joy for yourself, how successful can you be?

I am a selfish person by nature. I am the first person I think of when I wake up and the last person I think of when I go to bed. I’ve met people who have amazed me with their selflessness and generosity. People who truly give of themselves unconditionally, and expect nothing in return. After all, no man is an island. I think if God had intended us to be totally self-serving, He would not have surrounded us with so many people. People need people. We have a symbiotic relationship with the people around us. Be they family or neighbor, coworker or friend, husband or wife, they are all, at times, our teachers and our students. Maybe I’m getting to philosophical for you, or maybe just too cheesy. But I believe that in every relationship I have in my life, I end up teaching and learning, as well as giving and taking. I think that is how healthy relationships work.

Take a moment to reflect on the closest relationships in your life. What have they given you? What have you given to them? If you are like me, you might find that there is at least one relationship or area or your life in which you could afford to give more. Maybe it’s more love, more devotion, or even just more time.

I want to be effective in the lives of people around me. I want to be like The Giving Tree (a favorite book of mine), and give every ounce of my gifts, not because I hope to gain anything, but because I have it to give.

Sorrow is Not Sad

For the past two years or so, I have struggled with anxiety and depression. The details of this struggle are many, so I will sum my experience up with a bottom line: I am a person who likes to be in control, and my sadness is not something that I can control.

Sorrow is a reality. Sorrow, like joy, anger, and all other feelings, will come, outstay its welcome, cause some effects, and be gone.

I often refer to the devotional My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, when I need a great, succinct “bottom line” from God. Today the title was “Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow”. Ultimately, the idea is that yes, God allows suffering and sorrow to occur. However, Point One: “it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them”, and Point Two, “If you receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.”

Point One. We like to blame God for bad things happening. So yes, God is all-powerful, and He has the ability to stop your pain. But I can tell you from the ridiculous amount of pain that I have been allowed to suffer, that I’m okay. Truly, God knows our limits, and He will sometimes bring us to the very edge of them, but there has never been a time where He tested me beyond what I was capable of handling, or perhaps more accurately, beyond what He was capable of helping me handle. God is not a bully. God does not sit upon a throne, and torture us for His pleasure. That is the very opposite of His character. What He does do is allow us the free will to make our own decisions, and thus, from the choices WE make, He does allow us to make our own mistakes. Mistakes can absolutely hurt, but is always there to comfort us when we are feeling out the consequences of our actions.

The devotional also says the “Sorrow removes a great deal of a person’s shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me.” So, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, yes. But also, sorrow makes you better. We become more acquainted with ourselves and with our God when we experience sorrow. We grow, and with that growth, we lock away knowledge, make better choices, and help others to do the same.


As a Christian, I have chosen a "life verse" from the Bible, something that I identify with very closely on a spiritual level, and more simply, Words of God by which to live my life. They are:

2My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations; 3Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience. 4But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. (James 1:2-4, AKJ)

I am blessed with a the strength to recognize hardship, pain, and trials as blessings. If I had to grow up without a father so that I might know the love of my Heavenly Father more intimately, and so that I would be able to minister, to identify with, and to have true understanding and compassion for another girl in the same situation, so be it.


I am simply thankful to know and understand God’s love. I will forever regard it as precious and completely incomparable to anything another human could show me. I wish for everyone to have hearts that are open to Him.