Clumsy Thumbsy

(One thing to know before you read this is that I wrote this on Saturday while I was at a youth retreat.  I was running on 3 hours sleep and so it may not make a whole lot of sense.  But reading back through it now before I posted on here, I'm impressed at how much sense it actually makes!)

Sometimes I end up with some major texting fails.  I know I'm not alone in this regard because I have texted back and forth with a lot of people, and we have all done it.  Autocorrect is a gift...and a curse.  More than once I have told a kid that I would be picking them up in a black Sub...instead of a black SUV.  There are moments that make you laugh, and sometimes moments that make you want to send what you have written into the Ellen show.

I've gone through several of those in the last couple of days.  I will tell this one on myself, because it was my clumsy thumbsy that made it happen.

A friend of mine texted me and wondered if I wanted to come over for dinner on Thursday night.  I was teasing her, pretending I was saying that I wasn't sure I wanted to spend time with her or her family...which of course I very much did.  Finally I asked her, "Would you like me to come over for dinner? "  She said sure, so I said..."I'd love tit."  

Now, typically this is a "G" rated blog, but let me just say, I lost it.  And I know I wasn't the only one who did.  My friend and I were both laughing so hard we were crying, which is the absolute best kind of laughter.

So that's my Clumsy Thumbsy...or at least my latest one.  But I have other texting fails.

I moved recently, and when you move, you tend to go through things that you packed as you attempt to unpack.  For me, some of my stuff had not been unpacked since I packed it when I left Arkansas almost two years ago (still can't believe it has been that long).  Even some of that has been packed even longer.  And just a couple of weeks ago, I used one of my boxes to illustrate a point in a children's sermon.  So the other day, it was in my office and I went to get something out of it when I really started looking at it.  And I found something I have not thought about in a very long time.  I found my poetry book from when I was 13 years old.

A lot of you didn't know me back then.  When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer.  I would write poetry a lot.  Now...it was bad poetry.  Not bad as in I couldn't share it with my grandmother, but bad as in pathetic.  And with that journal, I found another one that my friend had bought me in college.  I texted her to show her what I had found, and as I was reading through the pages of the journal (there weren't very many written on because I'm really bad at journaling), started thinking how pathetic I was in college.  So I tore those pages out.  I mentioned to my friend that I was pathetic in college, and at first she texted back that we all have our pathetic moments.  But then she got to thinking.

She wrote to me that pathetic wasn't really a good word.  We were who we were back then, and we learn from who we were.  We would not be the people we are today, if we hadn't been the people we were back then.  Does that make sense?

If a kid came to me today and told me their problems, and they happened to be the same problems that I had back in college, would I call them pathetic?  Or would I uphold them in love and grace, embrace them in their brokenness?  

Looking back, I still have a lot of the same issues that I did back then.  Would I call myself pathetic now?  Sometimes I want to.  Sometimes it's hard not to let the negative thoughts creep back in.  The feeling of insecurity.  The fear that I have disappointed or hurt my friends in some way.  The wanting so hard to please everyone and be all things to all people.  

Jesus doesn't think I'm pathetic.  He thinks I'm human.  He loves me in ways that I can't imagine.  He loves you in ways you can't imagine.  And God created us to be.  The creator of the world knows our name, created us in his image.  God don't make junk.  God don't make pathetic.  Clumsy Thumbsy on me for calling myself pathetic.  God don't make pathetic.  

For everyone out there today...Be sick...be loved.

T

PS.  I realized today that I have over 1300 views of this blog.  I know 1000 of them came from me, but for the 300 times the rest of you have viewed this blog, I want to say I appreciate it.  Please feel free to share it with your friends if it speaks to you in any way!