sometimes you wish you were normal. now stop that.

I definitely tried getting up at 6:30 a.m. this morning to have a productive day.

And I got nothing done until after 5 p.m.

So I was jammin’ out to Ellie Goulding, on a roll with this website design thing, when my OWN security system shuts me out. (I told it to shut off at 2 a.m. for hacker-prevention purposes). Either I was wrong to predict 2 a.m. is hacker central, or… maybe I should actually go to bed now… 🙂

Nah. Storytime.

Once upon a time, today, I had a pretty crappy day. I was tired and achy and foggy and gloomy, for certain monthly reasons. I didn’t have anything productive to say at my meeting this morning, and I felt like an incompetent dork. I wondered why I was even invited to this meeting, and why people even wanted me there. I just couldn’t… words… this morning. But even when I shrunk into my corner to work on my computer, I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t words, and I couldn’t even introvert today. Who am I?

Every day, I fight this demon called Inadequacy. Without some kind of intervention, I’ll just go about my day hearing this dude in my head telling me,

“You’re gonna let everybody down.
You can’t hold a real job, much less whatever you call what you’re doing right now.
You’re never gonna be consistent with anything.”

I try to make up for my perceived inadequacy by trying to be extraordinary.

Maybe if I’m extraordinary in some things, I’ll average out and be maybe close to a normal person.

Right?

In the Church, I hear all the time that it’s not so much about what you do, but what God does for you. I even tell that to people all the time. But, you know? We still have to go to work. And do work. And perform. Even if you work in a ministry setting.

Whether or not that’s an identity issue for you, it’s a fact. Especially if you strive to live a life of grace, navigating the inevitably performance-based workplace is hard.

I told my dad today that I had a crappy day and a ton of work I fell further behind on because of it. And that I have a meeting tomorrow and I have to pretend I have something to show for what I’m getting paid. Here’s what he said:

You know, no matter what job you’re in, there’s gonna be weeks where you just hit a wall. And then there are gonna be weeks where you feel like you’re underpaid. I had one of those days today, too. I slept both ways to and from work today. [Mom, if you’re reading this, don’t worry, it’s a figure of speech!] Megan, we weren’t designed to just work all the time. Sometimes you just need to rest.

I figured he was right, and started tearing up a little, partly for certain monthly reasons. He prayed for me, and thanked God for not being this distant God, but for being a Father, a Papa.

(Wow, was I lucky for understanding what that meant, that God is a Dad who is safe, and who knows me, and who is close to my heart. I don’t want to take that for granted.)

I felt a little more human after that, so I was gonna try to intentionally rest by slacking off the rest of the night. But instead, after hearing that it was normal to have crappy days, I kind of just had this restful mindset, and that mindset allowed me to get some work done tonight, and really enjoy it. And even write a blog post!

I’ve never really had a “normal” 9-to-5 job. Why? Mainly, I would feel so inadequate. Also, mainly, I deffffinitely almost never get anything done until after 5 pm.

(I sometimes have this survivor guilt of living in an era where I can even work at night and it’s somewhat socially acceptable… when there have been people like me for centuries, covering up the fact that they were secretly night owls, and trying to pass as “normal” people. I don’t know if I could do that.)

Maybe you look up to me because I started my own business. Part of that is a desire to follow my passion or whatever. But honestly, a huge factor in that is this secret and persistent temptation to give into this thing that walks around with me called Inadequacy.

We all have things that walk around with us. But they aren’t us. And maybe even if we can never get rid of them, we can learn to be ourselves, precisely the person Jesus made us to be, even in their midst.

(And yes, this is why my featured image is from A Beautiful Mind. 🙂 )

So anyways. If you ever feel alone, or like you’re not normal, but less than normal, and less than adequate… that’s normal. ? I think. Well, even if it’s not normal, it doesn’t mean Jesus can’t (and won’t!) help you be everything you were made to be, if you’ll just ask him to help you be that person. And who is that person? A person of character, endurance, and hope, who looks more and more like his/her Heavenly Papa the more he/she grows up.

Everybody has weaknesses and temptations they deal with daily. People aren’t as strong as they try to seem on the internet to make up for their fears and inadequacies and other assorted demons.

My dad says he thinks every person has at least one daily struggle they deal with, that maybe nobody or very few people even know about. I agree.

Could you have hope? If there was a Heavenly Papa you could expect to show up and fill in the proverbial cracks wherever you fall short in energy, or mood, or resolve, or even faith?

But I’m learning how good it is for me and for people like me…
not to do this thing alone.