So, I'm finally checking my blog from the crowded computer lab of the Rockford Public Library (trying not to think how many germs are on this keyboard and feeling thankful for hand sanitizer).
Carl, it seems, is threatening to pull out old videos of my sixth grade self. Really, Carl, you were there. You know how icky that would be.
It's funny, but I've thought about that girl some this week already. She was so skinny and self-conscious, tripping around in her too-long plaid uniform skirt with the too-long mass of red hair, always wishing away her big glasses and buck-teeth. She hid from reality a lot in any book she could get her hands on. Occasionally her friends forced her out. Let's see, we had Pleasant, Karyn, Lisa, Stephanie, and Angie that year. I think it was called "United Sixth Grade." Frightening that I remember that. United could have been left out, though, since we fought all the time. Alliances were made and broken, the black top was a battlefield on the days we weren't laughing together. We fought about boys and other friends and petty misunderstandings and boys. The one with the loudest mouth and the biggest vocabulary often won-- and then I'd go back to my book.
I'm thankful that so much has changed. Now, friendships are more valuable and their maintenance is taken seriously. The Biblical principle of going to a friend in private when you learn of a problem is practiced more faithfully. I'm always so thrilled to walk away rejoicing after finding out that there was no problem or after resolving it while it was so small. Friendships are strengthened, and communication lines are kept clear and open.
It doesn't always happen so smoothly, of course. Sometimes you walk away rejoicing and find out days later that second and third and fourth parties have turned something simple into something like an avalanche. It's then that I bump into her: her, the sixth grade me who wants to come out kicking and screaming with frustration. Change is realized when I watch her shouts turn to tears. Grace is poured out when she can follow wise counsel and sit tightly with her mouth shut. That's so unnatural. When confronted with a discouraging, "I heard that she said that he said...", my mouth actually opened and said, "I can't listen to that. He or she should talk to me to my face. I will not listen to or act upon second-hand information anymore." Bizarre and amazing.
I'm sure I'll suffer a relapse. Sins of the tongue and heart are besetting until we die. I just pray that I can somehow hold onto this joy of a clean conscience for a little while, that I can continue to resist the urge of detailed self-defense, that I can focus my thoughts on the One who really matters, that I can keep from bitterness at finding out that other people are just as sinful as I am.
Go ahead and pull out the Ollie Octopus video, Carl. I can take seeing that girl again. I need all the reminders I can get to go forward. I don't want to fall back into being her again, unless it's weight-wise. :-)
