She's a Good Guy

This past week while serving at camp, a conversation topic that came up often enough was how someone would describe me.  It all started last Saturday night at dinner, when a group of us staffers were sitting at a table and one of the male staffers who I hadn’t ever really talked to said, “Joy, I know I don’t really know you but from all I’ve heard about you, I want to ask you a question to prove if my assumption about you is true.”  Well, that sounds like a set up but the question was simple….had I ever watched Monty Python, to which I had so therefore his assumption was correct in inferring that I had a sense of humor.  This dinner time conversation only got funnier as time went on but that’s another story for another day.

This whole conversation though, got me spiraled in a self absorbed mission to find out how people would describe me to another person.  It was a rather vain thing to do now that I look back at it but I don’t think I quite understood the pride behind my motives until another unforgettable conversation went down.

This time, I was standing in a field talking with a male staffers mother.  I won’t recap the whole conversation, but at one point when talking about her son she said “He’s a good guy” to which I sarcastically remarked, “You would say that.”  She then replied, “Well, if someone asked me, I’d say the same thing about you” to which I even more sarcastically remarked, “oh yeah?  I’m a good guy?” 

The whole conversation makes me smile every time I think about it but it also makes me think.  Looking back now at my many self-describing questions, I can see that I was seeking others approval, or, if you will, “looking for love in all the wrong places.”

At the end of the day, I still don’t really know who I am.  If I was asked to describe myself, I’d say I’m pretty quiet and chill generally but can get really talkative, hyper and loud when I’m with the right (and generally small) crowd.  So who am I, at the heart….a quiet introvert or an extrovert in hiding?  I could give so many descriptions that would seem to summarize me but would also be highly contradictory to each other, so I guess I just need to go with the flow and let other people’s opinions of me go. 

Source

I  need to find freedom from the bondage of being enslaved to other people’s views of me but I also need to embrace the freedom of who I am in Christ and claim His perspective of me.  Yes, I’m still broken and yes I still mess up, but in His eyes I am forgiven and set free.  By His blood, I have been redeemed, pardoned, loved, adopted, and made whole.  By His grace, I can walk through this life with the help of His Holy Spirit to live in such a way that I will have less regrets and more confidence to just be who He has created me to be.  I’m not always confident in all of who I am but hello there, this is me.

Until next time,

In Christ,

Joy