Me, me, me, God, me, me...oh wait....

Before I begin, I want to make one thing very clear: this isn't a sob story about how I'm a victim or how my current insecurity is a result of people being mean to me.  No, this is entirely about coming clean on a glaring area of sin in my life.
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I am incredibly and insufferably self-conscious.  I constantly scrutinize everything I do when interacting with people and/or cyberspace.  Questions of "How does this make me look?" or "Will saying this make me look stupid?" are, unfortunately, never far from my mind.  It's shameful.

What's sad, is that I've been like this most of my life.

I didn't have a lot of friends growing up.  I often lamented this fact to my Dad, who proceed to tell me that I have my sister (whom I later came to greatly appreciate) and that I'd meet my life-long friends in college.  I was rarely appeased.

Through a desire to have immediate gratification, I tried to pursue this one group of people in hopes of filling a void I thought I had.  Unfortunately, no matter how long, hard or how often I initiated with them, it was never reciprocated.  No friendships were formed and as a result, I became very introspective and self-conscious.  From then on, I've operated from a very selfish, appearance motivated, people pleasing mindset.

As a Christ-follower, this is the last thing I should be doing.  Instead of living a life devoted to glorifying God and dwelling in His love and mercy, I'm searching for people's acceptance.  When I feel like I'm not being accepted by people (i.e. them not reaching out to me, wanting to be the best of friends forever and ever), I berate myself, viewing it as "somethings wrong with me".  My "self-consciousness" ultimately becomes a pity party for me, myself, and I.  I'm being incredibly selfish and sinning in a big way.  My insecurity demonstrates an utter lack of contentment in what God has given me.  Even worse, I'm placing far more importance upon people's opinions, rather than God..

Jesus Christ didn't hang, suffer, and die on the Cross so that I can live a life spent worrying about MYSELF.  He died so that I could be covered in HIS Righteousness, so that when I stand before God, He won't even see ME - He will see Christ's Righteousness.  And here I am trying to be cool.  Geez.

I don't want to be the person that I am now.  I want to be completely consumed by Christ and a desire to bring Him glory, honor, and praise.  I want my identity to be solely found in Him.  I just don't know how to not care about what people think of me.  The only thing I can do is pray and ask that God help me overcome this area of sin in my life, and solicit the prayers of fellow believers.

"But I WANT that!!!"

So yesterday, Jon wanted to go to Best Buy to check out the new 3-D Nintendo DS system to see if it was all it was cracked up to be.  He was pleased.

While said husband was being entertained by the new gadget, I decided to wander around Best Buy...bad idea.  You're accosted by a Best Buy Sales person at every turn!...ok, perhaps accosted is too strong a word, but there were a lot of them, and I was asked if I needed help by at least 4 different people.  On one hand, I understand their plight - they're located next to, and therefore competing with, Wal-Mart.  Business is slow - that's pretty self-explanatory.  On the other hand, and unfortunately for them, we had no intention of buying anything.  Poor guys. To their credit though, their prices actually were better than Wal-Mart, at least as far as TV's are concerned.

Segue!

Yes.  TV's.  TVs are new, sleek, big, clear, quasi-affordable (without cable...but you can't NOT have cable..seriously...what's the point of having a nice tv then...) and Jon and I have been talking about purchasing one eventually.  I should elaborate on "eventually".  What we really mean when we say "eventually" is: way way way faaarrrr far far down the road.  I should have known better.

So, while trying to avoid the Best Buy people (in vain) down the TV isles, we browsed, checked out prices and imagined what kind and size we would like to have someday.  In my mind, however, I'm secretly getting my hopes up "It's ONLY $400 - that's SO much better than $500 or $600 and we could easily pay it off!  The picture would be so much clearer and bigger! etc".  Sound familiar?  Cats anyone?

I bet you can guess what happened next.  If you can't...well, we left.  No TV, no immediate plan of buying one, and me desperately fighting the urge to throw a fit (not tantrum, mind you).  For heavens' sake!  We can't buy a TV!  Oh the trials....

As I type this, I'm struck with one verse:

“You shall have no other gods before Me." Exodus 20:3

Wow.  I feel like I've been lambasted.

I have a lot to think about.

Ramblings

It's been close to a week since I last posted, and unfortunately, I'm at a loss of what to write about.  To add to this bothersome predicament, I can't NOT write something because I need to breathe life into this blog if I have any hopes of keeping it.

So what's my solution?  Well, as it's looking right now, I'm writing a blog about not being able to write a blog.

What's a girl to do?

Ramble.

Or I can give an update on my attempts at domestication.

It's quasi-working.  I made Ultimate Party Meatballs with Egg Noodles last night (Saturday).  It's probably one of Jon's and my favorite dinners.  Tonight was unfortunately a wash because I (by all accounts, the opposite of what I am trying to do with this challenge) had to work today.  Such is the burden of a working woman.

Tomorrow?  Probably Parmesan Encrusted (strange word to use to describe food) Tilapia.  Mom-Moore gave me the recipe.  It's delish.

Oh yeah!  The house got cleaned this weekend.

Verdict?

Jenn: 3/4 point

Non Domestication: 1/4 point