Know Who You Are.

 This is one of those blogs where I show off my own confidence but in doing so I am taking a real risk that others who may not be as confident as I am, may think I am being conceited or arrogant simply because I already know who I am.  I remember being a kid and literally walking the top of the six-foot fence that Daddy had put up around our suburbanized home's backyard. The fence was of steady eddy 1" x 4" x 6' stock style, wooden, unfinished, and in pallets of about 10 feet I think. I remember climbing to the top using the rungs or slats he had stationed the panels together with, or maybe he created the pallets, I don't know. I just used the inside board to climb to the top, and once up on top of the fence, I began walking along the 1" wide surface the entire length of the fence line. If I were to have fallen, and I don't believe I did, I would have ended up in the neighbor's yard either to the north of us or the east of us, as the south fence was put up by the other neighbors and it was a chain link fence. I couldn't walk that one. 

    It was on one occasion that I was trekking across the top of the thin but sturdy fence that my mother came out of the house screaming at the top of her lungs to get down immediately, she claimed I was going to break my neck. It may seem impossible to some to imagine, but I had a pang in my heart at that very moment; I knew right then that my mother didn't have the knowledge of a blue jay if she thought I was going to fall! I knew I could walk the fence, and if the wind stayed calm I was perfectly fine to do it any dang day I wanted to. Most people would have just jumped down I guess, but I'm a bit harder-headed than most, I suppose. I laughed and told her I would get down, but I needed to get to a place I could use the boards as a ladder as I didn't want to just jump to the ground from that high up in the air! Nervously she stood under me and tried to get me to come to her shaking arms, but let me tell you, I didn't have much confidence that she could catch me if I did jump down. Nope. I trusted myself. I was four years old folks, that was who I was at the age of four! 

    So, today, some hundred and sixty-nine years later, I'm still rather stubborn about doing things my own way. When I say I'm somewhat stubborn I mean there's no reason whatsoever for you or anyone else to tell me to do something, not to do something, how I should do something, or why I should do something. I'm absolutely OK with screwing up on my own and finding out the hard way. I've been so good at it for so long that the number of times I actually fudge up has dwindled to the point of being controlled. I'm good.  Leave me be. I may smile at you and even nod in agreement, but you can bet your last fat dollar that I'm always going to do what I think I should do. It's not going to change.  The ONLY one, and I mean ONLY one I have more confidence in other than myself is Jesus, and that's ONLY because He has proven to me over and over again that He really is the answer to every situation possible. 

      Why am I telling you this? Because it's important that you know who you are before you put on that paper mask and go out into the world to try and get back into the swing of things. It's not the same swingset you played on before, folks. We live in a very different and scary world that has become so accustomed to being selfish and independent that with most partnerships now, not marriages, they're calling them partnerships even if there is a license to be wed, with most partnerships now there is an expectation of living "Dutch" or I'll pay mine, and you pay yours. Gone (almost) are the days when a couple will have one bank account because one or the other of them becomes dominant or possessive with the money THEY earned. Can you imagine if you're a housewife or a househusband in the union and the breadwinner is not allowing you to make decisions simply because you didn't EARN the money in the account? It's a real thing. It causes so much destruction in a relationship, but I see both sides because "partners" talk and communicate, they know what the other is about, that is NOT what we have in 2023; we haven't had that in so many years really.

    When I say I am 100% confident and sure that I will remain single unless and until God Himself drops a man into my lap and makes the statement "This one is for you, Jude", I'm serious. It's been 24 years and I could easily go another 24 if I needed or had to. I do feel so very very sorry for those holding their paper masks and putting on the good front because the one you may end up with is not always the one you should have ended up with; the one who doesn't want to see the paper mask, but the man (or woman) who is behind the forced smile and fake confidence in themselves. If you can't show the one you want to spend the rest of your life with the truth about who you really are, and they accept that person, you, completely, you're in for ride after ride after turbulent ride; destined to crash, burn, collide and destruct over and over again. Don't do it. Best to stay in one piece by yourself than to be shredded of your heart, mind, soul, and psyche like that. Not to mention STDs, AIDS, warts, and more...yeah, it's out there. Some paper masks are paper diapers and what's behind that door is not pretty.  

    Just this: confidence is not arrogance. Confidence is not conceited. Confidence is just knowing who you are and what you can or can't do. It's knowing that if you screw up you are the one to pick yourself up. You believe in yourself and no one else needs to do that for you to carry on with being you. If you don't have that, then that's the thing to focus on first; no one out there in the big bad ugly world is going to let you have the time, money, and healing you need to make it unless God Himself drops you into the lap of the person He knows can and will do that for you. WAIT ON GOD is what I'm saying. Don't chase a rainbow when the Creator's hands are the ones in which to be held. I know, it sounds really churchy and overly religious, doesn't it? Well, it's time folks realize that normal ain't coming back, decent people aren't coming back, but Jesus is. That is something we can put our FULL confidence in without worry.

    

Photo Credit: fenceworkssnw.com