Capture Me:: I Don't Know Why It's Me

It's that time of year when you're supposed to start up a list of everything you're thankful for. And then get that Josh Groban song in your head.

It's also that time of year when depression befalls a silent minority not because they aren't thankful for things but because of what they want to be thankful for that they just can't be. Either because they don't have that thing or because they simply can't be thankful for painful things the way they know a "Christian" should. Does it make them a bad Christian? Oh, just put that on the growing list of things to be concerned about this season. Then put your worries, your sorrow aside because, gosh darnit, we're having Christmas. Starting in October.

The rest of us go about our holidays feeling blessed and fulfilled and giggly and pity the ones that can't seem to keep up.

The thing is that I'm not entirely in either of these categories. I have a family with whom I love to celebrate. Who I love to celebrate. Two of my pretty apartment mates surround me with their work and their laughs and the sunlight is streaming in through the door, creating a glow off of our fake flowers (DIE blumen!) and, for me, life in general. I'm thankful for that. But I also sometimes (most times) wonder if "glowy" is really what I'm supposed to be going for. A lot of people spend their lives trying to make their family something they can be thankful for, or turn their pain to gladness, or to reach a contentedness with the people or places around them. There are those who deeply desire picture perfection and others who will strive to make it look like they have it. Especially around the holidays. Others know they won't ever have "perfect" and decide, especially at the holidays, that they just wont celebrate in light of that.

Then there are the me's. The ones who, by a lot of other people's standards, have perfect. Not that they are perfect, but they have an ideal situation. And they know that people are looking in thinking "yeah, if I had that situation, then I would be perfect. Then I would be thankful." People like me who are so genuinely thankful for having all a person could want but realize it's not all a person needs. Because if what I have is what people need to be "perfect" or whatever and I truly believed that, it says to other people "if you don't have a family like mine, if you are surrounded by people you don't like, if you're feeling pain, then you can't have the hope that I have." Which, of course, couldn't be further from the truth. And, ultimately, what I have is not perfect. It might be ideal, but it's not worth striving for, this aura of perfection.

Why?

Because once you get there, where I am, apparently, you still have this: "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law (or other people's definition of "perfection"), but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." (Philippians 3: 7-9)

Having close to everything by the worlds standards is that much more I have to be prepared to call loss compared to knowing Christ. Not that I have to lose it. Not that I can't be thankful for it. But what does the girl who has everything need? What else could I possibly want? I could use this sentiment to smile brightly at parties and call myself blessed this Christmas season and I probably will. Because if someone so rich and privileged as me can't get happy, who can, right?

But the girl who has everything needs Christ. Because the girl who has everything has more to lose without Him. And when all of it is gone, He is what remains. So I'll use the season to be grateful as I should, but I'll do my best to use it as a time to come to know even more how useless these things are compared to being "found in Christ." I'll do my best to use this time to come to and understanding of what that means. And how it should look in my life.

I don't know why it's me, the girl who has "everything." But in the meantime, I'll have this:

²⁵Woe to you who are well fed now,

for you will go hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now,

for you will mourn and weep.

^{²⁶Woe to you when all men speak well of you,}

for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.

Jesus' words. Words that say to me "be happy now, be thankful now, eat, laugh and enjoy good counsel now. But it just isn't where it's at. Because when the day comes that you're hungry or mourning or the object of unkind or untruthful words I'll be just the same. I'll be enough then in a way your 'good' life only appears to be enough now."

I don't know why it's me, the girl who really has nothing.

Jesus sets up the spectrum in those verses and tells the crowd that he's got the in between covered. Whether I have good or have have plenty (mostly because one day my "plenty" will be irrelevant) Jesus is where it's at.

He says "you're not good enough, you will lose your things and life will be tough." But he also looks at every single person, to me, and says "I love you and I want to help."

I don't know why it's me.

But, it isn't just for me.

And that is what I'm thankful for this season.

That and really good coffee creamers. I had to mention it. Just to take this post up a notch...