Guest Blogger: One Righteous Babe

Greetings, everyone. Since yesterday was my last day of teaching classes, today is chock-full of meetings and getting crap out of my classroom, while simultaneously freaking out and getting ready to leave for Guatemala on Saturday for 2 1/2 weeks! So to keep everyone entertained, I have lined up one heck of a guest-blogger. I'll be back next Wednesday, June 12, as planned.

I asked One Righteous Babe if she would be interested in writing a guest post, and she definitely doesn't disappoint. Bekka and I got acquainted after I caught a link to her blog and got to following her on twitter. You can read about the first time she and I got to meet in real life here. She is a wicked-awesome blogger and I thoroughly enjoy reading her stuff. She's got a lot of good stuff to say.

Anyhow, here's One Righteous Babe.

God isn't looking for suck-ups.

When I was a little girl, I tried everything in the world to get my Daddy's attention. I analyzed the man. 

 

(My "over analyzation" of things started at a young age. And yes I know that's not a word because I googled checked it. Learn something new everyday. )

 

I wanted my dad to like me. Respect me. Think I had great ideas. So, I found out everything he liked and remembered it.

Dad's favorite color was blue? I changed my favorite from pink to blue. Dad was a carpenter? I loved to work with wood too. I would sit for hours next to him in his shop and play in the sawdust or hammer nails into a throw away piece of 2x4. At the young age of 6 I learned the difference of a phillips head screw driver and a flat had. I knew the different size of bits. I knew in what drawer of what tool box his favorite hammer with the blue handle was in, and his favorite tape measure.

 

 I had too. I wanted my dad to think I was the best kid ever. The best he'd ever had. I tried really really hard. 

 

But it was never good enough.

Got the right drill bit? I wasn't fast enough in bringing it to him. Got a 95% on my math test? (My dad's favorite subject I might add) It wasn't 100%. 

 

"But Dad!" I would whine, "it's still an A!"  "Yes," he would tell me. "But it's not the right kind of A. You don't apply yourself Bek."

 

I hated to hunt, but would often go hunting just to be with my dad. And me and sitting still? That doesn't work for me.  Neither does camo. Bleh.

I wasn't good at basketball but dammit I sure did try to be because my dad was excellent at it. When I got old enough to cook, I would try to cook my dad's favorite meal. That didn't work out either though. There was always something wrong with it. Tomatoes weren't in season, or I didn't make gravy for the rice or make biscuits or WHATEVER. There was just always something wrong.

 

Then finally finally FINALLY I found the one thing that I thought could get my to participate in my life.  

 

Shotgun. 

 

I learned how to shoot and I learned how to shoot good. 

 

I became the best teenaged girl shotgun shooter for the state of Mississippi for 1 year in the 4-H.

 

 I was fantastic. 

 

Yet, the first time I qualified for State shoot offs was horrible. My trigger finger had started to blister and bleed because the trigger weight on my 12 gauge was very heavy. I flubbed up big time. But hey, I thought. I was the only girl that made it to State in the Shotgun division.  

My dad cussed me out all the way home. That was the first night I ever contemplated suicide. From then on instead of participating in my life, my dad had to be banned from ever coming to watch me. 

I was never never never NEVER good enough for my father. 

So with all that in mind... You can see how I may not have the best relationship with my heavenly father. 

When I was very young, I read that God loved Solomon. God was pleased with him because out of everything in the world that Solomon could have asked God for he asked Him for wisdom.  I thought to myself, "I want God to love me and be pleased with me. I'll ask for wisdom too even though I really really really want a new bike." I prayed for wisdom for years after that day. 

When I was a little older (not too long ago actually) I read that Abraham was God's friend. That's a big deal. I wanted to be God's friend like Abraham was. Abraham listened to God and did what God told him to do. I decided that I would do that too.

All of my life I was never good enough for my father. All of my life I heard and read, and thought that I was not good enough for God. It took me years to separate the fact that God is not my Dad. 

 

Ok well, He is but He isn't.

I thought I had to suck up to God because I sucked up to my dad my whole life. 

 

I don't have to analyze God to figure out how to make Him like me. He already does. I don't have to do anything. I tried everything in the world I could think of to make sure that God loved me without understanding the fact that He already did.  I JUST learned this. I can let it all hang out with God. I don't have to brush my hair and teeth before I pray. I don't have to pray what I think God might like to hear. 

 

(It's not like He doesn't already know what's going on in there anyways.)

 

You can be yourself with God. I've heard that all my life. I thought "Yeah right, He just says that up front, but when He gets home and sits down on His throne He tells all the angels around him about how much of a disappointment I am to Him."

 

I couldn't have been more wrong. You can be yourself with God. It's ok. He doesn't want you to match your favorite color to his. Hell, He made them.  He's not looking for a suck up. 

 

He's just looking for you.