My mom made it.  She’s never made anything like it before or since.  It wasn’t a much-demanded gift for most college students, but I talked her into making it for me and have never regretted the decision to do so.

The fabric choices showcase the evolution of my style – all primary colors, some vintage-inspired prints, a classic floral toile for the backing, and a tacky yellow and John Deere green print that pays homage to my obsession of the moment.  What I saw in farm implements is beyond me, but I’m blessed with a family that supports whatever collection I’ve taken up for however long I love it.

I have a distinct memory of the female members of my family working side-by-side to pin it together with these crooked safety pins that are specially made for the task.  It was stretched across my aunt’s bed, and we all took a handful of safety pins and went to town.  My niece, a toddler at the time, played club bouncer for the room, denying anyone entry if they weren’t female and willing to help.

A quilt in a simple patchwork block pattern.  

It’s bigger than a twin size and smaller than a queen-size and fits around me, from neck to toes, perfectly.  The weight of it – a thin layer of batting stitched between the topper and backing – is perfect for me.  Not too hot.  Not too cold.  It’s been washed fifty thousand times so the cotton is crinkly and soft.

I have an anxious tendency to rub a plug of the quilt between my index finger and thumb and have mutilated a corner of the quilt in doing so.  I’ve wrapped up in it for nearly every night I’ve had it, traveling with it when able and wishing I’d thought to pack it when I’ve left it at home.  And, because I sleep in the same position each night, there are spots on my quilt where the fabric is breaking down, causing holes and rips.  

Over an extended trip to visit my parents, recently, Mom and I brainstormed ways to fix the damage after stink-eyeing my dad for suggesting we just throw it away and buy a new one.  Mom suggested new backing and new binding; ripping out the work she’d done twenty-five years ago and redoing it with new, unworn, fabric.  Reconstructing the old to shine like it was new.

But, I was hesitant.  That plan didn’t feel right.  My quilt, while far from perfect now, just needed some patching.  The holes and rips didn’t negate what a great quilt it was.  It still kept me warm and comfortable.  My corner, the worst of the damaged spots, still calmed my anxiety and helped me sleep each night. The quilt still functioned; it just needed mending.

There are countless stories in the Bible where God took something damaged and, instead of throwing it away with the thought to get a new one, He mended what was broken or torn.

There’s the story of Moses at the burning bush, his stutter and insecurities, the rips and tears of an otherwise strong leader.  God mended those rips and tears by binding up Moses’ courage and confidence in the realization that God prepares and blesses all those who are called with the ability to fulfill their calling.  God chose to mend a broken man instead of tossing him aside for a more eloquent speaker.  

Another story is Rahab whose life’s career involved men, money, and manipulation until God restitched her lineage and reputation to be far more noble and anointed than what her life’s rips and tears called for.  God saw past her career and offered her cause.  Where she saw disdain, God saw determination, setting Rahab on the path to righteousness for His glory.

And still, there’s the story of Saul who spent the first half of his life stalking and murdering Christians until God stepped in.  Instead of bringing death, bringing righteous revenge to someone who had no respect for His creation,, God mended Saul’s heart so that it aligned with what was good and right and sent Saul-turned-Paul back out into the mission field to spread the good news of Jesus.

Our lives, like my quilt and like these examples from Scripture, are almost never pristine and are rarely void of the scars of life decisions that weren’t what God had for us.  And, because we often move in the same direction even after having “learned our lesson,” there are often weak and unstable places where the fabric of our lives is deteriorating and in desperate need of His mending skills.

We have purchased some fabric to make patches for my quilt.  Mom is going to stitch scraps of fabric wherever a rip or hole threatens the durability of my beloved quilt.  She’s already done some work on it and will continue when I make it back home to Texas.  We’ve decided against new binding, preferring to patch instead of redoing.  Thus, my quilt will continue to be the perfect weight and the perfect size and provide the perfect comfort for me for many years to come.  Its life purpose has been extended.

Despite the holes and the rips, the imperfections and flaws, God sees the purpose and function.  There is no talk of throwing something valuable away because of a rip or a tear.  God just gets out His divine needle and thread.

Aren’t we blessed to worship a God who sees our value and worth, purpose and calling, even amid our rips and tears and holes?  While we see broken promises and weak self-discipline, God sees the future and how strong our walk is making us.  While we think our sin has stained us forever, deeming our lives worthless to the King, He sees a way to use it to bring others to Him.  

There is humility and unspeakable joy when we bring our lives to Him and ask Him to extend our purpose and make beautiful what once was broken.

No one has ever actually died at the hands of my driving, but my friends will tell you that they’d all prefer it if I wasn’t in charge of getting us from point A to point B on any given trip.  And, if I’m being honest, I’ll admit that there are things that I’m really good at but driving isn’t one that immediately comes to mind.  Poor depth perception, a lack of ability to estimate time, and an incessant need to look at whomever is speaking have all wreaked havoc on my credibility as a driver. 

In addition to my less-than-stellar driving skills, I also get to claim being directionally challenged as a potential reason why I’m not the designated driver for any weekend road trips.  I can convince myself that north is south quicker than a sports car accelerating in the express lane.  My mother and brother can instinctively know whether we should turn left or right when the way is unclear.  I do not possess this instinctiveness and will, instead, be staring at the license plate of the car next to us, trying to make sense of it’s custom vanity plate instead of checking the GPS as would be helpful.  

On a driving trip to Dallas with my mother many years ago, in the middle of one of the massive mixmasters that Dallas/Ft. Worth is known for, I missed my exit and rerouted myself, heading north instead of east as I should have been.  I had a small but mighty panic attack while my mother causally navigated us to where we needed to go using back roads and a general sense of us needing to go “that way.”  We arrived at our destination on time and not at all hurt thanks to my mother’s intuition and no thanks to my dramatic flair in determining that we’d likely never ever reach my aunt’s house because of my exit blunder and would be stuck in traffic for the rest of our lives.

Every trip needs entertainment, right?

There wasn’t a specific instance where I suddenly knew what God’s voice sounded like.  It was more of a gradual thing and only when I heard something other than His voice did I realize that I had a semblance of what His sounded like.

I grew up going to church every time the doors were open.  My brothers and I were expected and encouraged to read the Bible.  I was given a wide berth and a lot of grace when it came time for me to establish my own faith, apart from my parental influences.  And, still, it took me twenty years to be able to recognize when God was speaking.  I’ve never audibly heard Him like Moses did at the burning bush.  But, within my spirit, inside me, I have heard Him many times.  Promptings to do things that would bring Him glory.   Rarely straight answers to questions, usually more of a reminder of who He is and what His purpose for me is.  Nudges. And, I’ve come to realize that the time I’ve spent studying scripture helped me know what He sounded like, but it is only when I get quiet that I actually hear Him.

Attention Deficit Disorder wasn’t a thing when I was growing up.  But, I am convinced that had it been, I would have benefitted from medication to calm my active mind.  I’ve been told that there are two basic and broad avenues of attention deficit.  One of these broad options is when the brain is so focused on a single thing that it only computes exactly what it’s focused on, leaving everything else that’s happening by the wayside, almost as if it’s being ignored.  And then, the other option is that the brain is reading and processing everything as if there is no filter and everything is getting through so nothing is actually being consumed, intellectually.  The latter option is exactly how my brain works.  And, I find that being quiet and still happens so infrequently that sometimes I completely miss what God is saying in my spirit.  It’s not enough for me to sit in a quiet room with my devices turned off.  I have to quiet my mind and thoughts.  I have to stop talking – in my mind and to myself – to give God space to speak and for me to hear Him.

Similar to my terrible driving and lack of directional skills and the panic I feel when I miss an exit,  I am terrible about living each day as if I know what’s going on, insisting that I know what needs to be done and how it needs to be done better than anyone else.

I come from a long line of list-makers.  We Brants like a check-mark next to a task to show what we did with our time each day.  These lists act as motivation to get things done and affirmation when I can check them off the list.  I write a To Do list nearly every evening about what I’d like to accomplish the following day.  Some tasks roll over to the next day’s list if I’ve not been able to get everything done, and some tasks get scratched out because I’ve determined to do something different.  But, most tasks go on the notepad each night and get check-marked by the end of the next day.

Earlier this summer, I had this epiphany about how I’ve pushed and shoved my way through each To Do list without stopping to consider if what I’ve been doing is what God has wanted me to do that day.

While planning and preparing are incredibly important, I have to accept that if I’m terrible at directions and driving, chances are I’m terrible at guiding myself through each day.

And, if I’ve been given this Spirit, indwelling, to help me do what I can’t do on my own, wouldn’t it make sense to make my lists every evening but to come to God with open hands each day so that He can guide me to what He wants me to do?

With that thought in mind, I’ve started, just after my alarm goes off each morning, before my day starts asking, “God, what do you want me to do today?”

Giving God space to make my day whatever He wants has prompted a shift within me.  My daily actions and interactions have followed suit.  Most days, I carry on, working my way through my To Do list – emptying the dishwasher and calling about getting my lawn mowed and writing for a new nonfiction writing challenge.   But, there are times when I know that He has orchestrated something within the ordinary simply because I’ve given Him the space to dictate what my day will look like.

Doing this for even just a few short months has strengthened my ability to hear God.  On top of the scripture reading and praying, this simple question has opened a communication line that has connected me to God in a mighty way.

And what about you?  Are you a good driver and know what to do and where to go?  You’ll still want to hear what God has planned each day.  Slow down.  Take your hands off the wheel.  Let God tell you what to do and where to go.

Or, are you like me – flying by the seat of your pants hoping someone knows where you are and how to get you back on track?  You’ll want to hear what God has planned each day.  Slow down.  Take your hands off the wheel.  Let God tell you what to do and where to go.

And, see if this little question – God, what do you want me to do today? – doesn’t create space for Him to remind you that He has you right where He wants you.

I spent a long time in college.  A long time.

It took me five and a half years to finally finish undergrad with some semblance of a degree and, eventually, an additional two years to wrap-up my post-graduate degree.

Flitting between five different colleges and four different degree plans, I took a bunch of classes in all those years of college.  All kinds of them.  A little bit of this and a little bit of that.  Everything from Intro to Tennis (The instructor was cute, and I became a founding, card-carrying member of the Corey Hill Fan Club, sitting on those bleachers where I’d gotten out of, yet another, workout because of some ridiculous reason I made up on my way to class.) to Intro to Costuming (I learned a new, less-creepy meaning of the word “spiders” and how, based on my sorely lacking sewing skills, I should refrain from quitting any day job that might come along).

When I finally settled on the bread-winning major of Elementary Education, the classes seemed to fit me better. I relished the classes and soaked up the processes.  Teaching.  Kids.  Books. Technology This was what I was made for.

But, in every job description I’ve ever seen and signed, the phrase that brings the expectations portion to a close is, “And, other duties as assigned.”  Even a skeptical mind knows that this phrase is meant to encompass all the things that a supervisor might not have thought of and those tasks that might be added onto a position as things come up. I’ve, unfortunately, heard countless stories of employers who take advantage of that phrase, as if the words act as the contract of an indentured servant.  But, it seems to me, in my experience, the healthy space between the listed expectations on a job description and that line about other duties as assigned is where the good stuff is found.

One of my favorite places and time of learning was when I spent my days in an elementary library, reading to kids and helping them find books that made their eyes dance.  After a class full of four-year-olds filed out of the library one afternoon having just heard a precious rhyming story of forest animals preparing for a party while tip-toeing around a hibernating bear, one of my littlest learners stopped in front of me.  She dramatically stamped her foot and pointed to her shoe.  It was then that I noticed her shoelaces strung out behind her foot.  “Will you tie my shoe, Miss Brant?” she inquired.  I sank down into a sitting position, criss-crossed my legs, took her shoes, re-threaded the laces, and retied her shoe.  She skipped off, new books tucked in hugged arms, thinking nothing of what just happened, but I couldn’t stop smiling.

At that same library, I spent months teaching my students with severe developmental disabilities how to check out their own books.  I’d spent time teaching every other student the five or six steps to check their old books back into circulation and then to turn around and check out new books for the week, and while it took a little longer to learn and more supervision, my four unique learners were able to check their books in and out each time they came to the library.  And, as was my normal send-off, I’d walk these students to the door, give high-fives, and tell them that I loved them.  One of these unique learners who rocked an extra chromosome better than anyone I ever knew would turn around and point at me and say, “No!  Love YOUUUU!”  It was the highlight of my week.

Recently, I was called upon to discipline a high school senior after his failed attempt at being funny on a digital platform caused parents to be upset.  The kid was hilarious but didn’t consider his audience.  He didn’t mean any harm but certainly didn’t consider the effects of his poorly planted humor.  I started the conversation by telling him how funny I thought he was, how I had read aloud to colleagues the banter in question while we all laughed until tears rolled down our faces.  And, then I brought up timing and audience and how pivotal both variables were to landing humor.  I told him that I hoped he continued to be funny and that he’d continue to work on his delivery so that he’d get maximum laughs.  And, then I told him that if he ever did that again on a school-owned platform, I’d hunt him down.  We laughed because after all these years, I’ve gotten better at my own delivery to warrant maximum laughs.  As he was leaving, he turned back toward me and said, “Thanks for this, Miss Brant.” And, I don’t know that I’ve ever felt more proud of a disciplinary moment.

None of these instances fell under the official expectations listed on any job description, but they are the other duties as assigned that have taken up the most space in my memory.  They are, to me, what made each job fulfilling.  These other duties made every day worth it.

And, so while some employees balk at the vagueness of those other duties as assigned, I’ve come to appreciate them as being what really makes a position.  Underneath the expectations, usually at the bottom of the job description, look for the magic phrase.  It might just be the good stuff that’ll make your day worth it.

Back when drivers stayed in their cars and relied on gas station attendants to fill up gas tanks and wash windshields, my little four-year-old self sat in the back of my parent’s white Mercury Monarch with faux burgundy leather interior watching the experience unfold.

I loved the pleasantries exchanged between my dad and the attendant through the rolled-down window that Dad would have hand-cranked when he pulled up under the overhang of our local Amoco gas station. Dad always liked to learn each attendant’s name so he could answer appropriately when they asked, “How you doin’, Mr. Brant?” “I’m doing fine, Mr. Reggie. How’re you?” The simple exchange about weather and car parts and the daily grind leveled both men to a commonality that boosted rapport and built loyalty that brought them both back to that same gas pump some days later, like clockwork.

Once services were rendered and a gas card produced, the attendant would go into his station and come back out with a small, plastic clipboard, the gas card propped such that it stood up tall and out in front was a receipt waiting for my dad’s signature. The attendant would hand the clip board to my dad through the open window who would, in his typical flourish, sign the receipt and hand the clipboard back to the attendant.

Then, because magic sometimes happens in the most unassuming places, the attendant would peel back the layers of the recipe until he found the customer copy, tear it from its side binding and hand it to Dad. Well wishes and gratitude were exchanged, Dad would hand-roll his window up, and we’d be off to wherever it was we were headed.

But, my mind was still back on that receipt. Had anyone else seen that? What kind of hocus-pocus had I witnessed? Dad signed the top page, but the bottom page had his signature on it, too. How in the world? It was more than my young mind could process, having never heard of carbon paper or triplicate receipts.

And I’ll tell you, that magical appearance of a signature on a page that hadn’t actually been signed as happened with the triplicate receipts given at gas stations the nation over was the deciding factor for my decision, at the age of four, to be a gas station attendant when I grew up. I shared this news proudly whenever asked to decide my future career and was only swayed on this idea at seven or eight when I learned that being a teacher meant you got to be in charge and, being the youngest in the family and therefore always being bossed around, being in charged and bossing others around seemed far more magical than some old gas receipt.

Thankfully, and much to my parent’s relief, the teacher-thing stuck, and when I entered the workforce after college it was to be a fourth grade teacher and not a now-nonexistent gas station attendant.

But, what if I had continued on the path to becoming a gas station attendant?

Aside from the obvious salary differences and uniform expectations, I wonder how different I’d be as a gas station attendant than I am an educator.

Here’s what I’m getting at: my personality, strengthens, weaknesses, and talents were shown long before I signed my first job contract in 2002. The person who I am, the employee I was to become, the difference I was to make was stitched into my very being long before anyone noticed these traits in a job review.

We’re all in the same boat in that way.

The Bible tells us that God knit us in our mother’s womb. He created us – knitted us – with strengths and talents and gifts and weaknesses from our very start. (Psalms 139:13) He made us exactly as we are and exactly as we’re supposed to be. Our purpose in life – in every day dealings and in career choices, in the way we parent and the way we handle stress, the paths we lean toward and the routes we avoid – can be seen in little ways and sneak peaks in every person beginning at birth.

This is great to keep in mind as our kids grow up. It might help us through some rough behavior in their younger years.

But, it’s also really helpful for us, you and me. Once we find ourselves in the forest of families and careers and responsibilities and middle-age, it can be really easy to forget who we are and what our purpose is. Sometimes, in the middle of all the stuff, we find we can’t see the way. And, it behooves us to pause and remember what it was that caught our eye and gave us joy back when our peripheral wasn’t so crowded.

I have always been a people-person, and I’ve always been someone who seeks opportunities to help another. It’s no wonder I hung on every word during our weekly gas station visits – those exchanges highlighted skills, task, and talents that I possessed and in which I was gifted. And, the coolest part is that those are skills, tasks, and talents that I still possess and in which I am still gifted.

Lots of things have changed in the forty years between now and then, but who I am at my very core isn’t one of those things. The gifts God knitted within me in my mother’s womb are still tightly stitched into the fabric of my purpose and calling all these years later.

When my niece was in Kindergarten, at a moment when her teacher stepped out of the room and her classmates lost their minds and were running crazy within the classroom, she stood up on her desk and yelled at everyone to quiet down and to get back to their seats. Her teacher stepped back into the room in time to see everyone else in their seats except my niece who was still standing on her desk, daring her classmates to act up on her watch. She got in trouble that day for standing on her desk and yelling at her peers, but those skills and talents and gifts serve her well twelve years later as she works to obtain her degree in Theater Tech. She’s going to make an amazing Director for some huge Broadway show in New York, one of these days, and we all should have seen it coming from as far back as Kindergarten.

And, what about you? What is it that you loved doing as a child that has manifested itself in your daily life? What do you need to get back to? What beautiful thread that was knitted within you inside your mother’s womb needs a chance to shine?

It isn’t that I don’t appreciate a good vegetable;  I do.  I’m just very picky about which vegetables I’m willing to appreciate.  I have a preconceived notion that most vegetables are a varying degree of not good and should be called as such, making the appreciation process a tough one to get through.  It’s hard to love something that wears a repulsive name, such as, “a-gross-agus,” even if the name is self-imposed by someone who hasn’t ever even tried the vegetable.  Normal people might use a more familiar name:  Asparagus.  But, from the smells the cooking vegetable emits, “a-gross-agus” suits it better.  Immature, maybe.  But, completely true, if you ask me.

So, for much of my life, I missed out on vegetables that might have actually tasted good because I deemed them, at an early age, not edible.  I was exposed to most vegetables as a child, encouraged and expected to clean my plate at each meal where at least a third was covered in some sort of vegetable.  A combination of fresh, frozen, and canned, vegetables were present in my early years, but a struggle existed in those vegetables reaching full nutritional value because they were rarely actually consumed.  Oh, the plight of parents who battle stubborn children at dinnertime.

Eventually, childhood opens the door to adulthood, and there stands a grown woman who has adjusted her viewpoint of vegetables such that the basics (cucumbers, bell peppers, celery, and carrots) are staples in the grocery cart but who is not so far removed from the embedded suspicion of any other vegetable as to branch out to try new things.  Not on my own, anyway.

My friend, Amy, has a bit of an experimental chef for a husband.  He specializes in fresh vegetables that I, formerly, refused to eat.  But, somewhere in the midst of his sprinkling of spices and Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and magic grilling methods, I have accepted the fact that perhaps I have judged a few vegetables too harshly.  That maybe, when prepared in such a way, a-gross-agus isn’t as gross as once determined.  Brussel sprouts, fennel, eggplant.  Perhaps these vegetables have gotten a bad rap from someone who is, otherwise, inexperienced in making such a bold statement as to determine worth, considering I’d never actually tried them.

I’m not going to tell you that I head straight for the vegetables when grocery shopping these days.  That would be a lie.  But, I am going to tell you, proudly, that I bought cilantro the other day.  On my own.  Because I wanted to.  And, for someone who used to ball her peas in a napkin to hide them from her parents in hopes of convincing them her plate was clear of all vegetables, this is progress.  Mighty, mighty progress.  There is hope for you weary parents of veggie-hating children.  If I can be reformed, anyone can.

I watched the scene unfold while waiting in my car.

A teenage girl, no more than sixteen, sulks through the parking lot between two fast food restaurants.  Clearly upset, she hangs her head, twisting and turning, avoiding the teenage boy who follows after her.  He, obviously, has no idea why she’s acting this way.  His efforts to solve the problem are fruitless. He lets her walk, follows after her, tries to talk to her.  She ducks away, shakes her head, unwilling.  They criss-cross the parking lot, leaning on light poles and taking up more than their fair share of the sidewalk.  She, moving from place to place; he, following her.

Though not running, he chases her.  Every move she makes, he is right behind her.  She has given the impression that she is too upset to talk, and that his efforts will not produce a solution.  But, I call her bluff, sitting there in my car.  This following is what she wants.  She wants to be chased.

I know.  It is exactly what I want, exactly what we all want.

I used to belong to a small church where people would call me after a missed service.  Whether I’d gone out of town or chosen to sleep in, if I wasn’t in my spot on Sunday morning, I could expect a phone call or two from church members checking on me, wondering where I was, and if I was planning on being back the next week.  I was a full-fledged member of this church.  I taught Bible school for the babies on Sunday morning and put actual money in the collection plate as it was passed.  I saw these people at least twice a week.  But, those phone calls.  They meant that someone missed me; someone wondered where I was; someone thought enough of me to find out if I was okay.

Chased.

At my birthday dinner last night, my friends and family gathered at my favorite restaurant to help me celebrate.  Afterward, I got a text message from one of my best friends mentioning what a good time she’d had but how she’s noticed I’d been a bit quieter than usual.  (Quiet is not usually an adjective used to describe me.  When I am quiet, people notice.)  The truth is, hours earlier, I’d had a bit of an ugly-cry break-down, totally overwhelmed at the tasks on my To Do list, lack of time to do those tasks, and the fact that I was completely exhausted from trying to keep up with an insane level of productivity.  And, although I had gotten myself together and had done my dead-level best to raise my spirits and enjoy the blessing of good friends and good food to celebrate a special day, my mood wasn’t it’s normal high.  She noticed. And asked after me.  And worried about me.  And prayed for me.

Chased.

I used to date a man who would purchase grape, Bubblicious bubblegum for me at the gas station he used.  Popular among the adolescence of America, those big chunks of sugary bubblegum happen to be the best bubble-blowing gum on the market.  It’s my favorite.   But, it’s hard to find.  Apparently, the allowances of those adolescence and my infrequent purchasing isn’t strong enough to keep them stocked at checkout counters.  So, when my boyfriend found it at his gas station, he started buying me packages.  He’d slip them into my purse, never saying a word.  I’d reach in for my keys, and there would be a new pack of grape, Bubblicious gum, ready for the chewing.  It made me swoon.  My heart tugged.  He remembered a random story I shared.  He spent his hard-earned money on something he knew I’d like.  He never called attention to it; he just did it.  He thought about me.

Chased.

The idea of being chased has lost it’s shine in our feminist-driven, equality-focused society.  I’m supposed to feel empowered to stand on my own, to be independent of everyone else, to find everything I need inside myself.  And, I guess those things aren’t bad, so much as they are limiting.  If I never experience the high in knowing I am worth a chase, I miss out on one of life’s heart-fluttering moments.  Reveling in the notion that I was missed, that my mood was noticed, that my story was heard makes me feel loved.  Being chased is love wrapped in intent and community.

He finally caught her, that teenage boy and his sulky teenage girlfriend.  He finally came to stand right in front of her, cornering her, with arms outstretched in an “I give up” motion.  Her arms came uncrossed and dropped to her sides, giving him the opportunity to hug her. He kind of scooped her up and they stood there on the sidewalk in that awkward teenage-y embrace for several seconds.  It was exactly what she wanted.  The whole time.  To be chased.  And, more importantly, caught.

The text said, and I quote, “I like talking with you, but you can be very overwhelming.”

This from an attractive, single man whom I have had regular conversations with for the last couple of weeks.    And, although I appreciate his candor – a little constructive criticism never hurt anyone – if I’m honest, I’m embarrassed he noticed.  And, when I say ‘he noticed’, I mean he has two functioning eyes and a smartphone that notifies him upon receipt of one of the thousands of text I may or may not have sent him in the last three weeks.  And when I say ‘may or may not’, I mean that I have been a yappy dog nipping at the heels of someone holding its dinner bowl, so definitely ‘may’ is the appropriate word here.  I wish it weren’t true.  But, it so is.  I think he may have used the word ‘intense’.  More than once.  In a single text.  But, whatever.

I think I can be hard to handle sometimes.

Don’t ask my parents.  They will certainly NOT have an opinion of raising an intense child; of temper tantrums or sulking marathons.  They will remember other things from my childhood.

My brothers will have absolutely nothing to say about this matter, either.  Don’t bother checking in on any outrageous mustard fights that happened before school one day because I overreacted.  My brothers are not credible witnesses to such an event.

And do not, under any circumstances, ask my friend, Andrew, how many times I have walked out of a restaurant or hung up on him due to a misunderstanding or unmet expectation.  He has a terrible memory and will, most likely, give a false account.

I am hard to handle sometimes.

In the name of transparency, I say this.  It is not, at all, because I am proud of it.

God stuffed a whole lot of emotion inside this skin.  I feel things to the nth degree.  Emotions walk around inside me all muscled-up on steroids, bumping into each other and not apologizing for it.  The same strength of worry I feel for a friend whose baby is battle leukemia is manifested in a similar strength of pride when one of my students receives an honor for his chess-playing abilities.  The level of sadness in a negative response to a class I’ve helped facilitate is equal to the level of intense excitement in finding a new friend (cue understanding nods for Poor-texting-guy).

I’m, for all tense and purposes, a ticking time bomb of emotion.

This, as you can imagine, is not the best scenario for finding a mate, or being a librarian for an elementary school, or in just walking the planet hoping other people will like you.

I know what you’re thinking:  Zoloft, right?  And, don’t get me wrong.  I have considered it.  There has *got* to be a medical explanation for all that is Bethany Brant and her overwhelming-ness.  You’re not going to believe this, but Poor-texting-guy isn’t the first person to mention my intensity.  Shocker.  And, both times it has been mentioned – I’m lying. I’ve lost count how many times it’s been mentioned. – I have been in the same spot in my life.  The exact same spot, different day.

I like to be busy.  I like to run from one thing to the next.  I like my schedule to be full, my drive time to be exact, my entry and exit dates to be close together, and my day to end in complete exhaustion.  This probably has to do with my being single and the fact that an empty apartment isn’t all that great to come home to every night.  But I digress – another story for another blogpost.  Understated, I fill my day to the brim.

And when that schedule proves insane – and it always does -, the first thing to go is exercise.  I mean, I heave that mess right on out of the day with a certain vigor that might lead you to believe I didn’t want to do it in the first place.  The unfortunate thing is that exercise has proven to be quite the mood stabilizer for me; forty-five minutes of walking a track, jamming out to music or talking to my friend, Amy, has saved many a day…and many a relationship.  There is something about endorphins and muscles firing and my body being too sore, afterward, to even think about moving that changes things for me.

Worst still, when my day is harried, I almost always skip my Bible reading.  I took approximately thirty million Bible classes during the four (*ahem*, five and a half) years at the private Christian college I am still paying for.  I already know what it says. The problem is, being in the Word keeps me grounded in the things I know and believe to be true.  I may have taken thirty million Bible classes and know many of the stories, but when I’m looking to find my worth from someone other than God, I have clearly forgotten what those stories mean.  When a day has me befuddled and questioning my purpose on this planet, I have, obviously, missed a passage somewhere.  And, when my emotions threaten to take over the world in an extravagant, theatrical display, I have no other option but to accept that I have allowed something other than God to sit on the throne of my life.

Medication might be the answer.  When I have a spare minute (I’m sorry, what?  What is that, even?), I might consider talking to my doctor.  Bless her heart.  A soon-to-be-36-year-old, begging for medication for emotional outbursts that resemble a two-year-old’s.  She won’t believe it.  I’ll give her my parent’s phone number.

For now, I’ll hit the track.  A couple trips around the circle with Amy or blaring music that may or may not send me back to an 8th grade dance where Kris Mercer and I danced to three songs before I freaked out because he was talking to another girl at the punch table, (Run, Poor-texting-guy!  Run!) will help smooth the dendrites that get all worked up and start emotional fights in the brain.

And, a new Bible study sits on my nightstand, waiting to be started.  The comfort and peace of reminding myself what God thinks about me and my purpose and my emotions and the fact that He made me this way, on purpose, is such a beautiful thing to remember.  Such a calming thing to think on.  A much more productive emotion, as opposed to, that of obsessively worrying about my actions and his actions and your actions and why they don’t all sync in the ideally constructed requirements of what I think should happen.  Speaking hypothetically, of course.

I probably owe Poor-texting-guy an apology.  But, to be honest, I’m a *little* worried that his phone might combust.  Or, he might.  And, so, I’ll just hang back.  Way back here.  For a while.  Until he’s had enough time to change his phone number.

Life is funny.  Sometimes, circumstances open our eyes to see things that we already knew were there.  Sometimes, people in our lives allow us to see ourselves more clearly.  And, sometimes, taking a step back is the best way to move forward.

Given the time and an up-coming event, my friend Amy and I can log some serious miles on the shopping expressway.  We have different tastes but a mutual drive to steer each other toward purchases that will highlight our assets and downplay our trouble areas.  We’ve seen many a dressing room, re-hung many a blouse, and averted many a fashion mishap together.  It’s one of my favorite pastimes, shopping with Amy.  Whether we buy what we’ve tried on, there are always good, belly laughs and usually a meal involved – admirable priorities, if you ask me.

Sometimes, though, because of our schedules, we have to shop like this:

I’ll hear the notification sound on my phone indicating that a text message has come through.  Attached to the message will be a picture and, usually, a three-word message, “yes or no”… I have a katrillion of these pictures.  Some yeses, some nos.  All with that look of concentration as she tries to get her clothing in the picture and still be able to tap the camera button.  And, I don’t know what Amy does with the pictures she sends to me, but the ones I send to her become the standard at which I see myself.  They help me see what I look like. They help me understand what I look like to others.

I write for a myriad of reasons, one of the strongest reasons being that writing helps me process for understanding.  Being able to put into words an outcome or an end point, or a wall that I cannot seem to get over helps form acceptance and concrete contentment and solidifies the hope that there is more than a single circumstance staffolding my purpose in life.

I am, first and foremost, a believer.  A Bible-reader.  A Jesus-follower.  But, I confess:  I’m not very good at being a believer, Bible-reader, or Jesus-follower.  Some days are better than others but most are a comical show of me tripping over myself.  On and off-again, like a bad relationship on trashy television.  And, so I write to find the hope that tomorrow might be better than today.

These blog posts are more for me, in that case, than they are for you. Posts used to point out where God’s Grace is the only reason situations turn out well; posts that highlight my hypocritical nature in what I try to act on from the Bible and what is actually accomplished; posts that make me wonder how God doesn’t just roll His eyes and wash His hands of me, altogether.

But, maybe you’ll find some common ground between us, in these posts.  A mutual nodding of the head that brings us together in our quest to do better, be better.

The idiom, “Like the pot calling the kettle black” illustrates when a person is guilty of the very thing they point out in another.  I anticipate that many of the stories I tell will tag me the pot.  Or the kettle.  Both, being black.  And in desperate need of grace and mercy and reassurance and love.  It seemed an appropriate name for this blog.

The shopping selfies that Amy and I exchange from dressing rooms all over the Metroplex help us see what each other looks like in a particular clothing piece.  May you see these posts as selfies, too, helping you and me see where God has poked His divine intervention, mercy, and grace to make us do better, be better.