O Captain, my Dodgeball Captain

In many ways I’ve outgrown middle school. I’ve traded in my bowl cut, my baggy jean shorts, replaced my acne with back hair, and don’t giggle every time I hear the words “doing it” (plus I at least have some idea of what that actually means now). However in some ways I have yet to grow out of my middle school tendencies.

Insecurity reigns in me like it does on the middle school Dodgeball floor. Sometimes I am the captain and I get to decide who’s on my team, who’s cool or talented enough for me to hang out with, who I’m willing to invest in, and knowing I hold this power, I often use it not so much to my advantage as to the disadvantage of others. Other times I’m the sheepish, uncoordinated kid left wondering when he’s going to get picked. When does someone I look up to finally recognize my potential? When will a relationship ever work?

I have a tendency to polarize life into binary extremes. What’s even worse is that I live in those extremes, and vacillate between them, often many times within the day. I can be filled with hope that I’m dong the right thing and moving in the right direction one minute and in the next be ready to scrap the whole thing. One minute I could conquer the whole world with my bare hands and then next I can’t imagine what it would be like to uncurl myself from the fetal position. I can trust Christ with all anxieties, and cast my cares upon him and a moment later be consumed with worry.

I am completely secure about a lot of things in my life, and just recently I realized perhaps my deepest insecurity. I generally don’t care what my hair looks like or what clothes I wear (obviously), and could care less what other people think about the same. I like who I am and who I’m becoming and where I’ve been. I wouldn’t associate myself with the words insecurity, but it’s asinine how much a small insecurity can grow if unaware or left unchecked.

I wonder what it would look like if I grew out of middle school? If I could be completely secure in my own skin? It’s something that I’ve seen modeled very little, at least in the day to day. Unfortunately, the person who probably should have modeled it for me the most is too insecure to play at a game of Scattegories with the ones he’s closest to for fear of looking the fool. What would it look like if I not just recognized, but realized—gave reality to—the notion that life is not always a series of fundamental extremes but viewed it—nay, lived it—as a continuum, a mystery, as more than just an endless set of contradictions and trade offs. It’s not as black and white as I once thought, as I’ve always been told. That doesn’t make things grey, it just means the world as we know it is not limited to two color tones, but exists in the fullness of all colors, of unlimited color. It’s a world too beautiful for the eyes that are only willing to see it in dichromatic (let alone monochromatic) fashion. It’s tough to relearn everything.

I grew up in a family that didn’t talk about relationships, unless negatively. “He’s only a few years away from 30, why’s he still single? He’ll be bald, soon, you know. You can see it coming on.” “You got a girlfriend yet? Better get on that.” Being single meant something was wrong with you. At best, you were to be pitied.

My insecurity runs deeper than just being piteous, than wondering what it is that’s wrong with me, and even deeper than feeling like things will just never work out, although I’m sure those each have their place and make their own impressions. It is rooted in my perception of who God is. God, for a long time, has been my Dodgeball Captain. I get selected for His team when something goes well for me, and when things go bad, I’m left standing on the court wondering if (and why) I’ll be standing on the sidelines forever. And when it comes to relationships, it often seems like it will be forever (or the antithetic moiety it’s gonna happen real soon). “Oooh, Oooh, Pick Me, Pick Me!! When is it going to be my turn? There goes Trey, and Chin, and Josh, and … When are you gonna pick me?” It’s the inferior players that remain on the court.

Fortunately we don’t have to live in middle school forever. God’s loving me does not hinge upon him “picking” me—He’s already picked me, He already loves me, He is good and He is faithful and He is trustworthy. He’s already proved that and the circumstances in my life don’t change any of that.

On another note…my shrink, who shall henceforward be referred to as Dave, since that’s his name, says, “I wish you’d spend the same amount of passion and creativity in your relationships as you do with your facial hair.”