I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. I’ve been so busy I haven’t been making the time until the last couple of weeks, when I’ve been making myself find time. I have really missed it.
One of the ones I’m working on right now (yes, I’m a multi-book reader) have several quotes that have really resonated with me. A lot of quotes actually. Here are a few examples:
“Inspired words have a way of getting under our skin and taking on a life of their own. They work on us. We started out reading them, but they end up reading us.”
“The whole earth is full of the weight and significance of who God is…the earth is drenched with the presence of God.”
Among many many more.
But this is the one I stopped on: “I meet so many people who have superwhatever rattling around in their head. They have this person they are convinced they are supposed to be, and their superwhatever is killing them. They have this image they picked up over the years of how they are supposed to look and act and work and play and talk, and it’s like a voice that never stops shouting in their ear….You have to kill your superwhatever. And you have to do it right now.”
I don’t know if it’s that easy, to just take it out back and shoot it. I’d like to think it is.
It’s funny (funny-weird, not funny-haha) that so much of what I have been reflecting on lately runs right along with those lines, just in a more muted manner.
Things I have said lately: “You ever feel like you can’t even get into your own head bc there are so many other people in it?”
“Some days I think I know who I want to be and where I want to head. But I just can’t figure out how to make it all work. Some days I feel like all I am doing is treading hard to keep afloat. Most days I feel like I’m on a trail that forks in about 8 different directions and have no idea which way to take.”
“I’ve spent so long trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be, I don’t even know who I am.”
Sometimes I think I see it down deep, but I feel like she is hidden under so many layers, I don’t know how to get to her.
I have even done two blog posts lately on not being superwoman, or just like so-and-so.
The book said to kill my superwhatever. But I’m still not sure what the whatever is. I’m not superbroker. I’m not supermom. I’m not superwife, or superdaughter. I’m not superteacher, or superworker, or superauthor.
I just had a vision. In the movie Spider-Man: Homecoming, there’s scene where they are fighting on a ferry, the result of which has the ferry split almost in two. Spidey starts web-slinging to try to pull the boat back together. He calculates and throws webs, and ties it in all kind of knots. Then the webs start breaking under the strain. Peter jumps back in and shoots a web to each side to try to physically pull the two halves together, putting himself in a great strain. At the last second, the ferry miraculously stops pushing itself apart. Lo and behold, thankfully, Iron Man has shown up to save the day.
Sometimes I feel like poor Peter.
Doing my best. Stretched in every direction, but still not achieving anything, despite my best efforts. Giving a little of myself in every direction, but none of it is ever enough.
SuperYesman? Superservant? Not even that. SuperPeoplePleaser? How do you kill that off? When you feel like you are supposed to help others and be “all things to all men” (even though I know that’s not what he meant). When you don’t know how to say no. When helping temporarily turns into longterm and you are tired. When you feel like if you don’t, no one will. When you don’t want to let anyone down. When saying no feels selfish, and you’re trying to be selfless.
I don’t have the answers. If we are talking Superman, I haven’t found the right kryptonite yet.
Even typing that sounds wrong. Why do we want to take out Superman??
Oh, yeah. Bc in this scenario, Superman is actually killing us.
You know, it’s kind of like how Batman always keeps a piece of kryptonite in his utility belt. Just in case.
So how do you take out something you can’t define? Something you have been for so many years it now feels like a part of you? How do you learn to be something different, even if the different is who God made you to be?
My guess is lots of prayer and contemplation. Time with God, allowing Him to mold and refine. Easy? No. Refinement happens in the fire. But when we come through the fire, we are purer and reflect His image, His glory. Still flawed, yes, but better than before. Closer to what He wants me to be. I’m not there yet. But every fire I go through, and every moment I spend with Him brings me closer. Closer to giving up trying to be SuperWhatever.
Because I’m not a SuperHuman. I’m not a SuperAnything. I’m not super at all. But He is. He is a super God.
