Living isn’t for the faint at heart. Existing merely takes breathing, but living…now that’s a different story. Frankly speaking, it isn’t always easy to get your stuff together and move on. In fact, sometimes it can feel like an insurmountable mountain of childhood issues, broken dreams and damaged relationships.
 
Growing up requires tons of acceptance, heaps of forgiveness and faith that all of your efforts are not in vain. For me, one of the hardest parts about it is questioning who I am right now. I struggle with the fact that sometimes I feel completely clueless about the one thing I should be an expert on and that is me!
 
Recently, I started reading Cure For the Common Life: Living In Your Sweet Spot by Max Lucado. The book is filled with various self exploration exercises designed to help readers find their sweet spot—the place where purpose, passions and gifts align. Normally, I read the books but I don’t always commit the time and discipline it takes to doing the exercises. Honestly, sometimes I don’t want to do the digging because I’m afraid of what I’ll find.
 
Well, this time, I want something different so I have made a commitment to doing all the heart and hard work. I sat down and started one of the exercises and as I thought about my life it dawned on me that my “happy” childhood was “happy,” but not as fulfilling as I once thought it to be. As I worked through the first exercise I realized that while my fairly strict upbringing had many benefits, I was forced to stifle parts of my nature in order to abide by some of my parents’ rules.
 
By nature, I love adventure and knowledge. (Not the bungee jumping kind of adventure but the thrill of learning a language simply because it is something new.)My iPod is filled with everything from Mozart and Beethoven to Dolly Parton, Celia Cruz and Fred Hammond. Something about all of these artists represents a part of me needing expression. In many ways, I don’t believe in playing it safe. I am always willing to forego the things I like because I know the thing I haven’t tried just might be something I could love. It doesn’t bother me that I never know whether I’ll love it or hate it, because I believe you never know what you’ll love, until you find out exactly what it is that you hate. It thrills me to travel to new and different places where I meet people who look and act nothing like me.(So you can imagine that it is a struggle being that lifeaholic, while at the same time being a woman who can be so self-conscious that I rarely dance at parties.)
 
In life, we can spend so much time doing what is expected of us or doing what others around us do that we lose sight of who it is we really are and what we really want. As I shared my recent self discovery with a friend, I found my best example in the cartoon movie Ice Age 2: The Meltdown.In the movie Ellie (voiced by Queen Latifah) is a mammoth raised by a family of possums. Because she loves her family and they love her, everything is fine…except for the fact that Ellie doesn’t realize she’s a mammoth. Because of this she hangs from trees, fears traveling in the daytime because a bird of prey might swoop down to kill her and does everything else possums do.
 
When Ellie meets Manny, a fellow mammoth, he confronts her with the truth—she is not who she thought she was. Rather than being a possum, she is a mammoth, a species she believes is on its way to extinction. Initially resistant, Ellie eventually accepts what she is. In doing so, she finally understands the reason why some things were the way they were. She understands why the boy possums didn’t find her attractive and why the trees keep breaking underneath her weight. Self-acceptance gave her the strength to appreciate her differences and to recognize her beauty.
 
I think many of us are like Ellie and we’ve been trying to figure out why some things just don’t work for us. I would venture to say some of the times it is because we don’t honor who we truly are in the way we live our lives. God made us for His glory and that glory can only be revealed as we answer the age old question, who am I…a possum or a mammoth?
 
For me, part of growing up is now about reawakening parts of me silenced in childhood and ignored in adulthood. It means going out to do the little things I always wanted to but was too afraid to try. It means risking the awkwardness that I so frequently shy away from and giving myself permission to look a little silly as I try the things of my childhood dreams.
 
Finding what we love and excites us and then taking the courage to pursue it will lead us to our sweet spot. The road there may not always be easy, but the joy we find in the sweet spot is worth every bit of effort!