I Am Who I Am

Recently I went to a restaurant I’d never tried.  It didn’t serve cheeseburgers.  They had a “pitcher” of water on the table that was a glass bottle shaped a bit like a milk jug from decades ago.  The bottle top was some kind of hinged cap.  I couldn’t figure out how to open it.  I was meeting a woman who wanted some counseling and I, by personal policy, insist on such meetings to be in a public place.  She had gone to the counter to order a coffee.  As I fiddled with the water jug, a male patron nearby watched me with a bemused look on his face.  I think I frustrated him.  Finally he said “Pull it towards me.”  I did.  It opened.  I thanked him and he said “Good thing that lady wasn’t sitting there.”

His point was that I would appear to be a helpless man if I couldn’t open a water bottle.  I said, “It doesn’t matter.  I am who I am.”

As I enter my sixth decade of life, it’s taken all of those years to reach the point where I really don’t care that I appear somewhat incompetent at opening odd water bottles.  Orientating objects in three dimensional space has always been a problem for me.  It’s why I don’t build things very well.  Some things I do well.  Some things I don’t.  It’s not going to change except the number of things I don’t do well is likely to increase when I get very old.

That’s a far cry from the young man who hated to appear fallible, disguised his weaknesses and tried to seem confident when trembling with fear.  In those years, I avoided doing anything that I could not do well.  Today, I don’t care if I look weak.  I AM weak quite often.  God made me this way and I’ve learned to accept it.  As Paul the apostle would eventually understand…

2 Corinthians Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” (NASB)

 

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