excessive self satisifaction = humbling tumbles

boasting. never a good thing. pride is something that almost all cultures, religions, worlds agree on: pride is never an attractive thing. boast - an act of talking with excessive pride and self satisifaction. does reading that definition make you cringe? it makes me cringe. especially because, though this post is somewhat a joke, i've been boasting about something too much in the past few years. embarassed? me? no way. "oh, it takes a lot to embarass me!" how many times have i pridefully stated this? the good lord has felt the need to humble me in the past few weeks/months. i used to think it was a good thing to not get embarassed, to not feel ashamed of what i'm wearing or the weird things i say, to not be ashamed that i sing in the car too loudly with windows down, that i talk in english accents, whatever. do not put too much weight in what others say, right? isn't what that embarassment is? caring too much what others think and feeling shame? well, fasten your seatbelts. here we go. it started at school. marker on my face in the fall semester, and none of my kids told me for a few hours=me not embarassed. but, flash forward to the week before spring break. i'm wearing cute patton wedges and a nice skirt, had an important meeting after school. while headed back to my classroom after the copyroom, i fell flat on my face. i slid on a giant puddle near the water fountain, landed on my knees, both of which hurt for a few days, and turned bright red as i stood up. i immediately looked behind me; there was no one around, which was worse to me than if people had been there. i had to laugh and assure myself i'm not an idiot, instead of have someone else do it for me. then came dancing at the rodeo. i normally am confident at twostepping, learned in elementary school, perfected it in college station. if there's one things aggies know how to do it's twirl and two step, right? i can follow almost anyone and i learned how to do the pretzel very quickly. shoot, how many guys have i taught to two step? if we're being honest, between young life camp and dc, it's at least 15. while i would never win any contests, i consider myself a tiny bit above average, at least able to hold my own. well, then, completely sober, i fell TO THE FLOOR while two stepping with someone i don't know very well. to the floor. who does that? who does that? no one. and definitely not normal people, which is what i usually am trying to be. i was, in a word, mortified. klutz. chubster. klutz. idiot. klutz. i was naseous for the next few hours, so embarassed. who does that?? even today, my face is red and my palms turning sweaty as i type... that brings us to the next day, while directing trailers at the livestock gate of the rodeo, i was wearing a walkie talkie, convinced i was a bigshot. obviously, right? then, a trailer grazed my backside while i was blocking an area off for a heiffer to load into a different trailer. that's correct, while i wasn't paying attention to my surroundings, a trailer hit me while driving 3 mph. two nice gentlemen ran over to check on me, and i was not scratched or hurt in the slightest...yet i looked like a blonde, walkie talkie wearing, 12 year old idiot. i texted my roommate as soon after. do you think god is trying to tell me something, i demanded to know? yes, she said. "OPEN YOUR EYES." right. she can laugh because it wasn't her. okay, if you're still reading, i promise i'm almost done. tonight, i got to church a few minutes late for greeting team. (i'm on the greeting team because i want to be involved at church, but i can't sing and don't have time to teach young children. so, that leaves me with smiling at strangers and saying welcome. hello, greeting! i am made for greeting people.) so obviously god needed to bring me down a notch. i riffled through the drawer where we keep the nametags you wear during your greeting team shift, so people can spot you as a friendly face. mine was magnetically stuck to a name tag that said CLINT. i set my nametag down, put clints in the drawer. I arranged my nametag and fixed my friendly smile on my face at the door. about 10 minutes later, after numerous people who know me well had already arrived, a girl i've met through teach for america laughed when i said hello. "well, hi CLINT," she said. what? i looked down. there, on my sweater, was my name. CLINT. Hi, welcome to grace bible church, my name is clint. do you like my floral skirt? Oh, that mighty higher power we're dealing with has quite the sense of humor. i can just hear him saying: "she's too self assured. let's knock that girl to the ground a few times, bump her with a tractor trailer, and make sure she knows she's not actually smart or with it. I am smart and with it, because I am." Thanks for laughing with me on this ride we call life. Hopefully I can hold on a while longer. John 8:58 Jesus said to them, " I assure you: Before Abraham was, I am."