It's the little things that seperate
the good from the great.
-bob schneider

"Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy...Remember Cedric Diggory." -Dumbledore

I don't know if I'd be mature enough to admit this to any of the people who are closest to my soul, out loud, so I'm going to start here. In 2D, black and white. Simple.

There's this alter ego in me, and she's dangerous. I mean, the woman every other woman wants to slap hard, the one that respectable people avoid eye contact with when she walks by. Better yet, they avoid her local spots altogether. She prances and preens, and sleeps with married men when she gets bored (just for the sake of gaining a bigger ego, so she can lay it at the altar of her vanity). She never calls back, feels completely detached from her body, and cares about herself so much as to elevate her needs above those of the world.

Sometimes, on the heavy days (aka the ones where just navigating with a GPS is almost too much and the only places to stop and eat never have fresh fruit, only fried fritters. Seriously? Fritters?!? Where'd my soul go???), the despairing days, I think she is me. All of me, and the whole wall between that me and the world is a thin piece of pearl-colored tissue paper that is a strong breath away from tearing apart, releasing chaos and doubt and a confirmation that everything the world knew about me was right. It just had to wait a little while longer to see it happen in me than in some people.

But then I suddenly hear another voice, one that tells me that presenting myself as a "living sacrifice" involves daily choices, hard ones. It struck me how many decisions take place in day-to-day living, and how conscious and alert I have to be in order not to let something slide. And yes, adding a Harry Potter quote is kind of cheesy, but I think about that all the time. And how every decision is in itself a small test, and if you choose out of goodness and kindness and self-control and faithfulness and joy and truth, I imagine that it causes this miniature explosion within your heart, or something, and a little of the good residue from that explosion sticks to your insides, and stays there. And then the next time a similar situation arises, it's like having a vaccine within you, that makes it easier to welcome in the good decision, and harder to go along with the stupid one (which for the record in my mind also explodes, but every time it explodes within you it rips something out of you, leaving a small hole in its wake).

And after thinking about it I realize that every time I don't choose the easy, enticing whatever-it-is, that in itself means I am not the alter-me. We are forever seperated by a chasm of choices over the years, and even if I start to build a bridge over to her, one right decision is all it takes to burn it down. And God knows how much everyone can handle, and I know that everything set before me is His strengthening process...He's not trying to lure me into something bad, but molding situations into a potential character/spiritual muscle-building pattern. So that when the really really huge situations come up, I can (hopefully) lift them out of the way, no problem.

Anyway, I don't know about any answers, or whether this came out the way it was supposed to, but it came out. So it's a start. And since Denver is tomorrow morning, and finally meeting my YWAM people, I should hit the hay. Take care...