Despite insecurities, all are 'wonderfully made'

My physical psyche, if there is such a thing, has had a tough couple of weeks. It started when three students said my hair looked the best they'd ever seen it -- after I had come inside from a tsunami-type wind storm. Made me wonder what it looks like when I actually comb it.

Then, when my son, Adam, mentioned at a family dinner that he was getting some extra skin--a "gobbler" he called it -- under his chin, my grandson, Drake, broadcast that "Grandma Patty's" was "much bigger."

Two more pair of pants were relocated into the "So You Think You Are Thin" section of my closet, and I'm beginning to research orthotics for my shoes.

If that weren't enough, I spoke in Detroit this past weekend and found myself battling a chin microphone that kept creepy-crawling up my cheek. Had I not intercepted it at one point, it would have entered my nostril. Fortunately, I was able to joke about it -- "Aha! A dual-purpose mic -- I can speak into it and pick my nose with it at the same time." More fortunately, the ladies laughed instead of gagged.

Even my emotional psyche, probably a little closer to the word's true definition, wasn't immune to attack. Two students, one's aunt, and I were traveling through Eldorado heading to McPherson to attend theater auditions. At a red light we realized we were supposed to be in the right lane. Lucy, the aunt, was in the passenger seat, and she, in a very lady-like way, got the attention of the driver next to us, asking if he would let us in ahead of him. He shook his head "no." I told Lucy he was kidding. He wasn't.

When the light changed, he stayed within an eyelash of the bumper ahead of him, determined we didn't squeeze in. Maybe it's a life-and-death emergency, we guessed. Nope. He just lolly-gagged down the highway, visiting with (what appeared to be) his mother sitting in the front with him. None of us could believe such rudeness, and we spent the next several minutes plotting what we could have done to him, had we not been nice people.

But secretly I sulked. I found myself taking the incident personally, like he had purposefully set out to reject me or something. Is that ridiculous, or what?

Well, it is, isn't it?

I constantly have to remind myself that God is the only audience that counts. Every so often, however, like almost daily, I am given opportunity to buy into someone else's opinion, someone who probably also has been victimized by another's negative comment or behavior. And I promise you this -- anyone, ANYONE who intentionally makes someone else feel inferior does NOT have a healthy respect for him/herself. Yet most of us buy into their criticism, and even if they don't intend to be derogatory, our insecurities will find a way to make us think they do.

Psalm 139:14 says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Isn't that worth remembering? We Christians are sons and daughters of the King, heirs to eternal life. Once we really get our psyches, both physical and emotional, wrapped around that thought, those negative moments shouldn't have any chance to affect us.

In the meantime, however, if you're driving through Eldorado, Kan., and spot a large white suburban with a rude-looking man in the driver's seat, roll down your window and tell him he should have treated us more kindly but that, lucky for him, I'm over it now.

Well, sort of.