Ruth’s Reveries

I can fit into them today!!!

This is significant because for nearly 6 months, they were too tight on my finger. (Yes, +10 lbs will to this to you.) When I got engaged, it was during a turbulent time in my life, so I like to say I was really thin due to a lot of abnormal stressors around me. That’s my excuse. And this year, I mulled over getting my rings re-sized. And I’m not even pregnant. My pregnant/mommy friends fit their rings just fine. Ugh. Sad huh?

But this week, for some reason, they magically fit wonderfully on my finger. I have a feeling this is due to seasons changing. It is colder out there now, and my “summer swolleness” is gone. Yay! Feels so good to wear it again, and not feel fat.

Before I was married, I was OK with TV storylines or movie plots involving infidelity. Not to say I thought it was acceptable, but I knew it to be fictional and shrugged it off as part of a fictional story for entertainment. Now that I’m married, I notice a big change in my attitude about this. I wince when I see storylines involving blurred boundaries, dishonesty, and anything to do with a trust violation of a sacred vow. I’m cursed with being way too empathetic when I’m watching TV or a movie. Thus, making it difficult to watch these storylines now, because I think of my own marriage and how I would never in a million years want to hurt my husband, or completely ruin our lives. I love him too much to do anything like that.

There are so many bad examples of marriages out there, it’s difficult to find good ones (that are real and honest). I feel so old-fashioned for shielding my eyes, but sometimes I just have to do what I have to do to shield my heart.

It’s funny how God speaks. When I was younger, I always wondered what His voice would sound like. Definitely not like in the Ten Commandments, a big booming voice from the clouds. On the contrary, many times He speaks to me in a quiet voice, in the stillness of my heart. The key is being quiet and listening for it. Because when you’re distracted and occupied, it’s easy to miss it. Every time you open your Bible and read something from it, He’s speaking too. Often times I forget that, and run through the words like I do a million times before, without thinking much about it. Sometimes it’s good to just sit still, let go of yourself, and wait. And when I do, His voice comes through. Quietly, but piercing. Sometimes they are heavy convictions, sometimes they are simple truths. Sometimes they are words of comfort, sometimes they are sobering truths.

This morning, during our Sunday morning service, God spoke into my heart again. His message was sudden, unexpected, and personal, but it was words of love and comfort for a specific situation, and it brought me to tears. He must have been speaking similarly to others around me, because I’m quite sure at least 30% of the congregation was crying/sniffling alongside me. It was somewhat amusing, but at the same time, encouraging too, because I realized that I was in the midst of witnessing God working in my church at that very moment - He was touching the hearts of individuals just like me.

Just the other day, the Dear Abby columnist made a mention that there were two different kinds of people in the world, in relation to social interaction. She said there were “those who walk into a room and their attitude says, ‘Here I am!’ And those who walk into a room and their attitude says, ‘There you are!’” And she said the “there you are” types are usually the most popular of the two.

After some thinking, I would tend to agree. There are those in life whose interactions with people build others’ self-esteem and confidence. Great listeners, a knack for engaging others, with the ability to refocus their attentions on others rather than themselves. And then there are those who cannot help but have all the attention on themselves. The world spins around them, all they talk about is related to only their point of view and perspective. They can take any subject and draw it back to themselves.

I know both kinds of people. Some are extreme profiles of each, but most are somewhere in the middle continuum. And off the top of my head, I know ones that are both kinds due to insecure/personal issues. I know some who are the “there you are” types because they are too insecure to focus on themselves, and then I know some who are the “here I am” types who are too insecure to know how to take the focus off themselves. With the former, it’s really hard to build a close relationship with these individuals because they hardly ever open up. With the latter, it’s difficult to build a close relationship with these individuals because they don’t ever give you the room/opportunity to share and open up and be heard.

I think I can relate to both.