I'm a Loser

Yesterday morning as I rushed down the freeway to make it to work on time (as I do most mornings) a car – whose inhabitant’s time was apparently more important than mine – cut me off as I was exiting the freeway. In my tardy-induced irritation, I promptly laid on my horn to show my discord. The woman driving the other car returned the honk and I responded with the one-fingered wave. Yep, that one. The woman’s response was to shoot me the L for loser sign. My first reaction was even more anger and irritation (and possibly another one-fingered wave if I'm being totally honest here) and then it hit me like a lead balloon. You know what? She was right. I was a loser. I drove the rest of the way to work humiliated that I had let Satan get the better of me, with his distraction of me running late, and win in this situation. I could have just as easily made the choice to let it go, as I do most mornings. Then I started thinking about the impression I made on that woman. I wondered what she would have thought if she knew I was a faithful, church-going proclaimed follower of Christ. I certainly was not following Christ in that situation.


It reminded of a time in college – back when the WWJD movement was big – and I proudly sported a gold ID bracelet inscribed with the letters. As is customary in the fall in Texas, Saturday was spent watching football. I remember being at Kyle Field with my friends and sitting rear-to-rear, packed like sardines into the bleachers that once inhabited the end zone. As a student at A&M you really are only given about an 8 - 10-inch span of bleacher - just enough to plant two feet as students don’t sit during the game. And what’s almost as narrow as the bleacher span is the space between bleacher rows. You literally have to sit with your knees diagonal to have any kind of leg room. This particular Saturday there was a larger than average guy sitting in front of me and every time he moved he bumped my knees. I leaned over to my friends and stated something to the effect of, “If this guy’s a** hanging off the back of his seat bumps my legs one more time I’m going to shove my foot up his a**.” To which my friend jokingly responded, “Now, Lisa, is that what Jesus would have said?” We all laughed. In fact, it became a running joke with us. He’d catch me doing or saying something I probably shouldn’t have and would say, “Would Jesus do/say that?” The reality, though, is that there is nothing funny about that. It’s hypocritical even. I claim to be a Christian, but my actions don’t back me up a lot of the time. Ouch. That makes me a loser (and Satan a winner).

Honestly, it’s something I struggle with daily and Satan certainly likes to use the distraction of time – or lack thereof - to trip me up. I find that the times when I am most irritated at home or in the car are the times when I am running late or feeling pressed for time. Thing is, I just need to be a better time-manager. Instead of spending 30 minutes with my nose stuck in my iPhone seeing who’s done what on Facebook when I get home, I should get the girls clothes ready for the next day so perhaps I can avoid the daily rush to be on time. Or – better yet – I should spend some time meditating on His word. Because I know, from experience, that when I take the time to read and study His word, the right choices come easier. And the scoreboard with Satan becomes less one-sided.

Satan may have won this round but I am grateful for the woman who opened my eyes to the fact that I was indeed acting like a loser. And I don’t want any more of that. Little did she know her gesture was just what I needed to stop and do some self-reflection (and I did not like what I saw). I was so bothered by it, in fact, that it was all I could think of yesterday – to the point that I felt like I need to share the experience with you just to get it off my chest. Our God does indeed work in mysterious ways.

We have a plaque hanging in our living room with an excerpt from a scripture found in Joshua 24:15. The scripture reads: “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” I love the phrase from the verse that states, “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” because it brings to focus for me the fact that we have a choice in how we act and respond in situations. And I intend to quit letting Satan win. I know I won’t be successful all of the time, but am thankful to serve a God whose mercies are new every morning (can I get an Amen!) and who loves me in spite of me. I know Jesus does not expect perfection, but he does expect, and certainly deserves, a better effort. And that's wht I intend to do. And I hope you will hold me accountable; because sometimes you really do need to hear: “Now, Lisa, is that what Jesus would have done?”

Bring on the Flushed Face!

Those who know me know I have a flair for the dramatics. Not in an excessively, overreacting all the time sort of way, but I am one who likes to entertain. I am the funniest person I know after all.

It is well known that I have dreams to perform on Broadway. Granted, I do nothing to achieve these dreams, but they are dreams all the same. This morning as I was showering I was reminded of the time during my freshman year in college when I auditioned for the theater department’s production of Godspell. And I had to chuckle and wonder “who was that person?” I mean, aside from a church musical in my tween years, I had never even set foot on a stage. Nor did I have any vocal training. And dance training? Well, those close to me know how laughable that is. But none of that mattered because I had a decided early on that I had a dream to perform on stage. And I needed to cross that off my bucket list. So I went to the audition having no idea what awaited me, having never auditioned for anything before. And I think that was a good thing, because had I any idea what the next two hours would bring I probably would have never shown up. And then I would not be where I am today. OK, maybe I would be exactly where I am today, but it makes for a good story.

There were a couple of hundred people at the audition and I knew only one of them – a girl Tiffany, a theater major, whom I met at Fish Camp (Whoop!) that summer. We went to the audition together. We were given a number and were divided into groups of about 10. And then the audition started. For my group, the first part was dancing. They took us to a room and taught us a short dance. While I have zero dance training I was thankful for the year I spent on drill team in high school because I was at least somewhat familiar with the technical dance terms they were using - most of them anyway. I don’t remember now how much time they spent teaching us – maybe 20 minutes – but once we learned the dance we had to go on stage as a group to perform in front of the judges (director?! Or whoever it is that selects the cast for a show). What I would give now to have a video tape of this!

From there we went to another room backstage and had to act out a parable. I forget what parable we acted out – maybe the Good Samaritan - or even what my part in it was, but thinking back on this, even now, brings a bit of a flush to my face.

And then it was back to the main auditorium for the singing. Oh, the singing. They gave us some music from the show and then one by one we had to go front and center onto the stage and sing while a piano accompanist played along. I can’t read music and at that time I had never even heard of, much less seen the musical Godspell. You can imagine the outcome as the pianist starts and I have no idea what the song is supposed to sound like. I think after 3 or 4 restarts I finally got through it. Again, my face flushes just thinking about this now.

Of course, the next day my name was missing from the call back list. I’m sure I was a little disappointed. Or maybe I was relieved. Whatever I felt, I specifically remember being proud of myself for trying. And also thankful that I had my first audition behind me because, apparently, there would be more as I would still have to cross this goal off the list.

As I was thinking about all of this and feeling my face starting to get hot I began to wonder why, after all these years, I feel embarrassment from this story. Yes, I probably resembled someone out of an American Idol reject segment. (Thank God YouTube and such did not exist back then.) And I’m sure there were some people there who laughed at me. But who cares? I tried. So often as adults we let the fear of being humiliated, or even a little embarrassed, keep us from doing things we’d secretly like to do – and sometime things we’ve always wanted to do. Why are we so afraid to put ourselves out there and look silly? Who do we think is watching? And, more importantly, why do we care?

I’m going to challenge myself to stop caring. Not about the important stuff – but about what people think. Because, honestly, I should really only be concerned about what one person thinks. And He loves me no matter what. Life’s too short to not follow your dreams.

No, this does not mean I’m going to pursue a Broadway career. Not that I’d turn it down if it fell in my lap. I crossed performing on stage off my list in my 20s. (Wait. Let me rephrase that: I have since performed in a few community theater productions, thus achieving my goal.) But, I’m definitely going to open myself up to new things and not let fear stop me. Because the only true failure is in failing to try. Here’s to more red-faced memories!