Every time I look in the mirror lately I catch a glimpse of one or both of my deceased parents. It's cool.

I suppose I am starting to look like I remember them looking. I don't know why I find such comfort — I suppose it's comfort — in the fact that my mom and dad are me, and I'm them.

It's not that I've been missing them any more than usual. Though, of course, the holidays can be hard. But it hasn't been the holidays. It's just the mirror.

Sure, I'm unique. You are, too. But we are uniquely the product of our parents' union. My husband and I were talking recently about the adopted child's right to know his or her birth parents. He thinks there should be no digging back into the past. I think there is nothing that could stop me from searching for my birth parents if I had not known them.

Especially now.

It's a look in my eyes sometimes that is my dad's look. The way my hair falls is from my mother. I am driven much like my dad always was to be creative and busy and involved. I can be playful like my mom, and I have her curiosity.

Curiosity is great as long as it does not flirt with gossip and other dangerosities. My mom was a gossip at times. I never have been in the past, but once or twice lately, I have heard myself repeating things that were probably better left unsaid. I don't like it.

But that's okay. I'm learning to accept myself and my shortcomings so much better that I have in years past.

I have always wanted to be perfect. Funny - huh?

And you haven't?

Sure you have. At some time or other you have wanted to be better than you are, than you have been, than you think you can be. Of course you've wanted to be perfect at something, or to some degree. (Can perfection be fractionated?)

Thank Heaven Jesus pulled it off, because I have realized lately that I'm up the creek and there's no paddle in sight.

Had lunch with a business associate up on the north side of Atlanta this past week. He's a professing Christian, too and we had a real cool conversation over lunch.

Real conversation it was. No polite chatter or just plain bull, both of which drive me up a wall. My dad was like that, too, but at the same time, quite nervous when folks got too close to him. He wanted to give, to care, to serve, to reach out... but always guardedly.

Well, I'm my daddy's daughter, but I'm learning to let down that guard. Oh, I don't want to. But this attempt to control everything is ever so wearisome. Downright fatiguing.

I figure it's time to let go and let God...

Again, please don't get me wrong. I never am still. I am always busy. Always doing and planning and enjoying every minute of it.

But something neat has happened in recent years, months — yesterday, maybe. I have given myself permission to fail. To say no. To just be... to let go, and let God guide me, love me, keep me.

Does that mean I'm not going to keep trying to win or succeed? Shoot no, I want to do well. I want my relationships with friends and family to be healthy and happy. I want to accomplish a great deal with my work. There's a hundred and one writing projects I'd like to pull off.

But I don't have to do any of it, or be any particular way. Not anymore. I am my parents' daughter, and God's kid. And not necessarily in that order. I can live it.

Spoke briefly with one of my sisters today who was talking about how one of my brothers looks, talks, and acts exactly like Daddy. Of course, she, the sister doing the talking, looks exactly like my paternal grandmother.

Amazing, I love it!

And you know what else I was thinking about lately. I was realizing there is no way I can prove my faith. I can't prove God's existence or that Jesus was anything special. But my faith works for me. If I had it all to do over again, I'm not sure I'd do anything differently.

Never thought I'd hear myself say that. Actually, I typed it, so I didn't hear the sound of it. What I think I'm realizing is the simple fact that life is so much more than we perceive it to be.

And we, you and I, are so much more, and less, significant than we think we are in the grand scheme of things.

Back to News Home Page | Back to the top of the page