So, I know I should post about Nationals...and life, but frankly life is pretty crazy right now.  I leave for a camping trip the day after tomorrow, then debate camp, then prep week, then getting ready for school to start again..so yeah...basically, this is my I-think-I'm-leaving-dear-Xanga-but-hopefully-I'll-still-be-able-to-read-my-friends-posts-every-once-in-a-while post. 

Goodbye; it's been fun and maybe I'll come around someday later when I have time.

I Sit And Look Out

Walt Whitman

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppresion and shame 

I hear (secret) convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;

I see (in low life), the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate;

I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer of young women;

I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, {attempted to be hid}—I see these sights on the earth;

I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and prisoners;

I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;

I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and the like;

All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon,

See, hear, and am silent.

So, usually people struggle with one or the other (fear or pride).  While I certainly have my prideful moments, I tend to deal more with fear and insecurity then anything else.  But the other day, I was thinking.  Pride and Fear generally have the same result.

Pride says, "I am sufficient without God.  I don't need Him.  I can do things without His help."

Insecurity/fear says, "God is not sufficient for me.  I am too needy for Him.  Even He can't help me."

Both take us to place we don't want to be, a place where we ignore God either because if our belief in our own competence or our conviction of our complete inadequacy.  We become utterly self-focused and self-absorbed. We start to disregard the needs of others because we are so wrapped up in our fear or our pride.  Both require realizing that Christ is enough, that without Him we are nothing, but because of Him, we do have purpose. We are loved beyond anything we could ever imagine. 

So, while fear and pride usually have the same result, they also have the same cure: beginning to realize that it is not about us.  A verse in John (I can't remember the reference a the moment) takes place when some of John the Baptist's disciples are asking him about Jesus and if He is the Messiah and if its okay that He has a huge following.  John replies, "He must become greater; I must become less."  And I think if we can take that motto, that Christ must be greater, and we must be less, we can forget about both our fear and our pride.

~HannahK