Reality

The older I get, the more aware I am of my own crappiness. When I was in high school, I thought of myself as a generally nice person - generous, kind and considerate. Later I decided that while I usually displayed these admirable characteristics, I was also capable of scumminess. Both of these periods occurred during my single years and I think that status lead to my inaccurate impression of my own character.

Since I've been with Sarah I have gradually begun to realize (culminating in an epiphany today at church) that I am actually more prone to selfishness, meanness and coldness than I am those attributes listed above. Is it marriage that made me this way? Obviously not, I've always been fallen. What marriage has done is put into contrast my self-impression, then and now.

When I was single, it wasn't critical that perpetually I empathized, that I gave of myself, that I thought of others first. Rather, I was able to temporarily call upon those things when I felt it made me look good.

Now, of my own power, I'm not able to sustain the effort through the entirety of my day with Sarah - sometimes barely at all. My relationship with her (and now Campbell to an extent) has served to show me the reality of my fallenness. When I am not the man that He has called me to be for them, it hurts. My love for them reveals to me that I suck - that I must improve.

You hear catch phrases in church all the time and they resonate more or less depending on where you are and what's going on at the time. But today I have to say - more of you, Lord and less of me.