You know how sometimes being with a group of people you don’t know very well can kind of turn everything upside down within you? At least that’s how it feels to me, a die-hard introvert who currently spends an absurd amount of time alone. Recently I’ve been spending some time with a whole group of friends that’s already formed and thriving, and somehow it’s given me food for thought.
Like many introverts, I’m talkative and a bit out there when with people I know. Yet when surrounded by those with whom I’m not familiar, I kind of shrink back into the deep periphery, where I watch and learn. And waffle about my own identity.
Sometimes being young really stinks. It seems like there’s an exceptional pressure on young people to be interesting, beautiful, intelligent, fashionable, funny. All the movie stars are, right? On top of this universal compulsion to glamour, I feel like the circle I run is like the League of Extraordinary Persons, with all sorts of geniuses who are or soon will be leading various sectors of society.
I don’t know about all these charmed individuals; maybe they’re profoundly convinced of their own worth beyond what they do. That’s not me—not fully, not yet. I look around, especially in a new social context, and sometimes my eyebrow still lifts towards myself in an expression of doubt.
Last week, a couple came into the coffee shop I work at. They’re pretty regular, which is to say I see them a couple of times a month. Let me paint their portrait for you. Both are around the early- to mid-forties. He’s tall, with graying hair unkempt, nondescript glasses, and a beer belly. His jeans and t-shirt are pretty shabby. She’s small, Irish, with dark hair and a manicure all done up with rhinestones and all. Neither of them is what I or anyone I run around with would describe as the pinnacle of taste.
The other side of this equation is in the googly eyes and wide grin the man bestows on the woman, their steady and familiar banter with one another, and utter friendliness towards me, their humble barista. In some ways, I think these two keep my faith in love alive.
At any rate, this respect for them I’ve found growing in me the last several months came to a head on this occasion. They were in for their usual cappuccinos just when my co-worker Mikala and I were wrapping up a rousing conversation with Tom and Alan (for Alan, see a couple of entries ago). The couple found out that Mikala was having issues with her car, and Sir Lovebird revealed that he is a mechanic by profession, and offered to take a look at it.
Out they go, into the parking lot. As I was doing all of my closing work, I saw them out there, the hood up and the hose out and lots of peering at the car's inner organs. I also saw no less than four inches of Sir Lovebird’s butt crack. And my heart melted towards them, because they were there to spend time with one another, and he was headed to work that night, and still he spent a good hour tinkering with the vehicle of someone he hardly knew. I was thinking, “THIS is cool. THIS is what I want to be.”
It reminded me of a verse in 2 Timothy that I’d been reading. It says,
“Flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (verse 2:22). I would likely dismiss this couple based on their appearances alone, and yet they demonstrated real character. In the same way, shall I not dismiss the “youthful lusts”—the things on the outside we put so much stock in—and also pursue the things that attest to true goodness and beauty?
And so I felt the sweet approval of the Father that day, not only towards these new friends, but also towards me. He knows what I am in pursuit of, and I know he finds it good. Those are good moments.
