Nobody

This Friday is the youth group banquet. It's my theatrical event of the year. This particular year we are doing a madrigal dinner, and there are way more leaders involved than there have been in the past. It's nice not to be the only one who cares how the show runs. 

Tonight as one of our actors was on his way out, the lead director said, "We love you. You're indispensable."

"You're not," I said. "We could do this without you. But don't make us do it."

I was told you can't do that, that you have to stroke people's egos, that actors are touchy, especially teenage actors, blahblahblahblah.

And I split into two personas. 

One said, Welcome to life, kids. Nobody is lost without you. That isn't easy to deal with, and I haven't figured out what it means yet, but it's true. People die, and you feel empty and keep going. People close to you get divorced, and your heart splinters and you keep going. People leave you in a thousand ways, with or without trying, and you want to scream and you want to quit and you keep going. You can live, technically speaking, without anybody, and anybody can live without you.

One said, Nobody bothers stroking my ego. What about me? Doesn't anybody care about my needs?

(Sometimes I get tired of having as many layers as an onion.)

Maybe when Jesus says that people shouldn't swear by heaven or by earth, but should stick with yes and no and meaning them both (James 5:12), that extends to committing yourself to anything. Maybe we should take people at their word when they say "I appreciate you," or "I liked the way you delivered that line," or "I enjoy spending time with you," and not push past that to idolatry, assuming they didn't appreciate/like/enjoy enough or assuming that we have to flatter them in order to keep them happy.

I'm trying to learn to submit myself to Christ and finding there is an awful lot of me in the way. Nobody can fix that except for Him, so I know I'm coming to the right place.

And to all of the people in my life I could do without.... I could do without my legs and my arms, too. But I'd rather not.