Delusions of Grandeur / Free to Be Me

Impressive? Dating Moving Stars?

I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe I’m destined to be with movie stars.  I loved taking my husband to high school reunions because many of the single women said he was so handsome and looked somewhat like Tom Selleck.  I was very proud of him.  He had that rough beard and had to shave two or three times a day.  It minded me of a guy on a soap opera.  My guy friend I hang out with looks similar to Joey on Friends.  A guy I went to dinner with looks somewhat like Tommy Lee Jones.  I was talking to a man who lost his wife at a single’s group and is very sweet and he looks like Uncle Fester on the Adam’s Family.  Oh well, so much for the movie star’s scene!

In my quest for James Bond:

Sometimes I’ve dated someone and my daughter would say, “Mom that is not your type.”  What is my type?  Tall, dark, handsome, athletic, hair on his head.  He bungy jumps out of an airplane into a snow mobile and then he goes over a cliff and parachutes on to a ski board down a mountain.  Then he still has time for romance and is charming.  The Lord said I watched too many James Bond movies with my mother growing up. 

God has to work with what there is available and preferably he lives in Indiana.  I can take a substitute or I can move to Los Angeles with my daughter and find a stunt man and maybe the double to Pierce Brosnan.

The main thing I believe in dating is keep your options open.  I had a sweet man and I want another sweet man.  As James Taylor said, “How Sweet it is to be Loved by You.” After three years of having male friends and enjoying singles, I’m moving forward in wanting an intimate relationship again, but I’m keeping my options open.  I want the cream of the crop.   If I was Paris Hilton, I guarantee a guy would not complain about buying me a coke at a movie theater and the prices of the venue.  That is not impressive. As Darth Vader’s comment to Luke Skywalker about his laser and jumping ability: “Impressive Most Impressive” or Shania Twain, “That Don’t Impress me Much.”

My heavenly Father owns a cattle on a thousand hills.  He definitely has more than Paris Hilton’s dad or Donald Trump.  Many guys are not very impressive.

Fun To Be Me or Delusions of Grandeur

Occasionally, I get these “delusions of grandeur.”  It is related to wanting to buy a new Mustang car and run around with the convertible top down.  Sometimes I’ve thought about standing up in my speed boat and playing the Beach Boys Surfin USA song full blast and then pretend like I’m surfing in my boat.  I’ve challenged people on the lake to a duel of racing boats.  You know how they had those gun duels in the old days?

The Burr–Hamilton duel was a duel between two prominent American politicians, the former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and sitting Vice President Aaron Burr, on July 11, 1804. At Weehawken in New Jersey, Burr shot and mortally wounded Hamilton. Hamilton was carried to the home of William Bayard on the Manhattan shore, where he died at 2:00 p.m. the next day.

Not many on the lake will take me up on a race.  There are many boats on the lake that are faster than mine.  I personally feel maybe that is why the co-partner on my boat accidentally put this big gash in my boat that ruined it cosmetically just to keep me eating humble stew. I go through these duels many times in racing people in go-karts or on my wave runners.  Not anything different than when I was a child and raced my next door neighbor boy friend on his bicycle or in running. As a little girl I entered every pony contest there was and prayed for a horse which was my wish at every birthday party.  The closest I’ve come to owning a horse are motorized horses/three wave runners!

Let nothing [be done] through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Philip 2:3

Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Galatians 5:26

I like this from Proverbs 31:25-26: She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.  She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.   

I can laugh at thinking about driving my boat on the lake that is my surfboard pretending like I’m in California, or riding a wave runner pretending like I’m riding a horse.

Right after I bought a new SUV Equinox (brand new model that particular year) someone was mad at one of my daughters and they threw a brick from their car from the street in our driveway and hit the back of my car.  I guess since my daughter was driving my car they decided to try to break my back window.  They missed the back glass window, but managed to put a nice dent in the back of the SUV.  My husband did not want to put it on an insurance claim so he just fixed it the best he could cosmetically. 

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. Matthew 6:19

I can relate to the song, “Free to Be Me - I’ve got a couple of dents in my fender and holes in my jeans.”  After plowing into the subdivision Crime sign on ice with just liability on the SUV that pulls my boat, I went out and bought a new headlight, but did not buy new bumpers to replace it.  My mechanic said there was some internal damage to the right fender.  My girlfriend suggested that I put a smiley face bandage on my right SUV bumper.  Recently, I’ve thought “Yeah my SUV is just like me.”  Put a smiley face bandage on my heart, my broken ankle, and myself.  How many times when I was a little girl or when my children were little that you put a smiley face bandage on a cut and you just “keep on playing.”  I’m just putting these smiley face bandages on my life and “I keep on going” throughout life.  Put smiley face bandages on my house, my car, myself… 

I should put a big smiley face bandage right in the middle of my forehead that says ---“back off---God at work.” 

I’ve gotten to the point in life I’m not as worried about appearances.  In fact if they were to give an award on who has the brownest yard in the subdivision after a rain shortage, I would come very close the last few months even though I pay for a lawn care service!

Eccl. 1:2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

I had a dream a few weeks ago that I was at a single’s event and someone was telling me how beautiful I was.  I don’t see anything wrong with someone telling me how beautiful I am, but I believe God was dealing with me about vain glory.  There is a difference in vain glory and self esteem.  In the past, I had a very low self esteem related to my father and ex-spouses criticism.  What I found is reading the Bible  is that God started building up my self esteem.  I believe having a good self esteem is not a sin.  In fact, every time I get discouraged it seems that God builds up my self esteem in some way.  Someone will send me an email or a friend to encourage me.  I believe trusting in your own ways and self-reliance is a sin.  Gideon had low self esteem he asked God for four confirmations to defeat the enemy.   Moses was concerned about his speech so Aaron was his mouthpiece.  In the book of Judges a man asked for a woman to help him.  Like these examples above in the Bible, I get hit with insecurity and fear that is the top problems I’ve had in being a widow.

Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Joshua 1:6

I can think of a situation in the Bible where a woman turned down the king because she was not going to “flaunt” her beauty before others!   God used her refusal to flaunt her beauty to bring in Esther to be queen to save the Jewish race.

Also let the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than she.  Then when the king's edict is proclaimed throughout all his vast realm, all the women will respect their husbands, from the least to the greatest." The king and his nobles were pleased with this advice, so the king did as Memucan proposed. Esther 1:19-20  

2:1 Later when the anger of King Xerxes had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what he had decreed about her.

God is okay with us respecting our husbands but like the king above, I had a tendency to want to flaunt that I had a great looking man and I know a lot of men are that way and are looking for a “trophy wife.”

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:33

What I know my heavenly Father delights in my taking pride in knowing Him.  My pride and boast is in God, not my earthly or spiritual accomplishments, what my children have done, a husband or the things of this world.  My boast and glory is in God.  My praise, my glory and my thanks go back to God for giving me a good man in life.  It goes back to God for giving me good things in life and giving me good health.

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 1 Timothy 6:17

Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." 1 Cor. 1:31

My soul will boast in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Psalm 34:2

and if in a truthful, just and righteous way you swear, 'As surely as the LORD lives,' then the nations will be blessed by him and in him they will glory." Jeremiah 4:2

This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD. Jeremiah 9:23

I love to dance love life and enjoy what God has put on this planet for us to enjoy.   

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 1 Timothy 6:17

Sometimes I’ve lost myself, with no direction for my life and especially in losing my husband I totally lost all bearings for any love of life or what the next step of life was going to be.  It sort of reminds me my husband’s daughter was a teenager she went through this phase of eating that she wanted to eat breadsticks every night for dinner.  It bothered me that I would cook elaborate meals and my husband would go pick up breadsticks for her every night.  My husband said she suffered from a “lack of taste buds.” 

God is restoring my taste buds for this life.

I know God has me writing this message on enjoying life and having fun.  I can’t count the number of  men I screen through online dating that are very negative or bitter in life from a divorce even the tone of their voice is negative.   I was attracted to my former husband because he smiled all the time.  The first time I met him he had a grin from ear to ear.  He had lost the love of his life in divorce and a baby to SIDS but he was all smiles.

During the funeral, several vendors from his office came up to me and said, “Your husband smiled all the time.”  My daughter Sandy had a dream about him and in the dream he was smiling and she asked him “Mike why are you smiling?”  He said, “I’m smiling because your mom bought me a new car, in fact she bought me two new cars.”  When my daughter prayed about the dream the Lord showed her that I made him twice as happy.  A double portion as a Christian couple is God’s promise in life.  I know few Christians take advantage in life to what God has for their lives, for their marriages.  That is a double portion of joy for our home life as a Christian couple in marriage.   In our marriage there was a natural flow and we enjoyed each other’s company.

Instead of their shame my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace they will rejoice in their inheritance; and so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs. Isaiah 61:7

I like this song below because he talks about losing ourselves in being caught up in the activity of this world.   I don’t want to lose myself in this world and its negativity.  No matter what happens in life I don’t plan on growing old and being bitter, cantankerous and blaming God for the difficulties I go through.  I plan to be a “sweet old lady in life.”   I would put sweet little old lady except I’m 5’7.”  An old lady that passes out popsicles and ice cream cones to children in the neighborhood like I experienced from a woman in my neighborhood.  

Meant to Live – Switchfoot

Fumbling his confidence
And wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he's bent for more than arguments
And failed attempts to fly, fly

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside
Somewhere we live inside
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside

Dreaming about Providence
And whether mice or men have second tries
Maybe we've been livin with our eyes half open
Maybe we're bent and broken, broken

We want more than this world's got to offer We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life, yeah

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
We were meant to live
We were meant to live