I have a dirty little secret that, if I can rely on your discretion, I shall share. I am, uhm, addicted to “The Price is Right.” This is not a new issue for me. No, unfortunately, I have been enamored of this totally American game show since I was three – knee high to a grass hopper as most Southerners would understand – three, when it was still acceptable to take your security blanket everywhere – in public sight. (Come on, ladies, you still have a security blanket; it’s called a purse, and as we get older they get bigger. Men, don’t ask why because we don’t know. It’s best to just accept the phenomenon.
So, as I’m typing this, Drew Carey is accepting over-enthusiastic hugs from a young, pretty, blonde woman whom I am willing to wager he has never met before, and I smile because, while I love, love, love this show, this subtle Southern personality would no more be capable of climbing all over drew Carey like a rhesus monkey than I would be of designing and executing the building of one of those houses that cling to the side of the cliffs above the beaches of California. In other words, highly doubtful I will be making my TV debut with Drew Carey handing me Plinko chips.
That got me thinking about personalities and what we bring into this world with us and what we pick up along the way – nature versus nurture. From the moment she could walk, my sister, L, was into everything she should not have been. She ate modeling clay that came with directions in Deutsch. We lived in Midland, TX; nobody spoke German. They just watched her to see if she’d die. She didn’t.. L then ate bright blue pool cue chalk. Another trip to the ER where they just watched her to see if she’d make it, which of course, she did. Then as she got older, her explorations were full of stranger and more danger adventurous things. But neither my brother nor I were made like that.
My mother laughs and says you’d never know the three of her children were from the same home. My brother is this huge, tough military guy who brooks no argument from anyone, and I’m almost positive he’d cut out his tongue before he’d admit he was wrong and apologize. My sister, well, we’ve covered that. And then there’s me.
I’m trying to think how to describe myself. If you’ve read my other blogs you might know me a little, and right now I think I need a Valium because I feel like I’m applying to college and grad schools again. “Please, Rachael, tell us about yourself.” I mean, what kind of open ended question is that? What do you want to know? Do you want to know if I change my sheets once a week? Am I willing to eat the powdered eggs from the cafeteria or make a fuss? How about if I even I prefer the Cavalier mascot over that ridiculous turkey the Other Virginia School has? (Really, why would someone choose a turkey as a mascot? Like that’s intimidating! Now if the Other Virginia School would just stop being able to play football, we’d be good.)
Now this could just be me, but I don’t think God cares about our mascot preferences or whether we like cheese on our burgers or all of the teeny-tiniest of things that separate us every day, ( i.e. the color of your socks, whether your bra matches your panties, how many days you’ve gone without shaving). What I do think Love desperately longs to know from us is the state of our hearts, thus, groundwork for our personalities.
We are each created differently, in His likeness, and we know that His son, His perfect, beautiful Son, felt every human frailty, fault, hardness so that He, too, would know how His most beloved of creations – that would be us – felt when their hearts were shattered, when the money was gone, when fear over road reason. He knows every single bit, and still, He chooses to love us.
So, back to the original topic – personalities. Have you ever seen a newborn get mad? No one teaches that? How about a snuggler? Again, not taught. I believe babies come into the world with the basic personalities God has given them, and then we are responsible for nurturing them into the grown men and women who will run or ruin this home God has given us.
That’s an amazingly wonderful job we’ve been entrusted with, and I, for one, don’t want to miss out on a single moment.
The Unexpected Life 