How am I doing?

You tell me how I am doing, am I meeting your expectation?

Why does knowing me give you the right to crawl inside my head?

Tell me that what I think is ok (or not)

How I dress is ok (is that really what you are going to wear?)

Rate my likes and dislikes (how can you stand that, be like that, like that!)

Give your stamp of approval or finger shaking at me.

I am who I am.

What I like is what I like,

What I think is what I think

Love me because of who I am, not in spite of it.

Holding me up to your mirror is your narcissism.

At times I feel like an empty bag waiting to be told what it will be,

how it will be filled, made to carry the baggage of another.

Joy is realizing that my beloved father, the best man in my life,

knows who I am.

Doesn’t hem and haw at my

Opinions

Uncertainties

Sorrows

JOYS

He never rates me, holds me up and says

“How dare you not be like me!”

He says, “how beautiful you are, and how glad I am you are here”

He sees my joy and is joyful,

My sorrows, and is sad,

My fear, and holds my hand,

My opinions, and notes them.

He waits for me to ask.

He doesn’t have to, but my assent matters.

His yardstick is his son.

Against Jesus, not “how do I rate?”, but a warm embrace.

I stand eye to eye,

Shoulder to shoulder,

back to back.

He has set my feet on a solid rock,

not at his beautiful feet

but by his side.