Praise

(Am I the only one who loves that LynnieC told a research council that it "looks fat in those pants"?)

I'm feeling a lot better today. Going to prayer meeting with my wonderful old people last night helped me plenty. It also helped me to put some pieces together about my priorities, and especially about how I define my self-worth.

The other night, Chris and I were playing the game Personal Preferences (it was the top game in Canada in, like 1987), and I had to rank what I liked best, between "Receiving Awards," "Going to Church," "Getting a Haircut," and something else that I can't remember (but that wasn't especially exciting). Poor Chris had the hardest time guessing how I would rank those, because when I looked at it realistically, receiving awards makes me feel the best. As I put it to Chris: "It isn't right, but if I look at myself truthfully, I prefer receiving praise from others over praising God."

And then the next morning, I received word that I didn't receive a SSHRC doctoral scholarship. That's when I saw the really ugly side of my current priorities: because I have been defining my worth by the official recognition that I receive, when I fail to receive that recognition, I am crushed. Yes, it was difficult to realise that I wasn't going to be getting that money next year. But the hardest part was the fact that, for grad students in Canada, SSHRCs are pretty much the pinnacle of recognition. At some larger institutions, you are hardly acknowledged as a student if you don't have one. And I have a lot of friends who are SSHRC-holders.

And so, in spite of the fact that I have full funding from my university and won an extra scholarship for this semester, in addition to my husband's full-time job, my attitude during the whole application process has been "I can't not win!" When I failed to win (or even to advance on to the national competition, unlike 31 of my colleagues), I was in some real danger of interpreting this as a personal failure. That's why I had to work so hard to keep from breaking down yesterday, because I remembered too well my devestation when I received criticism on my application's first draft by that grantscrafting lady.

And so it's time for me to re-define where I find my worth. At the risk of being a Veggitales character, God made me special and He loves me very much. He made me with a special purpose, and gave me particular gifts and skills. He didn't give me those particular skills to draw praise to myself, but instead my life should be a praise to God. My life should be a praise to God by how I serve others. How I love others, unconditionally. (I'm going to leave it off here. Anything past here turns into a rant about how one can serve God on campus without being a button-holing-and-pushy type.)

In other news: for those who pray, please pray for Brandy (mother of Wee Girly) at this time. She's been in labour since Monday, and is extremely uncomfortable. (This is also a place where I could rant about the hospitals in Regina, such as the fact that one of the doctors thought she was experiencing false labour pains, and gave her morphine, which just made her sick, but the contractions have been regular. Or the fact that they would've induced her days ago, except that they're too busy.)