He Wasn't Mad When We Were Late

"Hurry up!". I'm yelling at my little sister as I walk at a pace that would challenge those crikey old ladies that speed walk together in malls. Quickly I stop at a trash can to empty my hands of some half eaten cheese curds. I turn my head and see my sister had stopped and was caught up watching the back and forth sway of a ride. I shout alittle louder at her..."We're going to be late!". 

We were with a group at the fair-and we also happened to be late to meet back at our group's van. I glanced at my phone...counting in my head... 5 minutes late. Voices in my head scream "Ugh, walk faster. You hate being late." Anxiety, stress, pride-all of it is saying "Faster, faster". I peek at my phone again... 15 minutes late. And all of this builds until we finally reach our group's van and I apologize for our tardiness. 

"That's okay. You had fun", our leader says as he smiles and continues to direct the rest of our group. That's it? And I tell myself, "He's not going to scold, or make some unkempt joke about blondes being bad at time management, or threaten, or tell us we'd better be on time next time?". I hop in the van, lean my head against the back of my seat and think. 

I learned something that day from a leader's unexpected pleasantness. In the few seconds of my leader's calm response he managed to quell and make null every thought of anxiety and pride I had had. In the few seconds of his response he earned all of my respect and much of my trust. His words and actions, which were small, spoke in a very large way to my prideful heart. 

I run and run. I perform, and when I'm not satisfied or someone performs better then me I work harder to be even better. I wake up with the intent of productivity-I work, I worry. Will I be there on time? Have I prepared enough, am I going to be good enough? Am I going to compare to everyone else? I compete. I try to win every day. I tell myself that it's never enough. A day's work is never satisfying-tomorrow I have to do more, I have to do better. I kill myself day after day, never satisfied if I don't perform like or better than people around me. I kill the happiness of people around me whenever they stop me from continuing my performance. Like someone squeezing a soaked sponge, my leader revealed all of the pride and anxiety and stress that was oozing out of my heart. 

Its time to be done worrying, stressing, and absolutely freaking out about being on time. By this I mean that all of this anxiety is caused by my pride, and my desires to be better. I don't want to perform anymore. I don't want to be better than the next person. I don't want everything I do to be for the purpose of showing up the next person's work or fancy new car or name brand clothes. I want everything I do to be for the purpose of mirroring the one who created us. I want to paint, sing and work, and do well in school because I want to do the best I can for the only One who can. The same creativity used to paint the galaxies resides in my own heart, and set free from pride and anxiety it's going to blow up in rainbows of untamed color.