Vanilla Smile

My vanilla smiled at me.

I was baking a cake the other day and my vanilla smiled at me.

I needed that smile. Not because I'm short on people who will smile at me, but because it was a friendly reminder to chill out, relax, find some humour in the everyday. Not that I necessarily took action in that direction immediately, but it was a reminder.

Too often, I get caught up in thoughts and feelings that tell me I'm not good enough, or not good, or just plain old not enough. Where do these thoughts and feelings come from, you may ask. From the one and only person who brings me a daily report on how I've fared during the day: myself, of course. “Well, today was not too bad, but you sure could have done XYZ better....” And then, not only do I cut myself down, I also feel guilty for cutting myself down, and I wouldn't actually want to admit to anyone how I'm thinking or feeling, because one doesn't want to display weakness or incompetence, so I push those feelings down and slam the trap door shut and hope they don't burst out. At least not at an inconvenient time.

Why do I do that to myself? And where, exactly, is that line between high and unreasonable expectations? Between having some kind of personal standards and imposing ridiculous pressure on oneself? And what if my unreasonable expectations and ridiculous pressure barely register on someone else's “regular” standards?

I don't know the answer to those questions, or I'd be in a better place by now.

I suspect, when it comes down to it, that those are unhelpful questions to be asking. They indicate, I suspect, a misplaced focus. I am reminded again of

2 Corinthians 12:9–10:

But [the Lord] said to me,

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,

so that Christ's power may rest on me.

That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weakness,

in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.

For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I'm not quite to the “boasting and delighting in weakness” stage, but I did smile back at the vanilla, though it may have looked slightly more like a grimace than a smile.