photo by Jasson Martin
It’s interesting how a chaotic season can reveal so much about a person. It astounds me that a time of fear and confusion can bring about new friendships. During 2020, I revived some old friendships and made new friendships. One new friendship, in particular, stands out to me. I met this one girl during the quarantine. I have known her for quite some time, but I feel like I actually got to know her during this last past year. She is so cool, and I absolutely love hanging out with her. I have spent so much time with her this last year. We couldn’t help it; we were stuck together during the quarantine. When you are stuck with someone for hours upon hours and days upon days you tend to get close to people. I am so thankful for her friendship and what she adds to my life. Let me tell you a little about her.
She is one of the funniest people that I have ever met. She is entertaining, and because of that, I have not been bored this whole quarantine. She is full of so much joy. There have been so many occasions where I was bent over in pain laughing because of her. She loves to laugh, just for the fun of it. Literally, she will just burst out laughing for no particular reason and it fills the place with magic. She talks to herself a lot. I am serious, she can have a full conversation with herself and be as happy as a kid holding an ice cream cone.
She has an imagination that astounds me. She is the kind of person who can pick up a pencil and instead of seeing a simple writing utensil, can see a microphone for her Grammy speech or a magic wand to use in her fairy kingdom. She is a creative person that can entertain herself. She can take that same pencil mentioned above and put it on a piece of paper and create elaborate worlds for a hero to visit and exciting adventures for him to take.
She is a performer. She will put on a full Broadway production, starring herself as all parts, in her very own living room. She is constantly singing. If 20 minutes go by and I have not heard her singing, I know something must be wrong. She pretends to be a different person on the hour. She will speak to me in four different accents in one conversation, but that is just what actors do.
She is loud and always full of life, but she definitely also has quiet moments. She likes to be by herself just as much as she likes to be with people.
She loves to dance. She will throw on music and pop and lock it until she drops it. She spends more than enough time in front of the mirror jamming out to K-pop, Lecrae, Hamilton, Kirk Franklin, and even some Beyonce.
That same mirror is covered in declarations that the Lord has given her about Him and herself. She is that person that will constantly remind me of who I am in Christ and remind me that there is a God who loves me and died for my freedom. She will preach a full sermon to me that will cause my spirit to quicken.
She is secretly a thug, and people don’t know, but she constantly reminds them.
She is not perfect though, so I won’t go on and on. Sometimes she can get on my nerves. When she puts her mind to something, the product is great. However, if she is not motivated, she can get lazy and procrastinate.
She doesn’t know when to go to sleep. You can often, and I mean often, catch her up at 4:30 in the morning binge-watching K-dramas, when she knows she had things to do the next day.
Though she is kind, she can sometimes be mean and petty. She will often use her imagination to escape reality because reality can be quite heavy sometimes.
She has made plenty of mistakes and has fallen into many of the enemy’s traps and lies. She has failed me and God on many occasions. But the truth of the matter is that I absolutely love her. I still enjoy her, even with all her flaws. I am proud of her and I am glad that she is my friend and that I am stuck with her. I wouldn’t want to be stuck with anyone else.
If you haven’t already guessed, this friend happens to be me, Moriah Scott. This leads to the last lesson that I have learned while attending quarantine university.
The fourth thing that this quarantine taught me is that you must learn to like yourself because you are stuck with you. If you think about it, it will be you and yourself together for the rest of eternity. How sad would it be to be stuck with someone that you didn’t like? How boring and uneventful.
Take inventory of your life. Do you like yourself? I mean do you really like yourself or do you just tolerate yourself? How do we expect other people to like and love us, if we can’t even do that ourselves? It is necessary for you to generally embrace and like you. If you don’t, there is an issue that needs to be addressed.
My challenge to you:
Take some time this week and evaluate your thoughts towards yourself. Make a list of things you like about yourself. I mean it, sit down, and pull out a piece of paper and write down the things you like about yourself. After you are done, write a list of things that you don’t like about yourself. See which list is longer. If the latter list is longer, you may want to take some time to shift through that list and see if there is any validity to it or if you are looking through the lens of insecurity. If you find that there is validity to why you don’t like yourself, then you have a few options. You can choose to change some of those things on your “don’t like” list or learn to live with them. Either way, you are going to have to find a way to like yourself. You need to do whatever it takes to help yourself see yourself in a better light. I suggest you sit down with God and ask him to help you, like you. Have him reveal the great attributes that you have that he gave you. Once you get that information from God, take the time to remind yourself everyday of how great you are. Remind yourself that Jesus literally loves to spend time with you. He literally likes you. This year spend time with just you and get to know yourself better. You just might surprise yourself.
Always a pleasure,
- Moriah
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