Just in case you didn't follow the earlier link, here is the short article I referred to in my last post.
I
was 11 years old when I realized I had no friends. It was the
beginning of 5th grade in a new school, and, besides, everybody
probably feels similar when they’re that young anyway. But even if
that’s true, it didn’t soften the blow when the Val-O-Grams—those
special valentines students purchased and had sent to their best
friends—were delivered to all the classrooms and everyone seemed to
get ten and I only got one—and it was from my mom.
I
was 17 years old when I experimented with the harshest of hair
products because the statement I was making with my ripped jeans and
worn boots wasn’t getting enough of the attention I wanted from my
high school peers. If they weren’t looking at or talking about me,
it was as if I didn’t exist.
I
was 21 years old when I knew I was the worst missionary in the
history of the Church. I wasn’t baptizing as much as others, I
wasn’t called to leadership positions when younger missionaries
were, and I simply didn’t feel the persistent, all-encompassing
glow I once associated with missionary work and righteousness and
following the rules.
I
was 26 years old when I finally graduated from college and was
offered a job I felt I had to accept to feel like a contributing
adult. And soon after I took the job, I silently wished that I could
go back and start over again. Because, at the time, I wasn’t brave
enough to say no to a job I knew wouldn’t fulfill me even though it
would pay my bills. Because I wasn’t traveling the world or
interning at Universal Studios or playing in the NFL or publishing
bestsellers or making the kind of money that would ensure an early
and prosperous retirement. I was at a desk. And it appeared everyone
else was living their dream.
And
I was 28 years old when my wife was diagnosed with a terminal lung
disease. And beyond how many friends I had, how good-looking I felt I
was, how respected I was by my peers, how glamorous or rich I was or
wasn’t, my understanding of self-worth became how I used my new
pain and past experiences to acquire the compassion necessary to
truly love someone other than myself. And what if that’s the
secret? What if pouring yourself—the good and the
hidden—into those around and beyond you afforded you the kind of
self-worth you can’t get from social media or one of the thousands
of self-help books crowding our shelves? What if outward compassion
rather than inward reflection is the barometer with which God
measures our intended purpose and value? Well, I think it might be.
Or at least it’s a strong component. Because I’ve never felt more
worthy as a son of God than when I first started washing my wife’s
hair because lifting her own arms to shampoo her hair became too much
for her lungs to handle. I’ve never felt so purposeful and
satisfied than when I made the obvious choice of disappearing into
the full-time care and round-the-clock concern of a most precious and
delicate daughter of God.
Maybe
not having friends in 5th grade meant I wasn’t being a
friend to my classmates. Maybe not feeling attractive in high school
meant I needed to step away from my mirror and look out my window.
Maybe not receiving the leadership roles I felt I needed in order
to really make
a difference as a missionary meant that I wasn’t fully serving
those closest to me—my missionary companions and the families who
were looking to us for gospel understanding. Maybe feeling enslaved
to a job that wasn’t the coolest or most lucrative meant that I
didn’t yet understand that it would be outside the
hours of 9 to 5 where my happiest, hardest, and most sacred work
would be done. And maybe feeling cheated by 78 “likes” on a
posted picture that I thought deserved a million means I’ve swung
too far from what I once understood about self-worth and have
parlayed my divine identity into an idea of
someone I’m not quite and perhaps never will be.
I’m
now 29 years old. And maybe that’s too young to know exactly who or
what I am. But being 29 is probably old enough to know what I’m not.
I know I’m not merely a resume or a cultural demographic or a body
type or a tax bracket or a profile picture. And I know I’m not
reduced to those arbitrary things because I know I am more than
simply myself.
I
am what I am to my wife and to my friends and family and to my
neighbors and coworkers and fellow freeway drivers. I am what I am to
the 54-year-old server who cleans up after me and thanks me for
coming in even though I under-tipped. I am what I am to the person
who doesn’t like me and especially to the person I’m not too fond
of either. I am what I am to those I should be serving more, to those
I should be reaching out to more, to those I should be writing to
instead of writing this. I am how I love others because that’s one
of the few things I can actually control in this life, and it’s
possibly the only way I can tangibly measure my true self-worth. But
mostly, I am how I love others because that’s all God asks of
me—and because that’s all I can give Him. And maybe that’s good
enough.
Henry
Unga is a proud native of Provo, Utah, with a degree in literature
and a voracious passion for food and his family. When he isn't
blogging, hiking, or searching for the perfect burger, you'll find
him sitting next to his lovely wife on a nearby park bench
reading War
and Peace, which
he'll never finish.
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