Ordinary.

Lately, writing has become very difficult for me, almost foreign. It's not that I lack the emotional drive or creative flow necessary, but rather, I just don't feel my words are worth recording.

The profound rhetoric I strive to produce is consistently bland. It doesn't hold any ground-breaking, epiphanic revelations that people wouldn't eventually discover and come to terms with on their own. My writing is no closer to Shakespeare than the next guy's.

There are so many people in the world with wisdom and talents that far exceed my own. What they have to offer this world is something to be desired and cherished and used for good, even amazing things. They make our lives better, sharing with us their awe-inspiring and God-given abilities. This handful of people compels our culture to keep growing and searching for newer and greater people to cultivate each successive generation.

In your mind right now, you probably have your own personal list of "inspirationals" that you look to: an actor or actress who can literally become anyone, an artist who could paint your soul if you asked them to, some singer whose voice is too beautiful for words, or that author who could pretty much capture anything in words. They seem so perfect and untouchable up on the pedestal we place them on. Legends, plain and simple. 

Where, then, does that leave the rest of us, the normal people like me with a decent grasp of the English language, everyday drama, a job in the fast-food industry, a dull baritone vocal range, and the ability to construct well-proportioned stick figures?

Ordinary. That's where it leaves us.

But as a population of perfect people, what would impress us? How would we find entertainment in anything? How would anyone rise up to any level of achievement if everyone else was on their level? Or, perhaps the best question to ask: why would anyone need God? If we didn't have problems, if we didn't have restrictions on what we could do, we wouldn't need God.

These crosses we bear, these everyday struggles and limitations aren't just burdens for the simple cause of discouraging us. They're an assurance of our faith, a reminder that we may not have it all like we want, but we will one day in eternity. 

These things are in our lives to remind us that although we are ordinary, we have an extraordinary God that we can rely on, a God we can rely on forever.

Growing Up.

Maturity is a very fickle subject to tackle. Being a teenager, many people will probably argue that I don't have the mental capacity to effectively discuss it. But it's my blog, so the naysayers can leave. Effectively.

As far as the method in which a person matures, I tend to think it's different for everyone. I feel like maturity is the summation of past experiences and, essentially, just something you gather as you age. Some will naturally soar to heights of wisdom and understanding unreachable to most other people, while others will do the minimal amount of "growing up" necessary to survive. I don't feel that I, myself, am at either extreme. I'm somewhere in the middle, a happy and agreeable medium.

I assumed this was a good thing, assurance that I'd never encounter a relationship in which the maturity levels of myself and another person were SO vastly different that I couldn't coexist with them. 

Apparently, I thought wrong. 

Maybe when the dust settles, all the petty drama, the snide comments, and the "accidental" revelations will cease. Then, maybe something salvageable will come from all this. Maybe a relationship, maybe just a pile of hollow regrets. Regardless, I can't stop growing just to let someone else catch up.