Sunday, September 25

Contents May Be Other Than They Appear

"Short" should not be considered an insult any more than "tall" is. Last I checked "tall" is almost always considered a good thing. (The line "All the great ones were tall" from "While You Were Sleeping" is even a joke in my family; we're all tall...and Ox is funny.)

Thank God He didn't give us only one color. Nor is the world limited to one terrain, one type of tree, one type of fish, one type of mammal, one type of fruit, one type of culture, one type of music, one type of media, one type of weather, one type of bug, one type of writing utensil.... I could go on but the word "type" is getting old. ..I digress. Don't you see? Isn't it a good thing that we have not just a little variety, but a lot of variety in each of these things I mentioned? And that's not an exhaustive list there.

I'm six feet tall, and sometimes I wear high heels. You feel awkward because I loom over you? Guess what. I feel awkward because I loom over you. (It took me a long time to be convinced that, as a tall woman, it was okay for me to even consider heels, and sometimes I still regret the choice. But, really, they're just another style of shoe--more variety!)

Praise God that we're different!

You see, God is not confined to height specifications. Don't put Him in that box.

Sometimes big things come in little packaging. And sometimes big packaging contains small treasures.

Now I'm not knocking it. The height of our bodies affects who we were, are, and will be as people. It has impact on the makeup of our character. Nothing wrong with that. It's another way that God makes interesting variety.

(Brief theoretical: if I were shorter, say 5'5" because it's convenient and roughly average [If I were shorter than that, I might never have come out of my comfort zone...ugh], I would've been even more reserved than I am now. Though I'm not the quietest person I know, I tend to internalize and observe before I join a conversation, and it takes me a long time to warm up to a new situation. My best friend would have had a harder time pulling me out of my shell after high school and forcing me to reach for my potential by stretching my boundaries. I would never have considered playing volleyball in college [I didn't play, but it was offered out of state]; I probably wouldn't have even liked the game very much. I would be a different person than I am now, because I am a small person in a large body. I'm okay with that now, but if I had been shorter, I wouldn't have grown as much in character and embraced my full personality as much as I have.)

I'm glad I'm the height that I am. I had to grow into it, but I kind of like being a small person in a large body. And I'm still growing. I'm also glad that I know short people, tall people, and average height people, and can call them all friends.

I needed height in order to grow. I needed six feet in order to be brave. Without it, I would still be hiding. I know plenty of short people who aren't stopped by height differences. They didn't need to be tall in order to step up. And now we have, in something seemingly insignificant and out of our control, yet such a large part of who we are, a glimpse of the Creator's design that points us and others to Him in wonder. Isn't God's gift of variety in such a simple thing marvelous?

So, for fun, what do you think you would be like if you were shorter or taller? And how has your height shaped you?

1 comment:

  1. I ended up about average for women in the US, but all through elementary and middle school, I was shorter than everyone else. (This probably had everything to do with being younger than everyone else by as much as a year.) I still identify as short and chubby, even though I'm not *really* either of those things. But that's how people treated me when I was younger. It's weird.

    Ya know who owns her tallness? Julie Newmar. When I took a semester of ballet my senior year of college, I had a photo of her up in my locker for inspiration. So graceful and yet so bold.

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