I’ve read that there is a book out there called, “Introverts In The Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture.” written by a man named Adam McHugh. I think I should read it. And I say, no, type that already thinking of a quiet time and place to be while reading. Books are my friends. Well, so are people. A few. Those who are extroverts, including the carpenter/businessman I have spent the last 14 years vowed too. Without him I would probably be nothing more than a random face zigzagging through town now and then.
Sometimes, when we’re told we are made “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27) I wonder if that really encompasses both the introvert and the extrovert. Can God be both? I listen to the stories over and over throughout childhood, and now read them to my own, and find myself wanting to dissect how much Jesus of Nazareth gave out loud? Really.
I want to give more. I truly do. But I will, eventually, find myself completely exhausted of people. There are days when my tongue revolts and I have nothing more to say. Can we introverts fulfill the Messiah’s request to “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15)? Is it really all the world or is there a place, here, that I can quietly preach?
I believe, yes. Because I have been given two that must be raised up daily. Two that cannot understand the Omnipresence that fills this world. Two that, right now, just want to snuggle, run, create, explore, with ME! I am the face of the only Shepherd they know. I say so with great reservation, because I am fallen, and there is no abstergent strong enough to cleanse me of all I have blotted. Yet, these young selves look at the husband and I and begin to form a picture of who God is.
I understand that the circle must expand. If I want these two to follow with a heart of servitude, our circle must expand. I also understand that they are not me. They are their own pure creation of His image. They have gifts and talents not yet discovered and it is my job to help find them. Even if that means I will, at times, have to glutch down a sigh and move myself into position of extrovert.
That is where I pray. Where I write things to be thankful for, because in that space where my shoulders pull in and I wish to duck under the responsibility of pure giving I know I must ask for assistance in changing out the order of who I am too serve who they are.
Maybe Christ really was a little of both. Maybe He walked with those closest to Him teaching them in their own small circle, but when the moment presented itself, He expanded that circle to show them how to purely serve.
Lessons I must teach self.
It will be continually, this pure search, to learn to purely give.
~kathy
kathy brower 