Hunger Games I Play

Not the best day.  It may have started with the rain messing up my plans to take my kids to 6 flags…but I suspect it was all brewing long before then.  I think somehow my sudden lack of plan for the day snowballed with the whining of the kids, the list of undone chores, and the vague onslaught of encroaching hormones to create what I was today- on edge, at odds with the world, and fairly impatient with my kids.

Anyway, it took a Mike’s and a movie night with my husband to put me a little bit righter.  I know you’ve all seen the second Hunger Games, but this was our first time to see Catching Fire.  I’ve read the books so every once in awhile I would ask if my Jeff needed a refresher on anything going on, and once (only once, I promise) did I look at him cavalierly and tell him “not to get too attached to THAT character.”  (I maaaay have also started counting down when I knew the person’s death was imminent.  Don’t give me grief, did I mention encroaching hormones??)

Oh, don’t worry, no movie spoilers here, I promise.  Unless you didn’t think anyone died.  In that case, oops.

Anyway, after the movie I had this thought surge up in me like it used to when I was a kid and I really got into a character.  My sister and I would start reenacting scenes, casting ourselves as the heroine of course, and we’d roll around on the floor and jump over pillows or whatever we had to do to play out our own fantasy saga.  We’d make fake rafts and escape the island or pack all twenty baby dolls into a covered wagon or fight with an enemy using nothing but a stick.  Eh, sticks are pretty cool.

So here I am after the movie feeling very in tune with my inner Katniss Everdeen…I even started braiding my hair as I walked into the kitchen and surveyed my battle ground.  Dishes and mess everywhere but I honed in on a stray oyster cracker on the floor and, if I’d only had my arrows, that little guy would have be pulverized.  You know it.

But then pretty much in that same instance I realized that I just mind blasted a glutenous wafer and kind of came back to my senses.  Because I’m not struggling to survive while fighting big people- I’m struggling to stay sane while breaking up little people fights.  I’m not skilled with a bow, unless its one that is going in my daughter’s hair.  (And even that latter skill is questionable.)  I’m not thinking creatively about how to catch my next meal, I’m just thinking  creatively about how to make a meal out of all canned food so I don’t have to take three kids back to the store yet.  And if I’m hiding, it is not in a tree or brush, its in the bathroom.  With the kindle.

I don’t know why I want to be someone else sometimes…someone exciting.  Want to represent more?  Want to give my life for something of value.  Want to be known- really known for something.  Want to really feel like I’m making a difference- like I’m fighting for more than just domestic tranquility and well educated, safe kids.  I do think that pouring my life into my kids is so much more than I ever realize- but I also think there is more that all of us long for than what our daily routine feels like.  Maybe there is more at stake in the world than we see and we are a player in such a bigger plan.  But I don’t think saving the world starts with me being this perfect, idealistic hero trained with a lethal weapon.  I don’t think by any means it is as glamorous and romantic and simplistic as I’d dream it as.  Still, the older I get the more I care about what my life is playing out and why it matters.

That is part of what following God is all about- I guess it starts precisely with not wanting the spotlight or the hero status.  It starts with wanting to reflect God and all His qualities- to bring Him glory.  And then it is really and truly letting Him mean absolutely everything to me- so much that I’d give up anything for Him.  So much that I can see beyond the facade of what is just not worth it at all, to what is eternal.   So much that I don’t let the world dictate how I live anymore because it just doesn’t matter what the world says.  

And today reminds me that I’m very much on a journey, and nowhere close to arriving.  I’m broken and making daily mistakes- I’m wishing for more and not embracing the roles I’ve been given here and now, today.  But I pray I’ll let go of myself more and more, and one day be, if not  quite Katniss, the me God equipped and intended me to be.  And I hope that my life will ultimately be purposeful and beautiful and adventurous in a way that points only to God.  

(And just in case you missed the side point, the oyster cracker should still be afraid.  Very afraid.)