I knew all that Shakespeare would pay off some day

быт или не быт; вот чем вапрос. (To be or not to be; that is the question.)--Hamlet, Shakespeare

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been pretty sick for the last several days. Yesterday was the first better day I have had, and last night was the first night in several that I slept more than two hours. Of course, I was still up at five, but I felt pretty rested in comparison to the nights before. Unfortunately, I'm feeling kind of yuck this morning, so I'm sitting up in Marc's recliner, blogging and listening to a crime show on tv. (I don't care whether it's court tv or trutv or whatever...I love all those forensic shows.) I still feel better...just not more than I did yesterday, which was my hope. I also slept through a dose of antibiotic and tylenol, so the pain has taken hold of me this morning a little more than I'd like. So while I wait for the tylenol to kick in, I thought I'd blog a little bit.

I'm going to confess something now, and it's only going to confirm for you that I'm as big a nerd as you think I am. I love Shakespeare. Honestly, I have ready all of Shakespeare (thank you, Dr. Jones), and I really enjoy his work. I like teaching him (though he can be a little dark for high school), I like reading him, I like analyzing him. But I must tell you that all those years ago, when I was sitting in Dr. Jones' class and reading the entirety of the big, red Shakespeare book, I wondered if it would ever mean anything in "real" life. I mean, it's fun to read, good stories and all that, but was I ever going to use it? (Of course, I became an English teacher and taught some Shakespeare every single year for seventeen years, but that's a different story.) In the last few days of being sort of still and quiet (an anomaly for me), I've had some time to think about ol' Shakespeare, and I've decided that there's some pretty good stuff in there, stuff I can use in real life. And if I'm going to use something in real life, the most elemental question in Shakespeare is the quote above. To be or not to be?

Now, let me clarify that when Hamlet utters these words, he's really contemplating whether life is worth living or if he should just go ahead and kill himself. After all, his uncle has killed his father, married his mother, and taken over the kingdom. To top it all off, his father's ghost is pressuring him to seek vengeance and he's got a girlfriend with some stability/sanity issues. Hamlet has troubles. He has issues. So he's really contemplating something I'm not. I'm a pretty life-affirming gal. Even in the pain of the worst ear infection in the history of mankind, I'm not trying to figure out whether or not life is worth living. It is. Unequivocally, life is worth living.

However, I've had some time to think about why that question is so elemental to who we are. We have choices to make about who we are. We have choices to make about how we present ourselves to others. We have choices to make about the life we live. As I've thought about it, at least from a Christian perspective, to be means to be exactly what God created you to be. Not to be is trying to be something else. Every day, maybe every minute, we decide to be or not to be. This blog is a great example. I could decide to present to you a voice of confidence and perfection and passionate fire for the work of God. But that wouldn't always be the truth. Perfection wouldn't ever be the truth, and this new world has taken some of my confidence, and to be honest, some days I just want to live a normal life in Middleburg, Florida, and leave the "God work" to those who can do it better and are more worthy of doing it. So I have to decide...am I going to be or not be?

It's hard for me to choose to be the person I am, created by God in a specific way, but flawed, flawed, flawed. I would love to be more together, with a house that's always clean, two cars in the garage, perfect children, and a full bank account with no financial worries. But I'm not that person. I have a messy apartment, a car only because somebody else left town, a far from perfect family, and school tuition that I have no clue how I'm going to pay. But somewhere along the way, God chose me and my imperfect bunch to do something kind of extraordinary. We still can't tell you why, but He picked us for this place at this time. And though we don't know all the answers to every question in our lives, we have learned beyond all else that He is faithful. Faithful to provide, faithful to save, faithful to protect...faithful. All I have to do is be faithful to be the person He created me to be--warts and all.

Well, it's 7:30, and I've been up for a while, so I think I'm going to lay down and watch my crime shows. (Did your grandmother used to say she was watching her stories? That's what I was going for there.) Wherever you are in the world, I pray that your choice today is to be, and that where you live it's not 56 degrees in the summer. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye