Stuck in the Middle

“I took one of those online quizzes to see if I’m left-brained or right-brained,” I said to Debbie over coffee earlier this week. She began chuckling even as I continued my thought: “I’m right in the middle! Practically 50-50!”

“I could have told you that,” she said. She laughed a little more, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You know it’s your parents’ fault.”

It is. My parents, the artist and the administrator. They complement each other well. It’s only when you try putting those two into one brain that you get a slightly schizophrenic reaction.

I seem to be perennially stuck in the middle.

I’m always torn, wrestling back and forth between the two sides of myself, the creative side distracting the administrator, the administrator reigning in the creativity and making it orderly.

There are plenty of positive things about being who God made me to be. Just in recent weeks that has been a huge theme in my life—learning to celebrate myself and others exactly as we are made to be. It’s like God took this fantastic chemistry set or cabinet full of spices and mixed and mingled each one of us into a unique blend. I’ve been delighting in the care He took in His creation of us.

And yet, I’m stuck in the middle. I’m torn. I’m always a little lost, trying to find my place. If I settle on one side or the other, I find myself looking over the fence and wishing I could also have some of the grass from there.

There’s a line in Cool Hand Luke, when Luke is in the church talking to God, that always has struck me: “You made me like I am. Now just where am I supposed to fit in?”

I hear ya, Luke. I hear ya.