August 8: Stephanie Stahre

What were you like as a kid?

As a child I was a cut-throat entrepreneur. I was constantly trying to come up with new ways to make money. My best idea was to have a garage sale and sell my brother’s toys. I set up a table and laid some of my own toys out, but mostly my brother’s and started making some money. I did this without my brother’s consent and when he complained about his toys being sold I told him he could buy them from me. He did. My mom made me give the money back.

Devotional:

I will start this blog post by giving you my Myers Briggs letters. I’m an ENFJ. If you are unfamiliar with Myers Briggs testing a quick google search will give you an abundance of information about it. I strongly recommend taking the test at some point if you haven’t. Not everything in your personality description will be spot on, but it’s helped me learn a lot about who I am, how I function, and why I react in certain ways to some situations. The main letter I want to focus on in this post is “F” or Feeler.

Let’s rewind to almost exactly one month ago. I went on a family vacation to North Carolina to visit my brother. Family vacation. I use the term “vacation” here pretty loosely. Mom, dad, sister, niece, me in cramped quarters paired with driving through the night (such an awful idea) all helped cause tempers to flare a little bit. Words were said, looks were shot, and the next thing you know everyone’s upset and I (feeler) start to cry. Crying in my family is considered dramatic unless there’s blood involved. The trip was rough for me. When we got home I sat down and talked through some of the stuff that went on with another friend and I finally didn’t feel crazy for having the emotions that I felt while on the vacation. It was so nice to sit and talk and be understood. As we unpacked some of the stuff that went on I realized that this had been a pattern throughout my life with my family. Often times I’m considered the problem in situations with my family because I have emotional responses to circumstances.

As I process through it more and more, I understand that me being a feeler is such a special gift from God for my life. It is something that I held onto throughout my childhood even though I’ve been surrounded by family members that aren’t comfortable with my emotion. As I was driving in my car tonight thinking through what I wanted to write for the blog, listening to worship music tears started streaming down my face and I felt beautiful in God’s sight to have that emotion He implanted so deeply in me from creation.

God’s teaching me how to live in the tension and bridge the gap between my uncomfortable with emotion family and my emotional self. I’m sure that there will be many bumps in the road, but I know relationship with them is worth it.

I want to throw this out there to all you “Thinker” ladies…being a Thinker is beautiful too! I am thankful for the different perspectives you can bring to situations and that you can process through things in a thorough way. I love it when we can embrace who God created us to be and make each other stronger using our differences within community.

Prayer Requests:

On Saturday, I will see my family for the first time since the very rocky road trip. I would love prayer that it will go well.