Alex, Severe Mercy, Personality Tests, and things of that Nature.

I love it when i don't talk to a friend for a while and then get back together with them and its just like old times+a few more months of wisdom. Its encouraging to have time apart so that the ways they have grown are more easily seen or more visible because you aren't interacting with them daily. What a joy.

Today Alex and I discussed our favorite book, a Severe Mercy, and the level of awareness of one's life that a person must have to write such a book. Primarily the gift of looking back and seeing the ways God was involved in certain situations and the ways that particular instances were directed without you even knowing it. We also talked about the discomfort that sanctification involves. INTERESTING parallels were drawn between personalities and the process of becoming more like Christ. She mentioned the difference between a personality test she took when she was a freshman in high school and the one she took recently. She said that it had evened out a lot and she had become more of an introvert. All of you who know Alex know that she has not, in the past, been introverted, by any stretch of the imagination. But, she sees the ways the God is teaching her to listen and in the way she is becoming more Christ-like. Its interesting because I've been watching this process and the personality test was just a small indication that she's changing. I once was told that Jesus was ALL the personality types perfectly, and that's why his ministry was so effective(besides the fact that it was life changing), because he was able to communicate fully to everyone in the ways they needed to be spoken to. So, as we become more like him we begin to even out a bit, less extreme perhaps? Its also interesting to note that some of the most Christ-like and amazing people in my life happen to also show no extremes on those kinds of personality tests, they are pretty even. This doesn't mean, at all, that they don't have personality or flair or idiosyncrasies that make them very different from other people,but maybe they've just progressed to a place where, through added wisdom, they've learned to interact in a way that makes them more likely to understand, relate, and appreciate acting in different ways that are appropriate for each circumstance. anyway. just something I've been thinking about and discussing with my sweet friend.

sidenote: I've always hated personality tests because i thought they put people in boxes--however--looking at them from this perspective, they seem to set people free from the boxes that they've been put in their whole lives.

love it. lovin' St. Louis.