decimate your inhibitions

somedays you get knocked to your knees, and when you're there, all you can do is pray. do you ever watch the news? read the papers? look at the people walking in your world? when i take the time to notice the people in my life, my heart starts to break, and when i start to think of all the pain and suffering in the world, my knees go weak. in this season of celebration, of love and family, of hope and joy, i wonder what my responsibility is in this world. it's certainly not in consumerism and ensuring my gift-wish-list truly encompasses all that i 'need' but cannot afford for myself. but it is in loving others, in caring for others, in allowing hope and joy to be evident in me.
i'm not to sure what that looks like, but i'm pretty sure that it doesn't look much like my life, and i'm pretty sure i'll never get it just right, which means i ought never to stop trying. trying to be better, to love better, to serve better, to give better... i so long to radiate with joy and love, to spread beauty where i go, to make the heart of my maker smile, knowing that i am bringing love and light and laughter to the lives of others. i long for that. and yet, i am bound, bound by what is expected of me, bound by who i am known to be, and what i believe i can and cannot accomplish. i am inhibited by my personal perceptions of who i am, by what i believe others percieve me to be, by the roles i feel define my personhood in my current context... and why do i allow these things to bind me?
if i believe that my hope and joy and love and peace are in striving to be more Jesus like, then i ought not to be bound by these things. i should do what i believe right, in each situation, but i often do not. these very things that bind me in a place of complacency are those things that keep me 'safe', that define me to my peers, that grant me acceptance in my context, that allow me to go without attracting overt negative attention. and so i allow them to bind me, and perhaps even find solace in their strongholds. what would it take to decimate these inhibitions? to be set free? nothing but the blood of Jesus, I am sure.
oh that i were faithful enough to trust...