6 + ∞

Two years ago I was sick in bed--bored, friendless, and depressed--when my little brother came in the room to cheer me up.  

"Lexie," he said very pensively, "on a scale from one to ten you are a six!" followed by rapid gasps from his hysterical laughter. 

He's a keeper. 

After my flu shot this week I thought I'd take a shortcut home over a very small fence. With my keys in one hand and important papers in the other I started one foot over the fence until my shirt got caught and I suddenly realized I didn't have any more hands. I came back down and spent an awkward minute rearranging my body position, trying to decide if I was capable of hopping a fence without ruining my clothes. Come on kid, you aren't 7 anymore you can do this!  Needless to say I looked foolish. 

Although, not quite as foolish as when a few hours later I was riding my bike home from work and thought: I can make it over that curb. Ooooh. Nevermind. I can't.  My wheels slid against the leaves (which coincidentally were also hiding how tall the curb actually was) and I came down to the cement like a noob on her first bike ride. This time I did ruin my clothes. I came home dripping in sweat and covered in leaves.  On the one hand I'm glad no one saw because it probably would have had a lot of hits on YouTube. On the other hand, it's too bad no one saw because I bet they would have laughed really hard and I could have made somebody's day that much better. 

My overall performance this week, like many other weeks, was probably much less than 6 out of 10.  Catching a fever, ripping my pants, forgetting what day it was, going to the wrong class.  Even my dreams (which tend to be quite vivid) were mediocre. This week featured my wedding day. The best I could come up with was a short, fat, bald man that was probably too old for me. The good news is I seemed to enjoy bending down to kiss the top of his shiny head. To each his own, right? 

  

Unfortunately, despite my own lack of polish and finesse I still tend to be quite critical. Last month after thinking and verbalizing some very unfair remarks, I found out that I had been wrong. Surprise, surprise. The next day I read a short article called "Divine Attributes of Jesus Christ: Meek and Humble." You'd think a girl with such pitiful coordination and poor communication skills wouldn't need any reminding on humility, but there you have it: I was humbled, not humble. Elder Ulisses Soares said, "Meekness is vital for us to become more Christlike...Being meek does not mean weakness, but it does mean behaving with goodness and kindness, showing strength, serenity, healthy self-worth, and self-control.” Said Richard C. Edgley, “The Savior is our supreme example of the power of humility and submissiveness. After all, His submitting His will to the Father brought about the greatest, and even the most powerful, event in all of history. Perhaps some of the most sacred words in all the scriptures are simply, ‘Not my will, but thine, be done’ (Luke 22:42).”

As I discussed the article with one of my friends she made the observation that 1 plus infinity and 10 plus infinity are both still equal to infinity; which means the 6 has as good a chance as the 10. Thank goodness. We are the ones and the fives and the tens. Jesus is the infinity. No matter what number we are on the scale of intellectualism, or hotness, or spirituality, we can't reach infinity without infinity.  I'm so glad God has as much mercy on me as He does on everyone else, and I am hopeful that someday--with practice--that this number 6 will be able to walk up the great staircases of heaven without even falling once.