Mistaken For Myself

The picture of Dave mistakenly identified as me.... by Dave!

Yesterday was my birthday. I was overwhelmed with kind wishes from my FACEBOOK friends of which there are close to 4500. My estimate is that less than 1/10th of 1% of those friends would have known that without FACEBOOK reminding them. It doesn't matter-  I love hearing from those around the US and the world who would not have thought to send a traditional birthday card. Relatives, co-workers, former colleagues, former students and players- many memories were rekindled for me as I finished another lap around the sun. I cherish them all! My brother, Dave, even put a picture of me as a small boy at Christmas with a caption having to do with my assured nomination to the Mount Rushmore Of Brothers! There was just one slight problem: the picture was of Dave and not me. I thanked him for the amazingly gracious comment while pointing out the error, which Dave's wonderful daughter, Meagan, caught as well. Dave was adamant but I found another shot at the same Christmas tree the same day with both of us in the picture. As good brothers do, Dave posted another photograph, this time with both of us and Mom. Any picture with Mom is a win-win so it ended up being an even better birthday shout-out!

You know, I've been mistaken for someone else before but never by the person who I'm supposed to be! It's understandable. Siblings look alike at young ages and we were both too young to remember. I took it as a nice compliment that my brother thought I was him! We look like those we share DNA with but often we try to look like those we admire. Whether hair or dress or makeup or whatever, we seek from a young age to resemble those we want to emulate. It could be athletes or models or movie stars or in the case of small children, cartoon characters. I love Homecoming Week at the schools where I've worked, enjoying the kids assume the roles of people they are not, whether real or fictional... but the next week, they reluctantly return to the more important role of playing themselves in the only real reality show, LIFE.  In 1st Corinthians 11:1, Paul urges his readers to imitate me as I imitate Christ. He makes similar statements in several other epistles and it always leads back to Jesus. Who do we imitate? Truthfully, I did quite a bit of imitating of Dave as a child as we were, as the only siblings for years, thrown together from both necessity and the need for a playmate. So maybe Dave was right in a sense. From an early age, I tried to be like him and maybe I pulled it off in some measure, even fooling the object of my imitation. That was fairly simple. It gets harder with each birthday. Now, if I can only be the imitation of Christ. And I think I won't even have to grow a beard!

Applicable quote of the day:
"Your own family resemblance are a frustrating code most easily read by those who know you least."
Barbara Kingsolver

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:
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E-mail me at steve@hawleybooks.com