A Comma Girl.

When I was in junior high, we took tests.

We took academic tests, spiritual gifts tests, and personality tests. My little twelve year old self would count down the days until it was time to find out what I had in common with a beaver, a golden retriever, or the color red. They've always intrigued me. Perhaps because I love the soothing monotony of plugging in numbers and filling in bubbles. Or perhaps it's because I've never taken one that's lived up to it's promise of "defining me." But despite the why's and regardless of the letdowns, I still take them every once in a while. Just sometimes, to see if anything changes. To watch my answers shift and move, a sure sign of growth.

This week, I took a test that so impolitely screamed at me, "DO NOT TAKE ME SERIOUSLY." Yes, I took quite possibly the most UN-scientific quiz of them all entitled, What Punctuation Mark Are You?. Cue laughter.

But honestly, in that moment, there was nothing I wanted to know more than which punctuation mark I resembled. I'm a writer, what do you expect?! So I did what ANY completely normal, average, grammar-loving girl would do... I checked several boxes and hit submit.

Test Results:

Alyssa, age 19: The Comma.

Um. Really? Out of ALL the fascinating punctuation marks I get the COMMA?! I really just didn't get it. I felt like I was more of an exclamation point. Ya know, exuberant and dramatic? Passionate? Or maybe even the question mark? I do have lots of perplexing thoughts and philosophical ideas. haha!

But, as the hours wore on, I started to get it. Maybe this nonsense quiz that has no real grip on reality was right.

I am a lot like the comma. But not because that is truly my personality. I think if this were truly personality, I would be a combination of the question mark and the exclamation point: a passionately deep thinker. But no, I get the comma. Because there is a little comma in each of us.

Grammatically, the comma is sensitive. It likes to be included, needed even, but not overused. For a writer, or even just a high schooler wanting a decent grade, an out of place comma stands out in its own way. Perhaps even louder than the exclamation point, at times. The comma brings words together... avoiding the harsh disconnect of the period.

Those mimic a few traits of mine, and most likely a few of yours. But really? I think what every single one of us has in common with the super versatile comma in that we are each so unfinished.

Commas are imperative when listing a series of items. They separate each important piece, and let the reader know there is more to follow. Sentences never, ever end with a comma.

You and I are are not yet completed works. There are beautiful, complicated pieces to be written in our stories. There's more to add, more to understand, more to learn.

I'll be a comma. Sure. Because on my own, I am incomplete.

But I know the best is yet to come.

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” Philippians 1:6

If you were a punctuation mark, which one would you be?

Love,
A Comma Girl :)