Recently I’ve realized that I am not an emotionally stable person. This is strange to me because I’m not sure when it happened. I like to think that there was a time in my university career when I was stable… when I had everything together… but I’m possibly just delusional.
Last night this instability was brought to the surface of my life. We had an awesome junior high event last night. Everything went well… the kids connected… there were no major crises (or fire alarms)… it was good. As I left the church, however, everything came crashing down around me. Lately I’ve been plagued by this feeling that other people could ‘do my job’ better than I could. Perhaps it’s because I’m thinking about what happens next year and trying to decide if I should stay at the church part-time or if I should work somewhere else so that I can be involved in the church in a different way. I have no doubt that I will remain connected. As we’ve been discerning and envisioning the purpose of our community we feel strongly that it will be related to kids ministry at the church somehow. I think that it might be helpful for someone to be on staff there part-time to create the structures that allow the rest of us to be involved in actually connecting with people… so I guess I’m now just trying to discern my own calling in all of this.
It’s interesting how God has changed me in the last year and a half and yet there is still so much to be done. I know that God has been working on me like a carpenter works on a piece of wood, stripping off its many layers of paint to uncover the beauty of its natural wood. In many ways I feel like God has been stripping off the layers of sin, selfishness, apathy and callousness to uncover the person He created. The process is gradual and tends to not be overly painful until you wake up one day and realize you are not the same person you were last year. In other places, however, God’s work is a lot more like ripping a bandage off of a gaping wound. A wound that would never be healed by a simple bandage but that I’ve been unwilling to bring to Jesus to actually have healed. This part of the process is much more painful. When I put those bandages on I don’t expect to see that wound again. Even though I know in my heart of hearts that it cannot be healed by a simple bandage I am always surprised when it comes up out of nowhere, rearing its ugly head again.
God is truly amazing. Why He puts up with me or how He continues to love me I just do not understand. I realized yesterday that I’ve been looking for security and identity in what other people think of me. If people like me than I’m likeable. If people tell me I’m doing a good job then I’m valuable. Instead I need to internalize the truth that I was made in the image of God and there is something intrinsically precious in that. Easy to say… harder to live out. Come Lord Jesus… and redeem this beautiful mess.
