[Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not process externally by talking through things. I'm definitely a visual person, therefore, I usually need to see my thoughts. Unfortunately, I've had more thoughts than one person likes to have as of late, and do need a little processing.]
Lately, I've been having some growing pains, in the not-physical sense. I'm torn between "I'm still a college student, and want to be somewhat irresponsible" and "I'm an adult now, who teaches and grades college students' work, and I need more adult interactions to help me feel like an adult." I've been debating a number of different things to help with this, because as much as I'd like to be the person of the former statement, I find that I identify much more with the latter statement. I feel like there could be a balance in there somewhere, but figuring out what that is, and how to get there I don't know. This is something that seems to consume a lot of my spare thoughts. Because I find that it does affect a majority of my relationships with both college students and adults. At times, I have a definite disconnect with the college students because I am teaching and grading work for students who are the exact same age as people I'm friends with, but around the professors and older adults I work with I have a disconnect of sometimes being too informal and not professional enough. It's definitely a struggle in which I think everyone suffers at times, because I'm either too distant with friends, or say or do something informal (of a typical undergraduate college student) that puts me on the "bad list" of the professors.
I've also been having some difficulty in remembering the victory God has had in my life, and of the beautiful and wonderful truth He has revealed to me about who I am in Him, and what I mean to Him. This is especially true in the area of relationships, of which most of us know I have a poor track record. This has caused me to believe a lot of lies about myself and relationships with people in general, and about God's goodness in providing for my heart's desires. In the last year, especially in the last 7 months, God has been so good in taking my painful experiences, and the lies I have believed, and replacing them with the beautiful Truth of what He has to say about my life. It has been so healthy for me, for God to heal me and show me His love and Truth. However, I find that at times, I'm overcome with the occasional lie, which causes me to retreat. I can't even tell you how much I desire God's Truth to be completely present in my life always, so that when I'm with the people I care about the most in my life, I can completely and wholly enjoy my time with them, instead of battling with lies about what they might (but don't) think about me, about who I am in general, etc.
I've also been having some major battles about my role in the church. A lot of times, at least in the last few months, I've battled feeling like I'm overlooked as a leader in the church. This doesn't exactly have to do with title roles, because I generally don't like to be teaching or out in front of a large group of people, unless I can put an instrument in front of me (and then I'm okay). For awhile, I ignored it or just pushed it off as the fact that I was in a "new" church and it would take time. I've been starting to realize what the real reasons are, but after church this morning, and taking some time after that, I think I'm really starting to see that I am, in fact, still a spiritual leader. God uses me, in my humanness, to meet with women and speak through me and use my screw-ups and life experiences in ways that I still and probably never will understand. God has been showing me that I'm struggling in this area because I'm not at everything our church does. If you remember, when I was at BGSU, I was highly involved in the church. I didn't necessarily go to EVERYTHING because at some point school had to take a priority, however, I was able to be involved in a significant number of meetings, hang-outs, and ministries. Here at Kent, there really isn't as much going on, so I feel that I should be able to be at everything. I'm a "plan person," meaning I like to plan ahead, therefore, I usually make plans in advance. I'm discovering the number one reason I am not at nearly as many church events as I'd like to be is that we are never told about things very much in advance. Therefore, when I make plans for other events, trips to home or BGSU, or with other people, it's usually in a space I think is free, but also happens to be when a H2O event is occurring. All that to say, I really need to stop trying to find my identity as a spiritual leader in the amount of events I attend, but instead in the work God is doing in and through my life. I never thought I'd actually struggle with something like that, because over the years at BGSU I got much better about saying "no" to being involved in everything so that I could focus on schoolwork, however, it seems to be something I'm struggling with now. I think the biggest event was deciding to go to Core Retreat or the OMEA Conference. I had decided months ago that I was going to the OMEA Conference next weekend (Jan. 27-29). Then, I found out about Core Retreat last weekend, and, after Matt McClure gave a talk at Worship about stepping out for Christ, I felt like I should drop everything and go to Core Retreat next weekend. I was just sure that's what God wanted me to do. Funny how that works sometimes. In the last 2 days I started making a Pro and Con list, because I wasn't convinced that I needed to drop everything for Core Retreat (if you know me, you know my mother taught me at a young age that you don't just "drop" the plans you made in advance for something that you think is better; it's very hard for me to drop what I already planned for this reason). In the end I found that my BIGGEST reasons for going to Core Retreat were: to see friends from LT, and surprisingly, so that the staff of H2O would see that I'm a leader (since I haven't gone to as many H2O things lately). Well, that's just silly! The biggest reasons for going to the OMEA Conference (in case you're wondering): to bring back new knowledge and answers to questions that will help my undergrad students, to learn something new that will help me teach at the college/university level, to network and meet other teachers from Northeast Ohio, to visit with my family and my sick grandmother. In the end, after prayer and thought, I feel that there's more sound reasoning and it's definitely going to be more beneficial for me to go to Cincinnati.
I know this seems a lot (oh, and there's probably more) to be swimming around such a small brain, but I think it's important to see some of this stuff. Because I have a BIG GOD, and I believe He's going to do some BIG things through all of this craziness. The road may be tough at times, but I'm always excited to see what God's going to do, how He's going to surprise me, and the blessings He richly and lavishly gives to His children.
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