Loneliness hits when you least expect it sometimes. Like a sudden storm, it moves in and overtakes the skies; blocks out the sun...
I sometimes feel like a fraud at work, telling my kids that there is hope; telling them to keep going and to push through when I myself am at war with my heart to stay hopeful and to not give up.
Tonight I find myself in the midst of that familiar storm. I've weathered it before, but it still catches me off guard even after having experienced it so many times.
It sucks. Sometimes it takes all you have just to not grow cold and to not succumb to it's power. My wicked heart demands relief. Temptation to look up porn, to fantasize, to wallow in my sorrows, to cycle through old thoughts of self-hatred. etc come creeping in. It's in moments like these when I feel like God isn't listening or that He doesn't care. I know it isn't true. My life has been proof of that, but the feeling is still there and it overrides my logic.
I hide it from my students, but I too am insecure, hurting, lonely, and craving for love and purpose.
I know that God will see me through. I know that God is here in this moment. I have had many moments, even recently, when He made Himself known to me and stepped in. He loves me.
Loneliness is here for the night and she will will be my guest, but I know that she will not stay long. God will always come in to help me pick up the mess she left behind and help putting things in order again.
"Sorrow will last for the night...but joy comes with the morning."
The purpose of this post isn't to really convey or teach a particular topic. The purpose of this post is to share a little of my life with you and maybe help someone going through a rough time in ministry.
Two years ago I moved out to Kansas City, MO out of a desire to show love to troubled teens and to sacrifice my self (my time, energy, and resources) to try and bring hope and to share the Gospel of Christ. So why am I so often surprised by the difficulty and struggle that I experience? I knew that I wasn't wanted by those I went to minister to. It made the choice more difficult, but I felt like it was a needed element in my life. like it was something God was pushing me towards.
Since then I've had an evolution of form and function in the work place. I grew and became more experienced. I took on the call to move into a leadership role and to train and mentor staff to do that which I had done as a Mentor myself. Having done a year of both being a Mentor and being an Assistant House Director, I can say that I am nowhere near where I want to be, I've grown in ways I never could have expected, and I'm still not able to live a life void of my own struggles and flaws.
In college I had plenty of pastors and professors tell me that ministry was difficult, especially youth ministry. That always confused me. I never understood how they could say what they did. How could they always talk about being tired, stressed, and feeling ineffective. Now I do. If I can spend months and months with a student, seeing them 70-some-odd hours a week and feel completely useless and ineffective, then I can't imagine what someone who only gets a few hours a week with their students feel.
Lately I have wrestled with feeling completely ineffective and being unappreciated. Everyone who works at Shelterwood wrestles with this. Despite my best efforts to help others feel supported, I never seem to get them there. One of the areas that I failed in was sharing my own suffering and pain. I kept quiet and bottled up all the hurt and pain I felt so to not add to everyone else, but what I did was rob others of being able to be there for me.
When I was a Mentor, I would often share a little of my struggle with my students and it helped to build the relationship. It helped me to get things off my chest that were less sensitive things, and it allowed my students to know what it felt like to be there for others and to feel valued. Somewhere along the way I stopped doing that. I felt a responsibility not to; like it was a requirement of my current position to suffer in silence and alone.
After many months of doing this, I now feel overwhelmed and far from "ok."
God's way of helping me has been the opposite of what I've wanted. He has forced me to open up with others and talk about what lies beneath. He has been humbling me by leading me to share my burdens and to be honest about things that I am embarrassed about.
I've been able to get away for a few days and the distance has been helpful in taking some of the mental and emotional weight off of my shoulders, but it's not enough. I've been pushing against a wall and trying to do it without help. Two years of residential
work, and taking in all the second-hand trauma, has taken it's toll on me and worn me out.
I'm angry. I'm hurting. I don't live perfectly and I'm still working out this whole healing thing. They say that salvation isn't works based, but God sure seems to be pushing me to do a lot of stuff. Christianity isn't meant to be as lazy and relaxed as pastors preach it in the pulpits.
To those of you out there saying "just sit back and watch God work", please just stop. God isn't a circus or a movie to be just "watched" and entertained by.
There is no resolve to this post. Sorry if that cuts you a little bit. There are no Christian cliches that can accurately minister to your pain or mine. It's takes something more than cute words and "reading the Word" to make the world ok. We walk and we fight because God gave us purpose and He told us to keep going. He told us that He is coming for us so to keeping moving towards Him. Light comes when we least expect it. Grace always comes just in time.
Please know that if you are suffering you aren't alone. You aren't the only one. Many have come before us and succeeded, and so shall we. God will see us through, but we can't give ourselves over to our enemies before He does. Fight with me. Fight with me until the stars collapse and the Earth melts into itself.
Is it New Years yet? Why? Because I have been doing a lot of reflecting over this year occurrences, as well as have been examining myself and analyzing the changes that I have undertaken. God has brought me through some really crazy stuff this past year and allowed me to suffer in His presence and to endure by His unfelt love and His unfelt provision. Suffering is often associated with the works of Satan, but often is sent by God for the purpose of purging us of our uncleanness and false thinking or false actions. False being defined, not as unreal, but as ungodly or misguided.
I've nearly made it a year without A/C and heat, I've made it 6 months without home internet, and I've endured suffering in relationships, spiritual matters, and financial stability. I say these things, not to gain pity or get a pat on the back, but simply to say that I have endured things that I can clearly see God using to change me from the inside out. He is ringing about a heart change through life change and even though at the end of the month I left with spare "change" I am grateful for it all.
Some of the ways that God has used suffering are the building of endurence, the building of appreciation for what is (and for what is not) and compassion for others who suffer or lack. My focus and drive have been redirected, my doubts have been challenged, my fears have been confronted, and my thinking has undergone severe correcting. This is the glorious truth of our God. He does yield to our every whim, but desires to give us good things and to give us good things He often uses the bad things in us and the darkness of the world to make His Light shine all the brighter. Glory be to God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit whose power does greater things in us than we can ever pray for or even imagine! For He does not allow us to suffer forever, and He will not turn is face from us too long; He will not leave nor forsake, but instead He will bend down pick us up from our filth, clean us, and bring us into His house to dwell in goodness and Light.
A few nights ago I found myself lying on my living room couch feeling rather sorry for myself. The reasons many would consider perfectly legit reasons to be sad or upset, but I've been sad and upset over these for quite some time and I was finally reaching the level of "wallowing in self-pity." I started walking around the room, and then noticed a picture of St. Francis on my table. I flipped it over and discovered the following prayer:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
I was struck by the words of St. Francis, and found myself convicted by the Holy Spirit concerning my attitude towards life. In the midst of all that I was going through, I allowed myself to become self-centered, as well as self righteous. I hate it when people who are going through a hard time and start talking about Job, but here we go!
It seems that I am no where near as strong willed as Job was. He endured far more than I can even imagine before falling to self pity, and yet here I am already at that point when I haven't lost a single family member, nor have I lost vast amounts of wealth, and my friends aren't shoving bad theology down my throat-they are shoving theology down my throat...but not bad theology lol.
In the midst of my weakness, however, God gave me strength and renewed me. Just to make things even better, God-in a great use of irony- takes the man that denied all luxury and gave away his vast riches for the sake of Christ to accomplish something in my life.
I had recently been praying that I would learn from testimonies and examples of the Church Fathers and grow in understanding through the actions and teaching of the ancient saints, and God stepped in and did just that. I pray that He continues to teach me and give me strength, for soon I will fail again and crumble under the weight of life's difficulties.
I sometimes feel like a fraud at work, telling my kids that there is hope; telling them to keep going and to push through when I myself am at war with my heart to stay hopeful and to not give up.
