I’ve never used the f word more in my prayer time than I have in the last two weeks.
“Some of you here didn’t know what you were signing up for when you came and just said yes to God’s call and you’re hear and you’re figuring it out.”
*****points to myself******
It would be much easier for me to leave. It would be much more comfortable for me to give up and go home. It’s possible I can sit in the back of the classroom with my arms folded for the entire semester and never learn anything. It’s possible that I could keep my walls up, or keep building them back up when parts of them come down.
I feel pressure to have breakthrough and yet at the same time compassion and understanding that it’ll be a process. It’ll come in time.
I run to people, not God. I’m having the same conversation with different people. I can feel my striving. Every day in class staff and the senior class stand up and give words and prophecies for people in the room who need to “step out of the boat” or “risk it” or “embrace” or “stop striving” and I feel like every single one is for me. I GET IT. SHUT UP. If there was a switch I would flip it!
I’ve never been more frustrated with myself. My flaws, imperfections, and struggles are on display for the class to see. My striving is visible and I feel embarrassed and small. I want to isolate and withdraw.
During prayer time in the class when teachers or students feel like things need to be said, the breakthrough moments that need to happen, seniors or staff will come stand behind me and rest their hands on my shoulders like they are seeing something I’m not. I get called out in class and I bite back “I don’t know what you’re seeing but I don’t have anything to say, I’m not feeling anything.”
Everything is hard. I’m not sugar coating my time here. It’s a week and a half in and I HATE being in class. I don’t laugh at jokes, I avoid eye contact with staff feeling like they are going to see right through me, and I roll my eyes when people yell out “amen!” in the middle of class, when really I know my annoyance and anger is out of jealousy… wishing I was there with them.
I struggle with the crash I encountered after coming off the field, just like every other crash after a camp or missions trip high. I hate that I’m at yet another program abroad, fully expecting another crash when I get home. What’s the point? I hate that I feel like God sent me to a behavioral correctional facility for troubled teenagers. I hate that I can have tacos on the roof during sunset in SPAIN and not be grateful for God sending me here, and say I don’t want to be here.
But I don’t want to be home. Something keeps me here and I hate THAT.
I don’t want to “rest” in Jesus’ arms. I want to punch him in the face! WHY AM I HERE?! I hate the struggle. I do. But I keep getting asked the question “what if the valley is beautiful?”
Well it feels like crap right now God, so show me the beautiful! SHOW UP! I know SOMEHOW all this is for good and I’m here, I’m committed! I said yes, I was obedient! You’re shaping me in the wrestling with you but it SUCKS.
Why, oh my soul are you in turmoil within me?
