“There’s nothing wrong with me, it’s just that I believe things could get better”

I tried this a couple of days ago.. didn’t work out so well.  We’ll see how it goes this time.

Countdown to l’Afrique: 37 days.

I started my research job training on Saturday.  We spent about 2 and a half hours learning the standard procedure for administering the Woodcock-Johnson proficiency and progress test, measuring the competency and reading/mathematical abilities of kindergarten - third grade kids.  Then we spent another 2 and a half hours role playing for practice.  I felt weird calling the 20 year old guy next to me “Little Johnny” for an hour and pointing to words like “thorough” and “plentiful” and asking him to tell me what they were. 

Well, that was about the most eventful part of my weekend.  After my hectic schedule last week, I didn’t know what to do with myself with absolutely NOTHING to study or read for 3 whole days.  I find it nearly impossible sometimes to rest.  I get anxious.  And sometimes I’m anxious about being anxious.  And sometimes I worry when I’m not anxious because I feel like there’s got to be something to be anxious about, and maybe I’m not anxious because I’m forgetting what I’m supposed to be anxious about, and what if it’s something with a deadline, and what if I miss the deadline and it’s something that affects my being in school or being able to go to Africa, and it’s so annoying that I forget things that affect my being in school or being able to go to Africa anyway, why don’t I just write these things down, oh because I don’t have a planner, because all the planners at the bookstore are inefficient, and most of the times I’ve gone to get one the employees tell me they’re out of stock and that they’ll be getting better ones soon, I don’t know when soon is but it’s the middle of April and I obviously don’t really need a planner with only a month of school left.     
                        Welcome to my brain.  I wish there was a “Shut Down” button.

I have a brain that will manage to analyze any given subject down to the core.  It goes in circles and circles on its own, and I know better than to fight it by now.  I’ve learned to laugh at my controlling tendencies and acknowledge sooner, rather than later, that they are impractical.  I’ve better learned to shake off the little stuff.  However, I’ve noticed lately that my mind’s natural defense is to focus on the little stuff— to perfect details, and somehow ignore a bigger picture.  In letting the small debris dust over me as it  may, my eyes have the chance to finally see some of the rooted issues planted much deeper.  And those I cannot shake. 

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Psalm 51:17                                                    
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

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A week ago my project director asked us to be thinking about something specific that we want to be grown in this summer while we’re in Africa.  He asked us to bring a book or podcasts or something specifically pertaining to whatever we’re asking the Lord to stir up in us.  I’ve been thinking about it a lot and, like I said, my brain never stops running, so I’ve got more than a few ideas.  Maybe I want to ask Him to teach me to eagerly pursue a spirit of patience, or gentleness, or kindness, or peace… or any of the other fruit haha.  Maybe I want to ask Him to teach me to endure, to dress myself in strength.  Or maybe to speak in wisdom and love.  Or maybe to be more bold and let the Word of God flow from my mouth more easily.  Surely, you can see how I’ve felt pulled in many directions.  I want all of these things, and trust He is growing me into them, even now.  But what I’m finding myself most drawn to is GRACE.  Giving and receiving grace—I do neither very well at all.  More specifically, I want Him to teach me more about forgiving in grace and accepting forgiveness.  I’ve been challenged to accept the extreme measures I know this will entail, the stark brokenness I know I will have to become. 

I think I’d be good at hiding treasure.  Because, to me, that’s what this is.  Only this treasure is dangerous—notions that threaten to steal hope, or cover light, or will me away from trust.   Something so alarmingly delicate, preciously and invaluably vulnerable.   There is a pain so deeply buried in my soul that I can’t even find it.  It is because of its dangerous delicacy and vulnerability that I’ve gone to the most intricate means to hide it.  I was a success. 

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Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
                                                    - Psalm 51:8 - 12

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As if I needed further confirmation that grace and forgiveness were both things I needed to focus on, I opened up Relevant today and came across an article about generational sins. 

“ I look at my battered but relatively unscathed self in the shadow of generations of sin, wickedness of biblical proportions, mental illness and general suffering, and know it is only by the grace of a Savior that I’m here and serving the God who pursued me even through my ancestors. ”

Even through my family.  Even through the people who are supposed to protect me, people who have said they’d protect me, and didn’t.  Two weeks ago, my discipler broke sin into two categories for me: sins that I commit and sins that are committed against me.  Immediately I realized how far away I push sins that have been committed against me.  Adverse to confrontation, I fear the rejection—in acknowledging these sins to be forgiven—is far too great to overcome.  But whether I’ve ever been able to admit the affects of sin committed against me, I have the scars to prove it.  Truth is still Truth when I call it a lie. 

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
                                   Psalm 51:1,2
              

Rescue is Coming