Finding Your Gifts

So I am going to start looking for a job this week. I feel more motivated now than I did before. I think a big reason I’ve been putting off looking for a job is because I’m still pretty concerned with next year. I had come to a decision by the time graduation came around: go home for a year for a break, spend time with friends and family, and then go teach English in China for a year.

By the time I had gotten into college, I had figured out that teaching is not my gift. I may not have had formal experience teaching in a classroom setting, but I had lots of opportunities to teach when I was in high school. For example, when I was a leader in Bible Club during senior year of high school, I came up with some lessons that I was really passionate about and excited to share. But when it came time to actually deliver it, I realized how much I lack that connection and the ability to bring about interaction or real interest. I would love to be good at it, but through that and other experiences, I have come to find that I lack the ability to facilitate critical thinking. Teaching for real terrifies me because, to me, it’s like having to come up with a speech every day. I can do a speech if I prepare and work myself up to it, but every day? I would definitely prefer to write.

So I was able to go to China once and I loved it. I wanted to go back and I think I would still like to for a while someday. I figured that teaching would be the way to get me there and if I was in a place I wanted to be then maybe I could get used to teaching. Maybe if I tried it in the formal setting I would be surprised. But I’ve still been very hesitant despite my efforts to like the idea of teaching and the realization was refreshed for me in Puerto Rico. I was in a situation where I was doing Devo time with a girl and I was trying really hard, but I just lacked that ability to encourage much conversation. When I had a friend help me I saw that she totally had the gift for it. She said things to the girl that I never would have thought to ask and the girl really came out of her shell and lit up. Darn. I really wish I could do that. I think I can if I’m just casually talking to a person about themselves or sharing from my own life, but not when I’m under the pressure of trying to officially teach…on purpose.

I’ve been told by many, “Well, teaching is just the way of getting you over there. There are lots of other things you can be doing while you’re there. Just do it.” But the way I see it is….being a teacher is like being a musician. A musician can enjoy the rewards of the that lifestyle, but they can only experience it if they are good with the basic talent of music in the first place, which earns them the fruit of that lifestyle. They need to actually be good at music (real musicians actually do their own music and do it well), putting in the hard hours of work writing and producing it, studio time recording it, and the business issues the come along with it. I think a person really needs to be good at something to experience the fruit of the work. Same with being a teacher. I am not going to be effective if I am not good at it. If I go there to teach but I’m not good at it then what the heck am I doing? Overall, I'm not feeling right about it and I am leaning more towards doing something else.

God has gifted us all in different ways, so why should we waste our time running after something He has not purposed us to do? We will only be fulfilled in pursuing the desires He has given us, not to be mistaken with pursuing our own selfish desires. If I ask Him to give me the right desires, then I’m going to love and pursue what He wants. I can’t fit a square peg into a round hole and even if I fiddled with the square and made it small enough to fit into the hole, it would still not be the right shape. I’m thinking I need to stop trying to make myself be good at the job of teaching when I’ve had plenty of opportunities to know that it’s not for me to pursue. I believe that a person finds out what their gifts are by trying things out and finding what works and what does not.

If I can, I like to teach through personal conversation and writing. More than teach really, I guess I just like to be there for people and express things that I have learned so that maybe I can bless someone else in the same ways that I have been blessed by others. I know how much it means to have someone there for you, to have a mentor, to read words that someone wrote that just impact you to the core of your being. Words that change you. I just love words and I want to reach people with them.

Nostalgia Overload

Nothing bad is happening but, for some reason, things feel really hard right now. I think I’ve been holding everything in life at arms length lately because I’m not ready for life to start happening again. I’m afraid of what will start happening once I open up to it again and that it will get out of control, that things will start happening that I don’t want to happen, that I’m not ready for. Realizations that will shock me about life after school that I did not expect and will not like.

One thing I think I’m missing about school is being comfortable living like a grown-up. I mean, I took care of myself completely on a day to day basis and now I feel like I have nothing to take care of myself for. I feel like I am mostly being taken care of now. In school, I knew how things worked. I got up in the morning and went through my list of things to do as best as I could. I went to class, I did my homework, I took care of business in the right offices, talked to my professors when I needed to, went to the store, worked, carved out some leisure time so I could be refreshed and think again. I got all my meals when I could get around to it and, rather than planning my twenty-four hours of every day around getting up in the morning and going to bed at night to get the necessary rest, I planned sleep around my schedule and, usually, only when I could afford time to pencil it in.

I knew how to operate in my world then. But what is my world now? I’m still trying to figure out what my world is exactly. What are the main components? I know one will eventually be a job, but I’m not even sure what that will be, which idea I should pursue. I know logically I should just apply for everything I can think of, but I want to find a field I like. I’m afraid of not finding anything, that my degree will not make a difference in this competitive world of work. But it is very possible the opposite might happen. I could be faced with choosing between a few things.

I think this sounds really shallow. Here I am complaining about identity and what my life is going to look like when I know there are so many worse circumstances that other people live in and wish they could escape. I should be thankful for having a roof over my head and for even having options. And I am, but I just don’t know how to operate this way when I lived in a mentally intense environment for so long. Really, I’ve been in school since I was five. I always had that path to follow. Now, for the first time, it’s not there. It’s all fair game. And I know the answer is not to keep going to school simply because it is all I have known.

Not to mention that all this time to think of other things is forcing me to think about things I haven’t wanted to deal with, random things that really are not even issues anymore but just come to my memory more often and cause for me to reexamine things in a different light, simply by being home.

Like my grandpa’s death a couple years ago. I haven’t felt like he’s really been gone because I’ve been away at school. I felt like he was just back at home where I didn’t get to talk to him. I was away from the place where I was used to his presence. Being home makes me feel like he's gone because I see the places we used to go, talk to the people that he knew and pass by things that will bring back a certain memory of him. And things like that are everywhere in the least likely places.

The same thing is happening with other countless things. Hurtful things, sad things, happy things. I’m nostalgic while I am both sad and afraid. I’m being overloaded with memories of the past while thinking about and figuring out my future. Of course, I know I don't have to figure everything out on my own. I know God has my life all planned out. I really just need to clear my head somehow.

To Heal in Christ and Move on from a Broken Dream

For three months I have been working through the most significant break-up I have ever gone through. At first, all the busyness with graduation distracted me and I thought I had already dealt with everything that needed to be dealt with. Sadly though, a few weeks before graduation it hit me really hard all of a sudden and my immediate reaction was very, very stupid. It took me at least a week to stop feeling so guilty about my reaction, especially because I had scared my best friend half to death. But I got right back up to pursue the right behavior again.

However, this has not prevented the emotional and spiritual struggles I have been going through. My reaction back then only awakened how I really felt about what I had been ignoring. The most dominant feeling that took over afterward, concerning the break-up, was sadness. Deep sadness.

Admittedly, although I have dated before, I really had never been in love, although any kind of crush may seem like love to a teenager, and there had never been anyone that I was truly open to marrying. Now, when I was young, my mom and I came up with a name for my future husband, so we could pray for him. Bring him up without having to say “my future husband” all the time. I don’t remember how old I was; it was at least elementary school. And so, I named him…Pete. Even though I’ve always had Pete in my mind, I went through a lot of heartbreak looking for him and I came to find that I was most happy when I was single. Seriously. I could do anything I wanted with my life, with God leading me of course. But I could pursue any career, move to any place, and live independently without having to answer to any guy. I reveled in total freedom.

When this relationship came along, it took quite a while for me to warm up to the guy. We became best friends, but it took over a year for me to be willing to date him and a couple of tries for it to even stick. Talk about persistence. By January, I had totally changed and I was convinced that this was it. This was Pete and I was happy with that. But only a month went by, a great month, before it came out that our core beliefs are not the same. We had been talking about spiritual things since the day we met, so we had assumed that we were both on the same page. But it happened that our different beliefs were over something we never fathomed needing to ask each other about and something absolutely necessary to agree on in order to continue a life together.

Another month went by, but it was an empty month. The only things that happened over that time were disagreement, pretending, avoidance, and growing distance. We had come to an impasse and it came time for it to end. And here I come back to the sadness that took me. It felt so wrong that things should happen the way they did, to go through so much struggle coming together only to break-up so quickly and finally. In contrast, with all the research and the people I had spoken with, I only became more solid and passionate about what I believe. It will never be changed to anything else.

After graduation, I went on a ministry trip to Puerto Rico for three weeks. I have been back for two weeks and it’s almost comical to me now how up and down I have been about everything. Being finished with school and adjusting to life without being constantly stressed out by homework. Accepting that I will never go back to live in that community of friends that I have known for four years; some of those friends I will probably never see again. Figuring out the next steps to take in my life. And then there is the break-up.

Last week, for the first time in three months, I felt angry about it. I had felt anger within the second month of the relationship, angry at the situation, not the guy. But this time I was angry at God. I think the anger had been there for a while but I would always cover over it quickly and focus on the sadness. I don’t usually get angry with God because I understand that things happen for a reason and that I am not meant to understand, while I am on this side of life, all that occurs. However, it came out and I finally had an honest conversation with God about it, if you can call it a conversation. I got it all out, my ups and downs, my questions and thoughts, all my venting, in twenty-two pages of journaling.

When I finished…I instantly felt better just having come out with it all. I didn’t even need an answer to the questions. It just made me feel better to have asked them. And you know what? Things have really been improving for me since then. My circumstances have not changed, but my spirits are lighter, my reasoning has become more positive and my relationship with God is growing again, all because I am came out into the open with Him. I always knew that God wants us to be perfectly honest with Him, even if it involves negative feelings, and I have done so in the past. But, for the first time in a long time, I actually felt the truth of that fact as the burden lifted from me instantly.

I have been reading this book since December called When God Writes Your Love Story by Eric and Leslie Ludy, one of many books that I have attempted to read but have not had time for while I was in school. Yes, I know, some of the language in it is cheesy 90s language, but I think the book is fantastic. It’s mostly filled with things I already know, that I grew up with. But sometimes things you grew up with just need to be reinforced in a way that will make it meaningful to you again as an adult and in a time of need. When you really need to believe again in those things that you already know. And some of the ways Eric and Leslie deliver these truths have been new for me, causing for me to think about these things again.

I’m beginning to think now that I’ve gotten out of the general and am getting more into the specific, the guys who do come really close to what I am looking for but are just not quite right. It’s so strange how I thought the guys I liked in high school were so right, or at least really close, when they are so obviously wrong to me now. I was really off. It makes me wonder how any person can really know their soul mate in high school. I’ve changed so much; I’m not who I was in high school. I guess if you marry young though then you change with that person, but the single road keeps you constantly changing as an individual. So we must find the right person at the right time, at the same place in life that we are in.

I want to be the right kind of woman for Pete so that we will be right for each other at the same time. I know there are things I need to work on, but I’m beginning to see things that my Jesus wants me to see, so that I will settle for no less than Him and what He has for my life. I have not found my Pete. As long as I know that, I can wait. It has been made clear to me now that I had a choice between Christ and someone who, although dear to me, is not my Pete. Out of the two options, although extremely difficult, giving him up is the only one I could live with. Giving up my Jesus is never an option.

Starting a New Book and New Life

Here I am, twenty-two years old, and I have just graduated from college. I have really only ever envisioned my life up until now. I've had ideas for life afterward but nothing tangible to expect. Only ideas. And those ideas were all part of a background to the ever-present pressure of school work, the relieving joy of friendships that were nurtured and the daily life within the moment of college. But that is all closed and finished now. There is nothing new to add to my college experience. "When I was in college" is a now a lump phrase for me to use referring to a part of my life that is past. Whether I am ready or not, I have entered the realm of ideas.

I had always thought that each section of my life was divided into something like chapters. Don't we all? However, I'm finding there is much more to life that cannot be so simplified. I think now that, all my life, I have been going through chapters within different volumes of one book, but now I am beginning a brand new book completely. This is unknown territory. I don't know how to work my way through this. I had worked my way through the first book to the point where I had finally gotten the hang of things, only I didn't realize I was coming upon the end of the book. I thought I was simply skipping over to a new chapter. No matter how much I tried to prepare myself, I was not completely ready for this. (It's kind of funny...I hate surprises, but I think the Lord loves surprising me and making me like it. Even though I feel unprepared, I know it's through my weakness that He shows His strength and accomplishes what I think is impossible.)

You know how it is when you finish a really great book? There may have been some unpleasant parts that you had to work your way through and there are other parts you just had to read over again and again because it was so good that you just wanted to savor it, so you could remember its initial affect on you forever. When you are finished, whether it is overall good or sad, it will stay with you. But you have a choice: waste your life reminiscing over the same story until you've beaten it into the ground where it has lost all of its sweetness, its impact, or begin a new story.

Yes, the old story will always stay with you in some way. It will overlap and you will take parts of it along as you begin the next book. Maybe it will determine how you approach the new plot. Now, it is alright to look over the old story on future occasions and find some more sweetness in it again. But it will never have the impact of the first read. It's interesting how we can dwell on the past in efforts to preserve its sweetness, but the very thing meant to prolong the sweetness is what kills it after a while. You only read a book for the first time once and, so, refusing to move on from it is to dwell needlessly. We cannot, therefore, live in the past. We must begin our new story when the time comes.

There are surely things that I am taking with me from my old story into my new story, my new life. As I am adjusting, I am working through some of those last experiences of significant impact. Some of these things have been so very difficult. Things I have never gone through before. I fear that right now I am experiencing a time of sadness over many things and dealing with some anger as well, moving on from things that I have lost, that I don't understand. I'm trying to hold onto the Lord right now and, even though I've been rather childish with Him, He has still given me comfort and peace, for which I am thankful. I don't deserve it. I know that He is the only thing that I can put my hope in to help me let go of the sadness over missing the good things, heal me of the pain over the bad things and bring me out of my old book into the new one. I will not remain in that story. I am gathering up my new bearing and beginning the first chapters of this new book. As of right now I am simply going. The direction will come in time, however the Lord chooses to reveal it to me.

For today, thank you for reading,
Alz