His name's sake.

Yesterday was the hardest day of ministry I have had yet.

It still hurts, makes me sad, makes me want to cry with frustration.

Really it wasn’t that big of a deal, something I should have been expecting. The kids at Seneca got into a fight. It wasn’t even that big of a fight. As I tried to talk to them though, the girls refused to listen, hit and kicked me, ran away. One even bit me.

I got home and was frustrated at silly little things the rest of the night. As I was going to bed, I picked up a book from my bedside table, Searching for God Knows What, and started to read the chapter on morality. It talks about how too often our morality is based on comparing ourselves to others, too often we believe our morality saves us. It brought up Psalm 23, the verse that says “He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”

It’s kind of a stretch, I realize, but reading that chapter on morality and how it’s really an abstract concept and one that is fluid (although the Bible does provide a lot of guidance it is by no means a manual but more of an invitation to be led for His name’s sake). It helped me to realize I wanted these kids to behave so that my job was easier. I wanted them to behave so that I wouldn’t be tired, sad, frustrated. While I do love them and also recognize that not fighting is the best thing for them, the root cause of my frustration was that I had a bad day. Not His name’s sake.

If the kids need to fight now so that they will learn later what it means to have grace, so be it. If it means that I will have bad day after bad day because that is what they need, I am resigned, excited, called to live through that fact.

timshel

I have a new friend. I love this friend, a lot, although we barely know each other.

There's been a lot of pain in the past, though, and it is hard to deal with. I desire to help so much that sometimes it's painful for me that I cannot. As I was thinking of my friend this morning, this song by Mumford & Sons came into my head. I think it's such a beautiful recovery song.

My favorite line says, "...it will steal your innocence, but it will not steal your substance."
Regardless of what has happened to you, you are still the person God created you to be. Beautiful.

A close second, and one that really resonated with me now, comes at the end:
"But I will tell the night
and whisper lose your sight.
But I can't move the mountains for you."
Regardless of how much I fight the darkness, they are your mountains to move. All I can do is hold your hand.

Be still and know.

I've really sucked at that for the past week and a half. I've been running around and trying to do too much.





But today I saw a blue jay on my way into work.