Needing Goals & Going Dark
So after I ran the CowTown at the end of February, I found myself in a funk. I dropped off the digital landscape and even withdrew socially in person. Looking back, much of it had to do with goals. When I started seriously running, my goal was to lose weight. After losing over 60 pounds by the end of last year, I needed a new goal. That’s when I decided to run a 10k. So I spent the next 2 months training for the CowTown. I ran it and reached the goals I set. I also found myself a graduate from seminary. For four years my goal had been to preserve and graduate.
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Book Review: Friendships for Grown-ups by Lisa Whelchel
Whelchel covers developing friendships that encourage and strenghten each party. She takes the reader through the mountains and valleys of her journey. Whelchel discusses her struggle with self-sufficiency and the coping mechanisms she developed to hold her friends at a distance. There are times when it is ok to be needy but you also need to make sure you choose the people you confide in wisely. Each person in the friendship must be willing to be vulnerable and be willing to deal with conflict when it arises.
Much of this book is geared toward friendship among women but there are nuggets of truth applicable to everyone. Despite the differences in our upbringings and life experiences, I found similarities in our dysfunctional behaviors. Whelchel weaves in quotes from other authors and Bible verses which place her experiences in a larger context.
And for someone who likes lists, Whelchel gives discussion questions and conversation starters to use as you work to deepen your own friendships. I enjoyed this book and it made me evaluate how I relate to my friends. In the end, that is the whole point of this book.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Four Years of Seminary – Looking Back
It finally hit me this morning. My seminary career is at a close. When I moved here four years ago, I couldn’t envision actually graduating. I came here with the simple leading of the Spirit. No audible call, no clear direction, no vision and no idea of what the future held. I simply knew that this was the next step. Read more
Book Review: Life Together
I had to write a book digest for my Adult Small Groups class and decided I would go ahead and post it. Part of the assignment was to come up with a guiding principle from each chapter. These principles would be used by those starting small groups.
Bonhoeffer wrote this book while working at an underground seminary living with 25 students. He is very systematic and prescriptive in this book. He begins by looking at what Christian community is and is not. He then moves on to discuss how the community is to fellowship at various points of the day. Following this, he looks at how the individual is to go about their individual devotions which in turn will strengthen the community. Bonhoeffer concludes the book by looking at the ministries that the community is to perform for one another and how confession and communion are to occur within the community.
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God Opposes the Proud…That Means Me
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:5-7
How many times have I read passages on humility and pride and thought, “I’m doing ok in this area.” And then I go about my day. There have been other times that I have stared at the word “humility” trying to understand what it really means. Read more
Changes and Cliches
I’ve been flying below the radar for the last few months. After a month of looking for a job and coming up empty, I fell into a couple of contract positions. I have the freedom to work from home and when I want. But I also live with the fear that at any moment these contracts could end and I would be back at square one. Read more
You Can Only Juggle a Finite Number of Objects
I have been freed my bondage. No longer will I deliver pizzas on the weekend. I gave my supervisor my two-week notice last weekend. She wrote on the calendar that I would work the next two weeks. I steeled myself for the next two weeks and continued my work. Yesterday, I stopped by the store to check the schedule and my boss told me that I was taken care of. When i asked for clarification, she informed me I was free. I simply needed to stop by in a week and pick up my last check. She also requested that I stop by from time to time to say hello.
This week’s events are a culmination of a year of praying. I started at Fielder Road in August of last year and for a few weeks I worked over 50 hours between both places. That forced me to cut back my hours to just Friday and Saturday at Pizza Hut. If it had not been for my financial situation, I would have left Pizza Hut then. As the months passed, I resigned myself to working both jobs. As this summer drew to a close, I began to look at my financial situation again. If I cut back in a few areas I could afford to work only one job. But I still debated it. I enjoyed the people I worked with. I also felt that I wanted to quit for only selfish reasons. Then the semester began, and I got a clearer understanding of the workload. With classes and work there was no time for homework let alone a social life. That is when the paradigm changed. Previously, I had wanted to quit for convenience and comfort. Now I needed to quit in order to fulfill my class requirements.
After I gave my boss the news, I began to have questions. “Was I doing the right thing?” “Am I leaving behind a ministry that God placed me in?” I knew I needed to quit but I could not shake those nagging questions. The questions continued until last Saturday night. My shift was drawing to a close and there was a plethora of jobs needing to be done: wash dishes, fold boxes, prepare chicken wings, cut pizzas, and answer the phone. I froze for a moment, attempting to make a decision. Each task was important and needed to be done, but I could only do one at a time. It was in that moment that the Lord gave me clarity and a peace about my decision.
Just as with all the tasks at Pizza Hut, I have many tasks that I can do and are all good. However, I can only do so many. Since I moved to Texas to go to seminary, that task ranks near the top. I have one job that can pay the bills and another that would have left me lacking financially. I chose the job that would not bankrupt me. This doesn’t mean that I won’t miss the people and the extra money, but sometimes life requires tough choices. And you can only juggle so many things before things get dropped.
Coming to the End of Your Rope
I have never had success with dating and relationships. I always run into (I am not exaggerating when I say always) the “let’s be friends” speech. After that line, I tend to spend a few weeks in a mild depression trying to get over my anger and frustration. I mentally replay the events trying to determine where it went wrong. In the end, I do not come to a satisfactory conclusion and I find myself swearing off relationships. Then after six months to a year, I meet someone else and the vicious cycle begins again. It takes weeks or months for me to get up the courage to ask a woman out. Instead of taking a risk, I am content to passively sit by and “wait for the right moment”.
I have a close friend that I asked out. This occurred after several months of intense internal debate and prayer. We went out a couple of times and then she told me that she had some things she needed to work out. The fatalistic part of me instantly began to think the worst. The other part was trying to hope for the best and was failing miserably.
Therefore, I fell back into my passive ways. I did not ask her out again and I did not inform her of my intentions. I rationalized it as giving her space. After about a month, I realized that I needed to talk to her, regardless of the outcome. So I set up a time to meet with her over coffee. I had spent weeks praying about this. I knew I needed to take the initiative but I was afraid that it would go badly.
As the day approached, I became increasingly nervous. Then I received a phone call from a friend that would throw me for a loop. My friend informed me that there was a miscommunication between a mutual friend and me. It was severe enough that our relationship was in jeopardy. Because the miscommunication was between a female and me, I began to doubt everything. I began to worry and play through all the worst-case scenarios.
Now, normally I would continue to worry until I became sick. However, this time as I came to the end of my rope, I prayed. I had others pray for me and I quoted Scripture to help focus my mind. I understood that I could not fix any of this. So I let go. When I wanted to worry, Paul’s words to the Philippians came to mind.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
As the days continued to pass, I knew I needed to be proactive but I did not know how it would end. Despite that, I was at peace. I had not experienced a peace like this before.
Sunset found me across the table from my friend. It took me close to an hour to steel myself to say what I wanted to say. I shared with her my desire to continue seeing each other. She expressed to me that she saw us as simply friends. And there it was again. Not the desire to listen to the blues and live in a secluded cabin. No, it was that same peace. I had no reason for why it did not work out. There was no mental replay.
I was content in the situation. I still had a close friend and life was good. It is hard to put into words. I can only attribute it to coming to the end of my rope. I turned to God for help instead of trying to fix it myself. And the outcome was unusual. I came to the end of my rope and found a foot of rope where there had been none.
You can always expect the Lord to speak
So I found a podcast for the Village Church a few weeks ago and I’ve been listening to quite a few of the sermons. I finished up their series on singleness. Two things stood out from that series. The first is that singleness and marriage are both gifts from God. The word used in 1 Cor 7 is the same used for spiritual gifts. So God gives us a grace gift regardless of the situation in which we find ourselves. The other concept is that as a single I need to quit whining and get up and walk. I need to walk in the situation in which Christ called me. Also during this time I need to allow Christ to continue to work on my character. This pastor mentioned specifically selfish, communication and conflict resolution.
The other series I’m listening to now is on loneliness. This one on the surface looks like it would tie in with the singleness series and it does to a point yet loneliness is something experienced by everyone regardless of marital status, economic status or educational background. The main point I brought away from the series so far is that being more social is not going to fix loneliness. Loneliness stems from the fact that we are sinful and broken people. On the upside however, it is in these times of loneliness that the Lord comes in meets with us in deep, intimate fellowship. The pastor used a great quote from C.S. Lewis,
“We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities, and anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. A bad man, happy, is a man without the least inkling that his actions do not ‘answer,’ that they are not in accord with the laws of the universe.”
So that is my prayer now that during this time that I feel lonely that God would meet with me and change me.
If you are interested in checking out the podcast from the Flower Mound Campus – Village Church. They also have transcripts of most of the sermons as well.
Two sides to each coin
So I started my new job this past week. However this job now puts me in a situation. There is the part of me that would like to get more hours and quit my job at Pizza Hut. So side one. I wouldn’t have to work as much and the job doesn’t require me to stand for hours on end or spend all night driving around.
But if I quit my job at Pizza Hut then I will have effectively isolated myself to live in my Christian bubble. Despite my desire for comfort and to take the easy way out, I know God has placed me at Pizza Hut for a reason. There are hurting people that need hope. So despite what I want I know I need to keep my job at Pizza Hut.
So my prayer is that my friendships at Pizza Hut would deepen and allow me the opportunity to share with them what Christ has done in my life and what He can do in theirs.
