This past season has been very interesting:
-I discover I am pregnant when I thought the last baby was, well, the last :).
-I feel prompted to transition out of choir and acting responsibilities
-I feel stupors of thought whenever I am presented with new opportunities to serve, even ones I have sought out in the past and were not then available.
The most monumental and mentally disconcerting change, though, has been to feel that our little Vanguard group was done. I felt the inklings coming but was not sure how that was going to happen, feeling the responsibility of taking on leadership of a group that was supposed to finish out an academic year. I took it to the Lord so many times, seeking for ways around it, confirmation, and, finally, for peace for everyone involved. I felt that we were done each week in class. I felt it as one family and then another informed me of different situations that led them to need to stop participating with us. We already started smaller (only 16 youth) but by this last month we were down to nine youth. Typically with youth groups like this, we have had waiting lists, etc. but none of that was happening.
Finally, I went to everyone and presented my concerns about continuing with fewer parents to help mentor. As we tossed about different solutions for continuing on a smaller scale, I felt uneasy. This was not the answer.
I sent an email out before our meeting to "finalize" for the next semester, expressing my feelings of doubt as to the rightness of our continuing. Within a few hours, the remaining parents had emailed back with similar feelings of uneasiness and their feelings of peace with stopping our group.
Despite all this, I still am left to doubt, left to wonder. Was it something I did wrong? Was I going in the wrong direction? Did I just mess up too many times? Is Heavenly Father displeased with me? I know that to continue to try and mentor, help, reach out and serve when I feel a stupor of thought about doing so would be doing nothing. Of course, I have plenty of opportunities within my family to serve, but before it has always felt right to include others in those efforts--a way to strengthen my family, my community--and knew it was where God wanted me.
Now, I am left with a lot of time for reflection. I found the book by James Allen, "As a Man Thinketh" at the DI and have been reading it. It is a treasure trove of thoughts, but one caught my eye: "Man is made or unmade by himself, in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace."
My thoughts have always had so many different directions to go, but now there is nothing but self-reflection, meditation and immediate needs of my family wholly unconnected with any other youth in my groups. It has been one of those what I call "bell-ringing Walden moments" where, as Thoreau put it, I let the bells ring and observe what the real needs are around me.
The situation reminds me of the blind French Revolutionary Jacques Lusseyran who wrote a book, "Against the Pollution of I," a book that addresses the need of us to quiet the world around us to discover who we are and what is within us. Perhaps it is time to really evaluate my life and re-focus or re-direct as needed. Perhaps this is what God is telling me to do.
Now, I am mindful of the trap of becoming self-centered in this process: "He who shall seek his life shall lose it and he who shall lose his life for my sake shall find it." I have seen this in friends who have started a "voyage of self-discovery," only to come home and reveal to spouse and children that their paths no longer included them and abandoned family responsibilities to "find themselves." That is not what I am seeking. I am seeking to know God's will for me and at present feel so much confusion and doubt, so much uncertainty and wonder.
In the meanwhile, I find myself drastically adapting what I have done for homeschooling expectations in the home, listening more to the kids, responding more to their immediate cravings for knowledge and guidance, rather than putting them off until I can come up with a "grand project" or "special class" to completely cover everything in the area that they mentioned interest in. I have a lot to shift in my mentality and it is not very comfortable.
The colossal halt in my involvement in the world around me still puzzles me and leaves me to wonder what and if I did something wrong. I know we are supposed to reach out to others, to share, bless and serve. I miss my friends and the youth. I feel very lonely. I feel surrounded by kids who keep "hearing from mom" but never really care to listen, unless it is something immediately connected to what they want to hear. Maybe it is time for me to be quiet...be still. I guess I will still keep praying for the peace that accompanies doing God's will and seek to keep doing...nothing? Perhaps I am addicted to busy-ness and need to slow-down, either for myself or for my children. In the meanwhile, I do enjoy the novelty of not having pressing emails or upcoming classes that I need to push kids' needs aside to prepare for, preparing for "the greater good." I will choose to seek joy despite the lump in my breast.
Positive self-talk is easier to blog about than to actually do, I have found, but it is a start.
-I discover I am pregnant when I thought the last baby was, well, the last :).
-I feel prompted to transition out of choir and acting responsibilities
-I feel stupors of thought whenever I am presented with new opportunities to serve, even ones I have sought out in the past and were not then available.
The most monumental and mentally disconcerting change, though, has been to feel that our little Vanguard group was done. I felt the inklings coming but was not sure how that was going to happen, feeling the responsibility of taking on leadership of a group that was supposed to finish out an academic year. I took it to the Lord so many times, seeking for ways around it, confirmation, and, finally, for peace for everyone involved. I felt that we were done each week in class. I felt it as one family and then another informed me of different situations that led them to need to stop participating with us. We already started smaller (only 16 youth) but by this last month we were down to nine youth. Typically with youth groups like this, we have had waiting lists, etc. but none of that was happening.
Finally, I went to everyone and presented my concerns about continuing with fewer parents to help mentor. As we tossed about different solutions for continuing on a smaller scale, I felt uneasy. This was not the answer.
I sent an email out before our meeting to "finalize" for the next semester, expressing my feelings of doubt as to the rightness of our continuing. Within a few hours, the remaining parents had emailed back with similar feelings of uneasiness and their feelings of peace with stopping our group.
Despite all this, I still am left to doubt, left to wonder. Was it something I did wrong? Was I going in the wrong direction? Did I just mess up too many times? Is Heavenly Father displeased with me? I know that to continue to try and mentor, help, reach out and serve when I feel a stupor of thought about doing so would be doing nothing. Of course, I have plenty of opportunities within my family to serve, but before it has always felt right to include others in those efforts--a way to strengthen my family, my community--and knew it was where God wanted me.
Now, I am left with a lot of time for reflection. I found the book by James Allen, "As a Man Thinketh" at the DI and have been reading it. It is a treasure trove of thoughts, but one caught my eye: "Man is made or unmade by himself, in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace."
My thoughts have always had so many different directions to go, but now there is nothing but self-reflection, meditation and immediate needs of my family wholly unconnected with any other youth in my groups. It has been one of those what I call "bell-ringing Walden moments" where, as Thoreau put it, I let the bells ring and observe what the real needs are around me.
The situation reminds me of the blind French Revolutionary Jacques Lusseyran who wrote a book, "Against the Pollution of I," a book that addresses the need of us to quiet the world around us to discover who we are and what is within us. Perhaps it is time to really evaluate my life and re-focus or re-direct as needed. Perhaps this is what God is telling me to do.
Now, I am mindful of the trap of becoming self-centered in this process: "He who shall seek his life shall lose it and he who shall lose his life for my sake shall find it." I have seen this in friends who have started a "voyage of self-discovery," only to come home and reveal to spouse and children that their paths no longer included them and abandoned family responsibilities to "find themselves." That is not what I am seeking. I am seeking to know God's will for me and at present feel so much confusion and doubt, so much uncertainty and wonder.
In the meanwhile, I find myself drastically adapting what I have done for homeschooling expectations in the home, listening more to the kids, responding more to their immediate cravings for knowledge and guidance, rather than putting them off until I can come up with a "grand project" or "special class" to completely cover everything in the area that they mentioned interest in. I have a lot to shift in my mentality and it is not very comfortable.
The colossal halt in my involvement in the world around me still puzzles me and leaves me to wonder what and if I did something wrong. I know we are supposed to reach out to others, to share, bless and serve. I miss my friends and the youth. I feel very lonely. I feel surrounded by kids who keep "hearing from mom" but never really care to listen, unless it is something immediately connected to what they want to hear. Maybe it is time for me to be quiet...be still. I guess I will still keep praying for the peace that accompanies doing God's will and seek to keep doing...nothing? Perhaps I am addicted to busy-ness and need to slow-down, either for myself or for my children. In the meanwhile, I do enjoy the novelty of not having pressing emails or upcoming classes that I need to push kids' needs aside to prepare for, preparing for "the greater good." I will choose to seek joy despite the lump in my breast.
Positive self-talk is easier to blog about than to actually do, I have found, but it is a start.
Well that answers my question. :) Much love, many hugs.
ReplyDeleteI've had similar thoughts recently, taking many many things off my plate. I don't understand either. For instance, scouting. Currently I'm not officially doing anything with scouting, and even turned down a couple opportunities because I felt that I should. Yet I taught a class at a scouting event last weekend, and felt so much joy and love around all these great people I love and respect, besides having the opportunity to share that with many people I don't know in the two classes I taught. Confusing!
A saying comes to mind. Prepare yourself, share yourself, then give yourself to something bigger than yourself. Maybe it's time to prepare for whatever is coming next. You have proven yourself trustworthy to God many times in the past, and I'm sure there is work for you to do. Keep moving forward in any way.
P.S. I noticed while reading this how good your writing has become.
ReplyDeleteAlso, while I feel so lazy sometimes, knowing I'm not getting done nearly all I did when I had far more responsibilities, I'm much better at noticing opportunities to serve, and even better, doing them because I have time. The other day I dropped off dinner to a few people just because. In the middle of my chaos, I never could have done that. I still need to get at focusing on narrowing myself to school here at home. I'm so not good at that! And I feel like part of my increase in time is for a work I have been very slowly working on for years but "didn't have time."