Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Leaky Pipes

I swear some mornings I think I wake up to God poking me and saying, "I hope you're ready for this one, because I'm about to teach you something." These would be the days I deem as bad ones. My desire to punch someone outweighs my logic and well, I have the tendency to shut down or be hypersensitive.

Let me tell you this morning's story. This morning I awoke to an abnormal noise coming from my bedroom ceiling. I could tell someone was in the shower upstairs and I could tell that the water was not going where it should be going. All of a sudden there was a rush of water through my ceiling all over my carpeted floor. Now I am no plumber or contractor, but I have a feeling that the broken seam that goes all the way across my ceiling dripping with water, is not normal. Not only that, but the majority of the water leakage was over the room's light source, meaning that our electricity is now compromised and not working.

So as you can imagine, I began to rush about finding towels, buckets, and my sanity. And then came the five minutes of anger, anger at my roommates, anger at my co-workers, anger at anyone and everyone that had ever set out to be a jerk at some point in my life. And this anger wasn't over the water, it was over things that have happened over the past several months, almost like a dam had been released. It was amazing how in the midst of the chaos, my brain could come up with examples of ways that I had been wronged.

Isn't it funny that we do that? Even in our full adult forms, we often have these real primal child-like moments that threaten to rear their ugly head and forfeit our polished and perfected exterior that we have learned to wear.

Today, I caught myself off guard in my reaction, and so I had to stop and think, what am I being taught right now? Now I realize this is a rather comical story, and you might think that I am the Queen of overreacting, which may be partially true. But, I learn in strange ways. So my nugget of truth came like a rush of water, no pun intended.

I have always struggled with patience, and the root of that comes from my desire to have control over my life and surroundings. So if someone isn't doing something fast enough or the way I would do it, I become impatient and usually take over. This has been a tough season for me, one that has required much patience. One that also is teaching me that most of the time it's better to keep my mouth shut rather than share my thoughts or opinions. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I cut off my tongue...

On another note, I wanted to share what I have been doing for the last four months here with YWAM. This has been a season of transition and so there has been a lot of waiting and praying and seeking the things that God has for me next. But that has left me time to be able to really dive into the day-to-day base activities. This is something new for me, because I am usually off doing some school, or training, or outreach.

Some of these things I have mentioned in past posts, things like leadership team and skate church and RescueNet. For almost two years now I have been a part of the base's leadership team, this team handles all of the legal, moral, and financial issues at the base. This has been one of the most challenging roles I have ever played while being on staff because I often feel like the bearer of bad news when something happens or a decision has to be made. But God has been really working in my heart and life, showing me the false assumptions I had in being a leader. Whoever told me it was all glam and fun, was full of it, because you carry a responsibility, it is scriptural even, but it is hard. All that to say, we have been re-structuring the entire base and its guidelines and operations for over a year now. So that is one thing that my time has been spent on as of late.

The other's are skate church and RescueNet, both of which you have heard me describe and explain many times. I know sometimes it's easy to wonder what people in ministry do when they are not up in front teaching or always overseas doing outreaches, but believe me it's a very busy job to keep a base functioning. It takes many hands, hearts, and brains.

As far as how you can be praying for me, I am speaking at a youth group tomorrow night from 7-9 pm and would love your prayers during that time. I will be talking about YWAM, missions, and the Great Commission. Also I am taking next week off to do a road trip up the coast to really spend some time away with God. I try and do this once or twice a year to get renewed vision and direction for upcoming things. So I would love your prayers that it would be a restful and rejuvenating time, with a lot of hearing from God.

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