It has been hard to read the blogs of my friends and hear them share their struggles. These are indeed hard times. For some of us it is financial for others it is spiritual and for others still it may be relational, but the reality is we are all going through something. God is stretching all of us in different ways and we can find some comfort in the fact that we are not alone in our challenges.

Today, my heart is heavy yet again. I don’t know about you, but I tend to go through phases. For a week or so everything will be good and things will appear they are ironing out, but then the next week things get hard again. I have gone for a good stretch of not being too concerned about anything, but I think I have a natural tendency to put blinders on at times and “disconnect” giving myself the illusion that everything is good. Today, the reality of where I am has resurfaced and the Lord wants me to, AGAIN, attempt to begin working through this. What is that reality? That reality can be summed up in a well known phrase: “I am like a fish out of water”.

This transition we have all been going through for several months now has been extremely difficult for me. On the one hand I know the choices I have made are correct and that is not the issue, the problem is where does God want me now? Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I don’t like change. I am not very adventurous and unlike the rhino who will charge ahead full speed even though he can only see a very short distance in front of him, I tend to panic when I do not know what is around the next curve. To further hammer this point across, I am not a roller coaster fan and I don’t like to be scared. I like familiarity, I like a plan and I would be content to live life in the same place and with the same people throughout my whole life. There has been so much change over the past several months that I am still feeling overwhelmed. I am desperately clinging to a season of my life that I don’t want to release. A year ago I was confident and I knew what I had been called to do. I was very comfortable with the people in my sphere of contact and what made it even better is that I loved them whole heartedly and it made the hours of work easier and I counted it as a blessing from God to have so much fun while serving Him.

To be perfectly honest with you, I have no idea where I fit in anymore. I have a new circle of friends and my walk with the Lord is taking me into completely new territory. I feel like I am walking through fog and cannot see even 5 feet in front of me. I have to start over and build new relationships and release the old comfortable ones. I feel completely loved and supported, but I feel like I have been hurled back to square one.

The development of the band as a new ministry outreach opportunity is awesome and in many ways I am very excited about it. However, I am entering a group of people that already have a history together. It seems like everyone but me has a solid connection with each other. Most of this group worked together before at FBC through the worship ministry and some of the ladies had an even deeper connection when the hiking group was in full swing. My only solid connection is with Mark and Susie (and my husband, of course). Not only do I need to start all over again with building new friendships and ministry relationships; I don’t have the musical connection the rest of the group has. I don’t play an instrument, I don’t sing well, I know nothing about bands, I don’t dance, I don’t act, I am completely out of my comfort zone. The group has graciously given me the one job where I KNOW what I am doing and that is the worker bee/gopher job. I know it is vital, important and well appreciated, but again it is new and I have not found my “groove” yet. Everything I was trained and nurtured in over the past 9+ years is just gone; I have nothing from that season of my life left. I feel exactly the way I felt 9+ years ago when I set foot in the VCS gym for my first Wednesday Night Youth program (Crossculture was still 2 years away from getting off the ground). I walked in and I was one of maybe 6 white people and every youth I encountered seemed to look right through me and not even see me. The only person I knew (and did not know well yet) was Joseph. I remember going home that night and literally crying and asking God if he was sure this was the ministry I was supposed to work in. I was scared and completely insecure. I don’t feel exactly like that now, but those memories of my first few months in the youth ministry have been floating through my mind a lot lately. So much of what I know and am confident with is finished. Joseph and Denise have been my mentors for almost 10 years now and once they are gone that part of my life is truly finished. I have relied on them so heavily for spiritual guidance and now I do not have that security to fall back on. Soon, I will need to let this old, comfortable friendship loose and begin opening myself up to allow new friendships to grow. In this new season of life and ministry I need to figure out where I fit in and what role I am supposed to play. I remember how much work it was when I first started in the youth ministry. It was hard and heart breaking at times. Lord, do I really need to start from square one again? It is so hard to let go of a past that is not only comfortable and familiar, but one that I LOVED!

I hope nobody gets the impression that I do not fully love all of you or that I am not looking forward to what the future holds for this group of friends and the new ministry we will do together. All of you are so amazing and I feel completely loved and accepted by everyone. I just feel like the new kid on the block. My mind is full of questions: where do I fit in? In what seems like a HUGE SEA of reasons I am so different from the rest of you, where is the common thread that will pull me in? Do I have ANYTHING to offer this group? Going from Joseph’s right hand person where I KNEW where and how I was needed back to square one has been very difficult for me. Letting the past go and looking forward with excitement to the future has been a struggle for me. The Lord showed me Luke 9:62 today and it says: But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God”. I have and still am looking back and I need to move on from this to be of any use to the Kingdom. I know what I need to do, but it is slow to materialize. My one hope is that I remember how scared and uncertain I was when I first became a youth worker and look how awesome that season was! The ministry was amazing and the friendship I built with Joseph, Denise and others are ones I treasure so much that it physically hurts me sometimes because I love them so much. My prayer is that with this new season we are going into, where I feel so out of place right now, it will grow into another season of amazing ministry and the building of friendships that can withstand anything. Please be patient with me as I begin to release the past and embrace the future. I am not fishing for complements or words of reassurance; this is just where I am right now. I love all of you and please keep me in your prayers.