I have recently started a position as a full time InterVarsity staff and I've spent a majority of my time fundraising. I've stepped off campus - away from students and from campus ministry in order to do this. So naturally I'm feeling a lot of things: over the past two months I've felt frustrated, angry, sad, joyful, happy, elated, lonely, passionate, focused, tired, distracted, energetic, excited, and many more. It's been an up and down season and until today I couldn't even begin to write about it.
It started with my dear friend, Erna's blog. In her
Process of Disappointment, she reflects that disappointments often lead us to discover deep truths about ourselves. She also shared that there is power as we share those disappointments with others, not to throw ourselves pity parties but that we may receive the comfort and a good ass-kicking from our community around us. So here I go - finally starting to share.
I've always seen myself as fairly strong and resilient. I can handle many things that are thrown at me. I've been through a good deal - from my parents divorce, to a lot of rejection in college, to a terrible teaching experience, and many other things have shaped and formed me as a strong, independent woman of God. It can be very easy to trust in myself because I am strong, I am independent, and I am self-reliant.
But I have also faced many disappointments over the years that have spilled into present day. I wouldn't always deal with them because I wanted to come across as strong and independent but inside I was really feeling the frustration and anger at what I wanted to happen - didn't.
- When I prayed to God for years to bring my parents back together after a divorce, I was left disappointed.
- When my dad would frequently be late or have to canceling spending time with us, I left was disappointed.
- When I wasn't asked to prom in either junior or senior year of high school, I hate to admit it, but I was disappointed.
- When I wanted to be in a relationship with someone but it was clearly not going to work out, I was left disappointed.
- When now I see so many of my friends and students getting into relationships, getting married, having babies and I'm still single, I'm left disappointed.
Many of those I have reconciled but there are some deep places in my soul that still are affected by those disappointments. During this season of fundraising God has began to work on the common theme between all of them: trust. So many things that disappointed me lead to a lack of trust of Jesus. Over the years I developed a deep fear that God will not care of me and that only person I can trust is myself. During college (and post-college) I engaged with Jesus on that a lot that and I thought I had worked it all out but God was inviting me to a deeper level of trust with him.
For in the past I might have thought it was the individual event that was a disappointment but they all lead back to deeper lack of trust of God's goodness. I might have thought I was disappointed that my parents didn't get back together, what I really felt was that God didn't hear my prayers. When my dad had to leave early from a school play, what I really felt was that I wasn't good enough for him to give his time to. When I wasn't asked to prom, I felt I was beautiful enough to even be considered. When this relationship didn't work out, I thought God was ignoring this desire I had. When I'm still single into my mid-twenties, what I really feel is that there must be something wrong with me.
So Jesus has been asking me the question: Do you trust me?
I'm reminded of the scene in Aladdin - when Aladdin asks Jasmine to jump on the flying carpet and go on an awesome adventure with him. He extends his hand out saying - do you trust me? And that's what Jesus has been asking me daily. When I feel I have no energy left for appointments he asks if I trust he can provide strength. When I fear I no one will give any more he asks if trust he will he provide the finances. When I feel alone he asks if I trust that he is all comfort and will provide friendships. When I feel discouraged he asks if I trust that he is faithful.
Jesus has to ask this every day because my instinct is to say no. I want to do it myself - I want to prove myself as the strong, independent woman, who can do it all - no matter what my mother tells me. I want to be in control. But Jesus is inviting me to not be in control, in fact to relinquish control back to him, and jump on the magic carpet.
In Erna's blog, a friend of her shared this: "She wasn't telling me to pretend everything was fine and put on a happy Christian face. But she was challenging me that my pain wasn't an excuse to dismiss every truth I knew about God." That's what it means to trust Jesus. To longer let my pain or disappointment be an excuse to dismiss every truth I know about God.
And here are some the truths I know about God:
So in those moments when I'm overwhelmed by fundraising, by still being single, by being too busy, by not seeing my students, or by being alone God is giving me an invitation to trust that he will take care of me. He is extending his hand and asking me to go on a ride that I may not know fully where it takes me, but I know that God is in control.
Yeah it may sound a bit cheesy but it also sounds kind of exciting. And I like that.
