a journal entry

I left my journal down in Costa Mesa accidentally, so I decided to just write here.  It’s been a while! So this quarter was a difficult quarter in ministry and learning about myself.  I’ve had to work through struggles of being on my staff team, and also struggles in friendships.  About 2 or 3 weeks ago, I got to a point where I was sitting on church Sunday night, and all I could hear in my head were certain criticisms I’d received over the past quarter on repeat.  ”I’m controlling…I’m too forceful…I’m too sensitive…I’m irresponsible…”  Some of those things were my own twist to how I felt about myself, but nonetheless, my self-image had boiled down to those things by that time and I felt stuck in it.  But didn’t even want to get out.  That’s when you know it’s bad.  Wanting to stay there means that you believe it so much that you don’t think you’re trapped with it, or it just feels too bad already to invest in anything hopeful when you don’t believe it will work.  I haven’t felt that way in a while, but I think I arrived there as a result of learning about my shortcomings in ministry on my team and also because I had 3 difficult talks with 3 different students in one week about how I have been leading or treating them.

I read in my quiet time shortly after that sunday the story of Jacob.  Talk about broken relationships.  First he steals his brother’s birthright and has to run away  (“Jacob flees to Laban”–the title of the passage), then he manipulates his landowner, Laban into a deal that would make Jacob more wealthy than Laban.  As he flees from Laban (literally the title is “Jacob flees from Laban”) about to encounter Esau he finds himself in quite a pickle.  In the night, God comes as a man and wrestles with Jacob until morning.  As if being in emotional battles with man was not enough! But Jacob fights for his blessing once again.

In the Bible, God often renames people.  Abram to Abraham, the change meaning Exalted Father to Father of Many and signifies that Abraham’s purpose was not just to be a father for the sake of his own family, but for God’s chosen people.  Simon to Peter: Peter meaning the “Rock” that God would build his foundation on.  Many times these name changes hold new purpose and indicate God’s ownership and involvement in those individual’s lives from then on.  Jacob however, changed to “Israel.”  Jacob: grasps the heel (of his brother), to Israel: Struggles with God.  Sounds like one tiresome name to another tiresome name.  But somehow God saw hope in the second name, as He meant for Jacob to overcome.

Jacob struggled his whole life but still fought.  I feel like that is me sometimes.  I felt the struggle in my relationships, and I got to the point of being tired of struggling with God.  Although this passage placated my extreme thoughts and made me “okay” with this concept, I became slightly numb in my relationships with others and in my pursuit of God for the next few weeks.

Although I’ve been very proactive in pursuing my friends, I felt a wall in those friendships.  I’m realizing that my wall in relationships was coming from my deep-down belief that my friends would not care for me the same way that I care about them, but I also believed that if I demanded that care from them that I wouldn’t be a good friends.  So I turned down the emotional faucets so I could still be a “good friend”, giving but not asking anything back.  However this results in me playing the role of therapist and not friend.

I’m still learning how to define myself.  Its a struggle to believe that God loves who I am, even if I doubt that people do.

“Ok Lord.  I know that my view of things is often terribly skewed.  I’m coming out of that low point, but what do you want me to learn from it?  The end result is I just want to love you and other more.  Please help me to let go of comments I hear that I use to define me negatively.  Please replace them with confidence in your truth, that my changed heart is of so much value to you.  Allow me to once again join in my friends’ rejoicing and mourning, and give me the boldness to bring who I am to them as well.  Amen.”