My Burden

im angry. so im going to focus on my really good morning. and if i dont feel better after talking about that, i will rant about why im angry. anybody who reads this, im sure, is now excited


KSU was awesome. i really liked it, and i got a lot out of it. i didnt really know what i was getting into when i went, so i guess how much i got out of it was surprising. i think thats bad...
anyway

the first class i went to was the teaching small groups 101 class. since i teach a small group, obviously i thought this would be helpful to me as a leader. i had no idea it would help me as a student, too.

while we were sitting there and tim was talking about all the different types of students [chatty kathy, shy sally, insensitive bully, etc] megan and i were jokingly putting down what names we thought that applied to in our personal small group. and then it hit me.

im SICK of ANY of us fitting in those categories. i mean, theres megan and i who are obviously chatty kathy. we have our insensitive people, our tangent starters, and our shy sallys too. and that irritates me. i mean, we are there to learn. to actually get somewhere. when i first got into stuco, my small group was the place i dumped my SOUL. seriously. that first group we had knows more about me than anybody else. as we get closer, you would expect us to be able to tell even more, talk even deeper. but its exactly the opposite. the closer we got, the more immature we got. our group turned into a huge joke. i mean, thats good, in some ways. my best friends are in that group, and we laugh so hard we cry pretty much every wednesday night. but its like tim said today. theres relational, and theres spiritual. and because of our immaturity, we never talk spiritual in group. ok, not never. but rarely. if i ever want to talk spiritual, i talk to megan or charissa OUTSIDE of small group. or mitch and tim. but isnt that what small group is supposed to be for?

i cant blame our small group on any specific person, because as megan and i talked about we all have our part in it. but megan and i are ready to grow up. so is everyone else? i feel really... guilty. i mean i look back and we were acting as bad as my junior high small group, if not WORSE. thats pathetic. and i have no respect for a single one of us acting like that. and i feel horrible to CHARISSA. shes tried so so hard. and has done an amazing job. and shes sticking out a whole nother year just for me and megan. so were gonna make it worth her stay. i just really hope the other girls are willing to step up and grow up too, or theres going to be some conflict.



while tim and i were talking yesterday, i realized a lot. not only that hes right, i have matured a LOT, but also, he was right about my relationships. when he was first talking about it, of course my stubborn butt was pushing back, wanting to deny everything he was saying. after thinking about it last night, i realized he was exactly right. he explained that he felt i got too intense with certain people in particular, and would focus my whole being on that one person, so if something went wrong, it would emotionally destroy me. and hes totally right. iv been way better about that since jared, but iv still done it. mike, for example. really, i cant think of anyone else. but im sure there are some.

i connect quickly with people, so people very quickly take on my "best friend" role. when in reality, they are just someone i connect with, and are a good friend, maybe someone i can trust. but best friend? ya right. it takes months for people to take that role, if not years. that has been megans job for over 2 years now. and lisa for 7 years before that. i mean, hello?!! YEARS, for both of them. other people have come along and wev been super close, but that doesnt replace these people. you can have awesome, AWESOME friends that last 3 months. you can have awesome friends that last 3 weeks. but it takes TIME for someone to become your BEST friend. and the fact i get so intense and am like omggg bffl is just stupid and immature. and dangerous. i am risking serious emotional pain to put so much trust in people that are, well, strangers, in a way.

of course, i was speaking to someone about that today and she was like well, what about mitch? and i do believe that mitch, in a way, is an exception to that. in a way. being still the first few months of our friendship and after talking to tim, i still want to be super cautious. but mitch and i started on a very cautious level anyway, because of the fact that we are both leaders at stuco. we walked right into this determined not to date or like each other, and always be careful with boundaries. and oh man, not to brag, but we RULE at that. i have never had a friend i was so close to that it was so easy to have good boundaries with. usually boundaries are out the window, and i dive head in and suddenly this kid i met 4 months ago is the guy i would take a bullet for. hold up. slow down. and this time, i actually listened. to God, to Tim, and even to mitch and myself. and its WORKED. so... effortlessly. well, not effortlessly. its taken some work, obviously, thats a given. but not much. and im really proud of that. im proud of myself. for FINALLY [for ONCE] setting good, safe, healthy boundries. and sticking to them. for over 3 months. for listening to tim and shawn, the people i went to for advice if i ever felt even the teeniest bit unstable. and for listening to God. by taking this friendship step by step, and seriously, i couldnt be happier. mitch is an awesome guy. definitely one of the best [spiritually, personality wise, etc] guys i have ever, EVER had as a friend. actually, hes not one of the best. he has beat out every other guy friend without even trying. a lot of it is probably because we started our relationship completely focused on Christ, and hes a believer, and thats a huge deal. and because of how... GRATEFUL i am to have him in my life, its been so easy for me to be careful with boundaries and not get too intense and screw it up for myself.

now, i just have to learn to be able to do this with all of my relationships

as tim pointed out, i have a lot of positive characteristics of a minister. but my huge flaw is this. if i focus so hard on certain people relationally, i will never be a good youth pastor. so obviously, i need to work on that. starting now.

sitting in KSU today, watching all of our leaders shake their butts and look like total dorks on stage... my heart SWELLED for each and every one of them. i LOVE stuco, and kids city, and adult small groups, and worship leaders, and just CCC as a whole. since i started coming over 2 years ago this church has totally captured my heart. and in some way, maybe i can stretch my intense look at relationships to include everyone within CCC. well not everyone, obviously that is a big number of people, a lot of them being people i dont know. but to stretch my.. limits. bubble. whatever you want to call it. i kind of relate it to bella from twilight [of course, lol] and how, in breaking dawn, her power is a shield. and with her mind she can "stretch" her "shield" [kind of her invisible bubble] out to more than just herself, or one other person. but it takes a lot of effort to stretch her shield. and i kind of feel thats what it is with me. i have this bubble, this SHIELD, and its easy for me to wrap it around myself, wrap it around one other person, and focus directly on that. but what God really wants me to do is to stretch my shield and reach out to others. many, many others. maybe not many others RIGHT NOW, but in the future. near future. yes itll take a lot of effort, a lot of strength, a lot of hard work. but i feel like thats what i should do. thats what i NEED to do.

if i could stretch my "shield" out to more people, i could positively affect way more people than i am now. i have like my, oh, 6 closest friends. stretching my shield wouldnt only positively affect the new people i can stretch to. it would positively affect me and the 6 closest friends i am already impacting. because the impact i already have will have healthier boundaries, i will be more careful with boundaries for myself, and i will stretch the love and compassion i have burning from Christ inside of me out to other people who need it as much as I have the past few years. just the thought of that is... exciting. its like a whole new torch is lit inside of me, a whole new goal, a whole new challenge, a whole new mission.

almost like this is my burden. to reach all those people out there who have been in my shoes. or in worse. or in way worse. or maybe, in even comfier shoes. anybody who needs an ear, a heart, a hand. to kind of be "Jesus" for junior high and high school students that need it.

hey. thats really cool. i just figured out my burden. seriously, blogging has been such a hit lately!



and oooh, politics.
Morgan sure taught me a lot tonight
Nice to have older, wiser, college friends. haha. always can lend a helping hand :]
I feel like my IQ just went up a thousand points. seriously.



oh and last comment.
shawn williams talked about how his burden is to help students have a servant heart. and i realized that is also one of my goals, to have a heart completely devoted to serving. most of my heart is already there. my life is extremely committed to Christ Himself, and within church, i want to serve as much as i possibly can. i just have to polish up my home servant heart, and im all set. and im happy about that. another sign i have picked up that shows how much i have matured. i love being able to see that MYSELF, ha.