Last night our new pastor was installed. An official act of Presbytery, both he and the congregation take vows and listen to charges by other members of the Presbytery. The charge given to our pastor actually gave me something to consider as I prep to teach.
The past couple days I've been feeling really overwhelmed and inadequate, though, as my husband reminded me, that's ridiculous because I've done almost all of this all before, and I've spent several hours a day outside of the parent orientation getting prepared. I think the root of my being upset is pressure I'm putting on myself: to not falter, to keep up my good reputation at the school, and I realized those things are all about ME, what I can do on my own.
A phrase that stood out to me during the charge to the pastor was from the Bible... it's actually a question, and a thought-provoking one at that. "What is your life?" This is based on Paul speaking of how he doesn't regard his own life worth holding on to. The man speaking told a story from Band of Brothers about a soldier paralyzed by fear. Another soldier told him he had to stop worrying about being killed, and in fact expect it, so he could then do his job. Now hopefully my job won't kill me, but the point was to let go of anything that is holding us back. All fears, ties to the world, and in my case, pride mixed with insecurity with a dash of wanting people to like me. What is my life? What is my reputation? I will have succeeded at teaching if I can impact my students for Christ. To do that, I have to get myself out of the way. God in His infinite goodness let me hear exactly what I needed to hear... which is to get over myself, and give it to Him.
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