To Tell a Story

Opened the chest today and made myself feel old with my yellowed papers. It's such fun reminiscing about the newspaper writing days of 2018 and 2019. I'm still not sure how my awkward 19- and 20-year-old self survived. I was the kid that the World War II vet told to “be confident, speak loud, speak like you have something to say”. I never really thought I had much worth saying; I just told everybody’s stories. I was very ok with that, lol.  I was challenged by the advice, though, because of my quieter personality. 

It was one of those brief life experiences that made me appreciate the value of excellence in writing and the importance of personal interaction with people. However, I was always wordier than my coworkers (and they told me so 😆), so I had to learn the art of concise writing. I had a city councilman come up to me once and tell me he appreciated how I took the time, though, to always share both sides of things in small-town news. It may be because people have always been more important to me than “the way it’s done,” and I am still very much of that mindset…a stubborn soul. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it does not. The tangle of figuring that out is one God and I have to unravel; for determination is different than being stubborn.

Valuing people over how I appear to others also carried over into teaching. I was reminded of just how important that was to my life when I was introduced to the mantra of  “if it doesn’t hold eternal value, it is not worth being anxious over” (essentially 2 Corinthians 10:5 and Philippians 2:3-4). Therefore, people and their emotional well-being, as inherently valuable things, have always been my top priority, rather than the way culture dictates things should be. Often practical and cold.

I disagree that people becoming more important to me than my comfort zone, as my generation (not all) currently believes, is damaging to a sense of self-preservation. I knew (and know) what it felt like to want to be seen and seen for who I was and encouraged to be better, rather than just someone feeding my emotions and ego. So that is how I really wanted and do want to feed into others. If we choose to invest in others that way and with the right intentions, it isn’t something that returns void or damages us. It is a blessing, and I saw that blessing lived out in not a few women I had met who lived and live lives of pouring into other people and serving Christ in their roles with complete surrender.

What in the world does that have to do with this next section? I desperately wanted to live a life that modeled what I saw. I knew only the nurture and little of the practicality of public education that I was to enforce in the classroom when I was faced with my first 25 sets of wondering eyes, 26 if you count mine. It cost me some growing pains over the first couple of years of teaching, probably more than some, given that I had no prior experience in the classroom as of July 2021. However, I remind myself often that if I didn’t feel those, there wouldn’t be growth. And I did grow, and so did my students, despite the obstacles I faced. 

I would always pray over each of those months and years, and still do, “Lord, please help my students to succeed despite me,” regarding my weaknesses and the things I had to learn and start from scratch with. I wanted to be used by God for good things, but I knew I had much to learn. So, I would lay hands and offer a prayer on the desks before I left each day and pray for God's best. The truth of Ephesians 2:10 —that I was created for good works prepared in advance for me to do —was a difficult concept to adopt. I now realize that God needed me to utilize the parts of myself that had been tenderly cultivated in my younger years to show love to kids who didn't know it like I had. What I had to learn to meet the practical needs fell into place along the way, and yes, I had to mold to the role in many respects.

 I watched God show out not just in my students’ academics as I grew slowly, but in the relationships I had with them. The relationships I built with the custodians at my school, through our after-hours chats that often turned into conversations about Jesus, and their sharing of wisdom. The sense of trust I knew my admin had in me as I grew. And that all took time. There were tons of tears in my drives to and from work, as well as a lot of 30-second “help me’s” as I scanned my key card and walked into work, complete with fear that I wasn’t enough. Mission shattering fear. (And this reflected in my personal relationships with different people as well. All a steady trickle from one area to the next.) 

 As a child of God, I have always believed that my placements and jobs are part of my mission to meet people where they are. But I always believed, in an underlying sense, that any shortcomings would keep God from working through me. I had to learn something else. Grace and a lesson in God's sovereignty over my life. I watched God use the skills He gave me and fill in the gaps to build relationships with the most challenging kids. The most hugs I got and notes I received were from those kids and they meant the world. 

Sometimes, difficulty and feeling the side effects of it can be a good thing. It signifies not a breaking away, but a branching out from strong roots. The emotional result is a testimony to the fact that we care, we’re present, and we feel. The professional, emotional, and spiritual path my life has taken since 2017, between work, college, and personal happenings, has been an entirely unpredictable one. I never would have guessed half of what’s happened in my life since I graduated from high school. 

Although that's all part of the story, it's not the whole message. And though reminiscing is fun, that is not why I’m writing this. If you’ve met me within the last couple of years, you’ve met an adult who has donned the mantel of personal growth, but it’s not one you can see unless you’ve happened to share a cup of coffee with my addict self and experienced the laughter of my rabbit trails of conversation. (I love the sweet convo that flows from those times!) 

What I hoped to be or have, after all these unpredictable life experiences thus far, was a more heightened sense of self-confidence. In fact, I made it my personal mission at times because I had believed that was the purpose of the highs, not the numerous disappointments of the various seasons over the last eight years. Believed a lie for a year or two, there in the beginning, that my destiny was to build my own future and sense of self. Lived in a mindset of victimhood (due to unfortunate things that I had been told or how I was treated in the past) that fueled that, and drove myself emotionally like I had something to prove to the world. My old Spotify playlists found lovely new homes in the trash bin when I rediscovered them, scrolled through them, and relived my old cringeworthy mantras for living (cue chuckle). Come on, we've all had one or two.

I listened to Christian radio a couple of years ago, and it essentially stated that Christian young people need to adopt one of two mindsets to determine their effectiveness. Victimhood or victorhood. Not just a victory over unfortunate happenings of the past but a triumph over failures, flesh, and the trap we fall into of identifying only with earthly success. I learned in tough ways and through many voices that for God to use me to make others feel valued, I could no longer carry around my victim badge. Something I believed I had earned because of when I had metaphorically tripped and fallen throughout my growing period. We utterly cripple our witness when we wear it. We make it our whole personality — a part of our identity — when the entire point of our new life is to claim victory through the gift of eternal life and the chance to share that freedom. It is putting off the old and donning the new. Renovating the sanctuary of the soul so that God can cleanse and renew.

So when I say I have no tolerance for a victim mindset, I am not referencing the mentality of having to rebuild after any kind of trauma. There are legitimate circumstances in which you can apply that term, and I am blessed to have experienced it few times. What I am referencing is the mentality of my entire generation, which has lowered the bar and chosen to claim victimhood in everything that goes wrong in life, instead of turning to Jesus and sitting at the foot of the cross to find clarity and grace. Hard is part of growth, not a punishment. And when we choose to acknowledge that for what it is, every blessing is easier to see! 

So, I wanted to leave anyone who chose to come along on the rollercoaster of my hours-long writing spree with a word of encouragement. 

There is freedom when you choose to look back on periods of your life that had negativity in them and instead remember the blessings. It is then that they take on new space in your mind as positive change, as God worked. There is growth and wisdom in learning how not to wallow in the have-nots and pitfalls, but to consider the blessings. This is not coming from a place of arrival, but of invitation to join the journey. I want to see a generation that largely remains in a state of self-pity pick up the pieces with Jesus and build a beautiful journey.

The key for me is identification and surrender. How do I identify? Am I surrendering every thought? Am I owning what God did not intend for me to carry? God is sovereign, but He does give us free will, and part of that free will is the choice of what we carry. He redeems. Not just souls, but our shortcomings as children of God for His glory. He can turn what was meant to destroy our purpose and fuel His vision. His purpose for us WILL be accomplished when we diligently seek Him. That is a truth best communicated by Romans 8:28: "...all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose."

Take up the sword. We battle against an enemy that desires nothing more than to see the present generation fail to find their purpose in Jesus. The enemy's desire is to see us defeated, demoralized by any failure, and destroyed by our perceptions of how the world sees us. When we wake up every day as children of God, we are the primary target of the enemy because we are a threat. We battle against the unseen (Ephesians 6:12), and it manifests best when we are not staying in the Word, staying in prayer, and remaining in fellowship and accountability with fellow believers. The simple acts of obedience and spending time with Jesus transform the battle, our witness, our growth, and our purpose. It reshapes our perspective on viewing ourselves from an external standpoint and turning to the mercy with which our Savior regards us.

You've heard my story before. It isn't new, it isn't a message with some earth-shattering truth. It may even be your story. But my purpose in walking through that journey is to challenge you. Tell a Story that reflects not defeat, but a story of how God is using your life, every piece, to reflect His glory.