Ramblings 10-13-2008

I have so much floating through my head but will do my best to make sense and connect what I am about to share.

For the first time in my life, I am appreciating the lesson life has already taught me. I am 26 years old and been graduated for three years. On top of all of that, I have lived in a foreign country during that time. There are so many things that I learned in my three years in Korea that make living here easier. Some of my fellow Bigs are just graduated from college or only went to college for a year. I don't mean this with an "I am so much better than everyone else" attitude, but this is the first time in my life where I can see how age and life experience has its advantages. I think the Lord just knew that I would need some of the perspective that I do have in order to survive here, because despite how my "age" and "life experiences" have really helped me process and be okay with a lot of the things here....there are SOOO many other things that are a challenge. I can not even fathom what a mess I would be had God brought me here straight out of college.

Living in a houseful of 15 troubled teens and "parenting" them with 8 other people is quite a task. This job is challenging on so many levels. There are so many things about this job that are out of my comfort zone. Let me just take a moment to name a few.

• Forming relationships with Teens
• Planning activities with Teens--each night for 30 minutes we have "room time" with our Littles and then each Friday we have a room night where I have to plan something fun for us to do and most of the time it has to be free! Aigoo.
• Seeing weekly change/improvement in people. Each week I have a two page form I fill out on each of my Littles. These are questions that require me to see improvements they have made, things I am noticing, ways to encourage, etc. I have never really felt that I was good at "reading" people.
• Comforting/Empathizing with hurting people. Yeah. Normally when I try to encourage people who are hurting I don't know what to say and when I do attempt to be encouraging they end up offended. Yeah. I am not the person most people want to share there struggles with. Lots of opportunity for this.
• Not being content in my style of forming relationships. As a teacher, I was never the cool teacher or the teacher students wanted to hang out with. I longed to be able to poor into my students lives at a more personal and eternal level, but struggled to. I believe my students knew that I loved them, but so often in Korea I would compare myself to other teachers and wish I could be a little more like some of the other teachers and a little less myself.

All right so that is only five things, but all five of those things happen on a regular basis around here. These situations normally cause me all sorts of anxiety and I sort of avoid them at all cost. Here, I have no choice but to deal with the these things daily. And the greatest thing about it all is that the Lord is meeting me in these places. It's not to say that I have it all figured out, but in the moment the Lord is giving me peace and I am really just learning to immediately turn to the Holy Spirit for His guidance.

And it the five situations above, I have been okay. I have only had moments of anxiety when I think about them. He blows me away in His provision. I really look forward to room time each evening and the opportunity to connect with the girls in my room. The Lord has blessed me with ideas not only for room time, but all for room night. He just keeps giving me more. And every week when I go to fill out the forms on each of my Littles, I don't panic. There are times when a few questions are really hard to answer, but it is a great practice to reflect on what is going on and I believe through this the Lord is really going to teach me how to be more "in tune" with what is going on in people's lives and train me in questions I can ask to help me access how a friend is doing. As far as the emphatizing/encouraging hurting people--I am sure I am not great at that and I still sometimes offend in my attempts to encourage, but I see the Lord helping with this. Before I ever came to LeadTime and as I was praying about what this year was going to be about the Lord constantly brought to mind the verse about being slow to anger, slow to speak, and quick to hear. This is definitely an area I need to improve on, but I am given so many opportunities daily to grow here and am getting better.

As for the relationships with Littles. This one is so hard to gauge. An attribute that is important to me is Consistency. While for me it is one way I love people, it is not always seen that way. The heart behind my consistency is sometimes hard for others to see. There have been so many times where I have questioned the Lord if I am being too consistent, am I allowing room for grace. Then when I am really doubting myself and really think I am just messing things up, He gives some form of verbal affirmation, whether it be from other Big, a House Director, or a counselor. Then sure enough in a matter of time, I wonder again. I know I haven't introduced my three Littles to you yet, but lets just say that we have had lots of conflict already. I will share more later. It's nothing personal against me, but they are dealing with some things and it's not always pleasant. The last few weeks have been really hard as one person in my room is almost always angry/disrespectful or what I like to call "exploding". There was a time there where it was all three of them. And it's just draining. As much as I know its not against me, some of the things they say can be cruel, and just the constentness of it at times is draining. Intermixed in these times are some really incredible conversations and times where they open up to me and share things that are very personal. You just never know what you are going to get. This is just wearing. So all of this is to say that it is so hard to say how I'm doing. However, despite it all, I can see the Lord working and have been blown away by my love for these girls and their love for me. Through it all, the joys and the struggles, we are growing in our relationships with each other and its good.

I just want to share a little of God's goodness in this all and then I will leave you as my alarm will be going off in five short hours. As I mentioned above, the past two weeks in my room have been pretty bad. I think it was a week where all three of my girls were struggling with me and really thinking I was just unreasonable. While things have gotten better, there is still one girl in my room who is challenging and often rude and disrespectful and angry a lot. It's been hard. There was a particularly hard night last week with one of the girls in my room and then after it a Big called me out on some stuff and said some hard things to me. I really had to take it to the Lord and have really been putting before the Lord all my decisions in my consequencing/not consequencing and even my tones and words. I desire to know how to help the Little in my room who is just making some poor choices, but really not knowing how to do that. I have really been struggling to know if anything I have been doing is good. Is it all pointless. Am I wasting my time? What is it Lord that will motivate her? 

Tonight God used all three of the girls to encourage me. Before dinner two of my Littles shared with me their struggles with the attitudes in our room and basically shared with me that the stood up for me in front of another Little who was bashing me in front of some people. This meant a lot to me, especially since I am know they have been talking about me to each other, and not always in an honoring way. Anyhow, it was just a time where I was able to encourage them, and they SUPER ENCOURAGED me.

Later that night, the Little in my room who has been "storming" the longest broke two rules while outside. I caught her as we were walking back inside and called her out on them. I told her I wasn't sure what I was going to do to consequence her but I would get back with her. Emily, a house director, was in the living room when we came it. It was time for study hall, so my girls were in their room doing study hall while I chatting in the hall with Emily about the situation. As we were having the conversation, I thought in my head, It probably isn't good that my girls can hear this because they will someone use it against me. Anyhow, after I was done talking with Emily, I asked my Little if she would come into the hall to talk with me. She agreed. This is huge. She usually refuses to speak to me. She very respectfully listened to me and then told me she appreciated how I handled the situation. She then proceeded to tell me that she would start treating me with more respect because she knows that she should be doing that. I was blown away. I asked her why the change of heart. She basically explained to me that she heard Emily and I talking and she heard my heart behind why I was consequencing her.  So the Lord completely orchestrated the events and He reached this Little. 

I had really gotten to the point with this Little where I had no idea what to do. Nothing seemed to motivate her. So I had really spent a lot of time that morning in speechless prayer handling her and the other girls in my room to the Lord. It was all Him, as it always is. He is the one who works in the hearts of girls and makes the difference. 

The Lord is so good to me. The environment in my room in getting better. My Little was respectful to me yesterday. We have come through one more battle and are stronger for it. We still will have many more to face as a room, but the Lord is in it all and in that I take comfort.

I hope this rambling makes sense and is connected. I sometimes wonder if I should edit my Ramblings before just sending them off to you--but that probably won't ever happen. I hope that through it all you see God's hand in my life and His incredible care of me. He is my constant. My hope. My rock. The reason I can live this life joyously. He gives me all things pertaining to life.