Light Up the Sky

It's amazing how God uses different things to encourage us. Teaching has been an incredibly draining experience thus far... I'm not even going to lie at how stressful and stretching it has been for me. Long hours, long commute, seemingly overwhelming piles of paperwork and grading... it just eats away at your resolve.

A couple mornings ago as I was really struggling to keep my eyes open, and I couldn't even stay awake as I was praying, this song began playing softly.

Light Light Light up the Sky

to Show me that you are with me

That line kinda perked my interest because the worst part of my drive is the insanely dark roads that I have to maneuver. As I turned up the radio and listened to the lyrics, I couldn't help but feel like God was really encouraging me to just be patient and trust in Him in all things until the right time that He's gonna unveil something glorious.

All of my worries with work, struggles with finding a balance in my life, and discouragement with ministry all melted into the background as I just realized how faithful God has always been, and will always be in my life. As the song was closing out, the beginning glimmer of sunlight coming over the horizon revealed how circumstantial my faith had become. God is always with me; sometimes it's our own distractions that end up covering Him.

Makes me Happy

So I was feeling really tired during a teacher's training seminar today (yes, on a saturday) and was kinda leaning on my arm when I was startled by a hand shaking my forearm. When I looked up, this middle-aged teacher who I had been talking with during the seminar leaned in and asked, "Tim, are you married?"

Whoah. Any cobwebs I had got swept aside as different thoughts flooded my mind. "Shoot, was she hitting on me? No, that's impossible, she told me she was married and had kids. Do I seem really mature and sensitive that it makes sense that I would be married? Not likely, we've only been talking about school stuff." A split second later, I cleared my throat and leaned in to whisper, "Umm, I'm actually not. why do you ask?"

She smiled and laughed, apologizing for startling me. "Oh, I was just wondering because you're such a cute young man."

I managed an uncomfortable smile and thank you, and pretended to pay attention to the speaker. However, I'm not going to lie, that comment really made me happy. =)

Pain of Failure

I think after 26 years of living with myself, I'm finally starting to understand certain things about my psyche. One of those things is my intense fear of failure. Whether it's failing people, or failing to accomplish a goal, not living up to my built-up expectations really crushes me.

So yesterday I really wanted to bless the church during our early Labor Day BBQ. Long story short, it didn't turn out that well. Things were just so crazy and I had to end the night spending an extra hour on the road to take care of something that I had a lot of time to really analyze WHY the failure really affected me so much. (I get into a quiet funk)

Self Analysis:

1) The Good Intention: I have been so overwhelmed with God's grace in my life in the past couple weeks that I really wanted to share some of that with the BBQ. When I wasn't able to accomplish that, I felt like it was such a missed opportunity for the newcomers and I felt like I let down the church.

2) Need for Validation: Everyone has this part in them. Some people just have a greater need for it in their lives. For me? Unfortunately it is something I struggle with at times. Which is funny, because I always feel uncomfortable giving and receiving validation/ affirmation to people. I have to consciously make an effort to do it. =P

3) Embarrassment: Man, I really hate this feeling. The glaring indication that I still operate with this fear is when I was too scared to announce when the food was finally finished cooking. If I still wanted people to be blessed, I would have just sucked it up and let people know there was more.

Ugh. Much to work on.