It's Monday. And a beautiful Monday with clear skies and a light breeze. By the end of my morning run I was definitely feeling the warmth! My skin is enjoying the humidity of Ontario versus the dryness of central BC where I was last year, that's for sure!
We definitely had a busy weekend (or at least it sure felt busy). Saturday saw most of our day spent shopping. But the result was that our living room now has a coffee table and a rug, and our bedroom has a bedframe and two end tables. I find that every day I feel a little more like a grown up, which is a strange feeling. I have spent most of my life feeling far older than the years I have actually lived, but now that I'm in my late-twenties and experiencing everything that I am now, I have a hard time believing a really am an adult. I blame it on nine years of university!
Sunday involved church, coffee at our pastor's house to meet some other young married couples who are interested in starting a small group (definitely excited about the idea of being able to connect with others). Then there was more shopping, laundry, reading at the edge of a soccer field while hubby practiced with his team, and assembling an end table that night.
My sister likes to tell me that my husband and I are "old souls." At first we balked at this. But in the last few weeks the number of times we have looked at each other and one of us has said, "We really are old souls" is somewhat astounding.
So I have a bit of a confession to make. By the end of last week, I was feeling like a wreck. I don't like playing the "waiting game." I was calling schools, making contacts, emailing contacts, trying to set up opportunities to meet with those contacts, and by Friday evening I had had one positive response, three brush offs, one no response, and was still waiting to hear from another school. Something I had never really realized until I was teaching last year is that I can be very hard on myself. So despite being told that I was putting in a lot of work and not to worry, I was feeling like a failure. I'm not the person goes unemployed. I have always had a job. I am a very hard worker and as much as I love my relaxing, I want to feel useful and productive (there's a reason why I clean my house more often than it probably needs to be cleaned).
And yes, I get scared about what people will think of me. Will someone think I'm just lazy because I don't have a job yet? Will they think I'm not doing enough when I'm doing all that I can do at this moment?
Then comes that awesome moment when you realize you're being hard on yourself and that you need to stop worrying about what others think. So what do you do? You beat yourself up for beating yourself up.
Does this supply a sufficient picture? :)
These feelings of insufficiency began to fade when, while shopping at Ikea on Saturday afternoon, I had an email from one of the schools I had contacted asking me if I could come and meet with the VP on Monday or Tuesday to discuss supply teaching at their school.
The feelings then returned shortly before bed last night when the excitement wore off and the nervousness invaded.
For the last few months I have been working my way through a book by J. Mark Bertrand entitled "(Re)Thinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World." I sometimes get down on myself because non-fiction seems to take me so long to get through. But I have come to realize that God's sense of timing is perfect, and it is often because of my slowness that I end up reading things I need to hear.
Around Thursday I started reading a chapter called "A City without Walls: Five Lessons for Siege Warfare." This chapter was based on the Turkish siege of Constantinople in the 1450s. I'm still not done the chapter (shocking), but there is something Bertrand says that I want to share with you.
"A siege is not a single battle. It is a series of skirmishes, a probe here and a test there. Each side maneuvers for advantage, seeking a weakness that can be exploited... because the dangers of a siege are sustained, they eventually become routine. The vigilance provoked by fear subsides as the threat grows familiar... a siege offers none of the thrill and none of the finality that our heroic temperaments crave. It is a constant daily struggle over inches of ground, a monotonous and seemingly pointless conflict."
There is so much that can be drawn from here. I feel like I could write a rather lengthy essay just on those few lines. We all struggle. We all deal with different things. For me, I know that insecurity is one of biggest struggles, and it plays out in different ways so that I can't always identify it. Sometimes I'm insecure about how I look and I just walk around feeling ugly. Sometimes I come down on myself as a teacher and become almost paralyzed by thinking I have failed my kids. I wonder if people like me. I second guess how hard I'm working.
About three years ago God really helped me to see how much a part of me insecurity had become. And He so graciously took me through steps to work at overcoming it.
But something I have realized, is that insecurity is something I will probably always deal with. There is no one battle that will be fought against it that will leave me free (however much I may wish for that). It is like a siege. And it is only my me guarding my "walls" and making sure that they are strong and in good repair, that I will survive and come out stronger. Sometimes I get so used to dealing with it that I don't bother. Insecurity becomes routine.
But I do not want to live like that, and I do not believe that God has called me to live like that. While I believe it is important to reflect upon what I'm doing and how I'm living so as to challenge myself and grow, I need to ensure that I do not go to the opposite extreme of crippling myself because of my insecurity.
Or at least, this is what I'm mulling over today :)
And after all of that, I ended up getting the job as a supply teacher.
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