Fear

Well, I've been neglecting the blog. Not because I didn't have anything to write, but the week before reading week was full of doing as much homework as possible so we could go on vacation, and I certainly wasn't going to spend my vacation working on the blog, either. So I apologize, but a girl's got to take care of herself.

So the past couple of months at the church have been a whirlwind of activity for me. Between taking the girls to WYA, being on vacation, and the end of my time at St. Mark coming near, I feel like I'm missing out on a lot. Yet, at the same time, I'm doing so much on the weeks that I am there, even my week back after vacation. This Sunday, I wrote the prayers of intercession and taught Confirmation, and tonight I'll be leading the Bible study for the mid-week soup supper. Not to mention that I've preached, taught Sunday school, and gone to a bunch of meetings.

This weekend is the 30-hour famine, which is my big service project day. I've been working on this basically since November or so, because my one social ministry requirement was to create and execute a service project with the youth. We're going to be doing three: wrapping silverware for the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, stuffing and tying pillows for children in Bosnia, and making tote bags for the children, as well. I'm excited to see what happens.

But besides all of the activity, I've had a lot of fearful moments. Some of those are overarching: I'm not ready to leave, and I'm scared of what's going to happen next year. Some of those are the kinds that have been going on the whole year: have I really done enough? Have I learned what I can? Have I made some sort of positive impact here? And then there are the random ones that have been happening over the last few weeks.

First, I preached, which is always nerve-racking. I was only mildly calmed by the fact that we've been talking a lot about God's work through the words of the sermon. God will speak even when I cannot, and God will help the listeners hear what God has to say, even when my words don't quite match that. I firmly believe this, and I'm glad that the pressure is off. That doesn't mean that I don't have some responsibility, though. Plus, the last time I preached, Linda and I met a few weeks beforehand and went over the sermon, I practiced in the pulpit, and we talked a lot about it. This time, partially because of busyness and partly because I think Linda was either testing or trusting me--probably both, we didn't do that. I preached on Sunday not knowing what her thoughts on the sermon were. That made me even more nervous, especially when we did sit down to talk about it. It turns out that I don't suck at writing sermons; I definitely still have some growing to do, but that's to be expected. Yet I was pretty nervous the whole time. What if it was terrible? What if it made no sense? What if I was preaching the wrong thing?

The other big moment of being nervous came this last Sunday night, when I was teaching Confirmation. When I taught the Apostle's Creed, Linda wasn't there one day because she was at an ordination, and the other two weeks she worked on stuff in her office. That meant I was all alone with five terrifying teenagers. I survived, and I think they even enjoyed the time. But this week, when I was finally comfortable teaching on my own, Linda came in and worked on stuff in the same room. All of  a sudden, I was worried again--What if I was teaching something wrong? What if I said something the wrong way and the kids misunderstood? What if nothing I said made sense and I ruined Confirmation for them? I had the same issue a few weeks ago when Linda dropped in on my 7/8 grade class.

Why am I so scared? I want Linda to tell me how I'm doing and give me feedback so I can keep doing what I'm doing right, and work on improving what I'm doing wrong. Yet I get so worried when she's there to hear it! I know that part of it is just fear that I'm making huge mistakes, but another part is my general distaste for hearing about my mistakes. I'm a recovering perfectionist, and I hate making mistakes. I beat myself up for them, and can't seem to forget them--even silly mistakes that I made back as a freshman in high school, for example. So most of my issue is that to have someone else tell me I messed up, even someone I trust, is really difficult. I'll definitely have to get over this, so I appreciate all that Linda does to help me get over this perfectionist streak--maybe one day I'll get there.