Taking one for the team

I absolutely love being a leader/mentor/teacher, whatever you wanna call it... I love my girls (and a few unofficial guys lol), but the last few weeks have not been fun... Two Sundays ago I was talking with Pastor John about an issue I was having with two of my girls and he just laughed as said, "Anna, do you think God is working on your girls right now? He's really working on you!" I was like, "I know..." Well at least then I thought I knew... now I really know and quite frankly, I don't like it one bit. It's been escalading daily and finally peaked today, but now I think I got it...

So since I haven't been working the last week or so, I've been keeping pretty busy with church stuff and mostly my girls... Meeting with them and talking with them and all that good fun stuff. Well, I've been having a hard time with some of them who are going through a rough time right now... Pretty much all in one area... Yup, you guessed it... Why is it always that? So they are crying and freaking out and I'm like, Lord, how can I help them when I'm barely hanging on myself? And in other areas as well... I feel like everything they are going through, I'm going through as well, even if I've never had to deal with any of it before. So I'm like, Lord, what gives? Do I really need to relate to them like that? I mean, I love being able to hold them and cry with them and say I know, I understand, I've been there, I'm going through it too, I've had to deal with that too, I know it's important for me to be able to really understand them in order to help them, but at my own expense? Isn't what I've been through in my past enough? Apparently not... I find that the things that frustrate me about my girls and that they are struggling with are coming up in my own life as well now... and I'm like, why am I having to deal with this?

I was talking to Svetik yesterday and after I told her everything she asked me if I still want to be a pastor... I do... But God still has to do a lot in my life before then... On Sunday John said that before God will do anything in the lives of people we are praying for He has to do it in us first... And so He is. It's hard. It's stretching my faith. It's painful at times... and more than anything, it makes me feel so weak, so human, so helpless and inadequate... And I know that's the point... I can't rely on myself, because I simply don't have what it takes and by myself I will always fall short, but His strength is made perfect in my weakness... So in the end, I'll be ok, He's got me :)