“Maybe this isn’t the right ministry for you.”
I listened
to the woman explain that perhaps the frustrations I was experiencing in this
new ministry endeavor were because it wasn’t a good fit for my personality and
giftings. I was crushed. I tried to keep the tears from rolling down
my cheeks and nodded to show her that I was listening.
I had been
invited to this meeting to discuss how things were going and specifically
whether or not the training I had received three months prior had equipped me
for the task I was currently doing. I
had prepared for the meeting by going over my training notes and comparing what
was written on paper with what actually had transpired. There was so much more I wished I had been
told before I plunged into this new world.
I had carefully created a list on my iPhone of things that the trainer
might consider adding into the first few weeks with the next trainee. I had prayed for a calm spirit to express how
I felt because I knew that my feelings of frustration were super-charged with
emotion as I felt this organization had “left me in the dust” so to speak.
In the first
few minutes of the meeting I had expressed my concerns with the way the
organization had communicated (or rather, didn’t
communicate) with me. I spoke about
how I felt lost in the whirlwind of policies, appointments, and paperwork
because I had never been exposed to these things before. I wished out loud that there would have been
someone a bit more experienced who could have led me through the process to
hold my hand and answer my questions.
And most importantly, I opened up to tell her that I didn’t feel like I
had forged a good relationship with the people I had been “assigned to” because
of the vast communication barriers.
This ministry opportunity was supposed to be
a wonderful cross-cultural experience in my own backyard, but it had turned
into an inconvenient, confusing, drain on my time and emotions. What had gone wrong??
I was sure
my failure was due to an insufficient training process and a lack of support
from the organization I was partnering with.
When the staff member had patiently listened to my frustrations, I was
not encouraged by her answer. Telling me
that I was not cut out for the role was not what I was expecting. In fact—I’ll be honest—I was mad.
Shouldn’t she take at least some of the
responsibility? Didn’t she feel sorry
for not supporting me when I asked for help a few weeks back?
Telling me
that the frustrations I was feeling were rooted in my own inadequacies was not
helpful.
Unfortunately,
this is the third disappointing ministry experience I’ve had since I moved back
to the US. First it was volunteering at
a local elementary school. As a (former)
classroom teacher, I fully expected to be given the most challenging volunteer
tasks and the most difficult students to work with (after explaining my
background and training to the teacher I was volunteering with). But no.
Instead, she barely spoke to me all year and gave me jobs like putting
stickers on art projects and monitoring the kids while she picked up her
printing from the other room.
Then it was
the after school program with refugee kids.
I worked through part of a school year hoping things would “pan out” but
in the end, I left feeling disappointed and frustrated that I could not make a
difference like I had envisioned. Definitely
not what I had pictured. And now
this. Another blow to the ego.
God, did I pray for humility? Am I
just not satisfied because my life in America is not like it was in Papua New
Guinea? There I had purpose. Every day.
Now I feel like I am wandering through life, making mistakes and wasting
time. What do you want me to do with my
life?
Then, of
course, friends will ask how my week is going or “what I’m up to” and I get
that failure feeling all over again because I don’t feel like I have any good
stories to tell.
This past
weekend, I learned the phrase “failing forward” to describe how I don’t have to
be afraid of messing up as long as I am learning from my mistakes. Someone else described this idea as the
action-reflection cycle. She encouraged
me to take a step in the direction I felt that God was leading me and then stop
and reflect on how it went. If something
failed, that’s ok because I could learn from it and try something
different.
I suppose
this is what grace is all about. Have
you been learning humility and grace lately?
What does it look like in your life?
