Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Lord give me strength, wisdom and thicker skin.

I hate how people can effect me so, I have a deep running fear of failing, disappointing people and not being liked or well thought of. I feel peopled moods like you can feel the chair your sitting in, I take it on as my own and multiply it. It's not always a bad thing, but it does mean that I'm hurt easily, feel like I've failed over minor things and get anxiety quickly over silly things.

This was all brought on by an undoubtable sucky situation but I don't feel that I should feel as "GAH" about it as I do.

We have small groups at youth, we meet every third week or so, and my leaders are to call and let the youth know where the are going. It's always been a bit of a struggle to make sure that everyone is calling all the youth and knowing where they are etc. But that is not the cause of this GAHness.
We had a family begin to go to our church and after three months of their children going to sunday school the mother emailed about getting her kids plugged in at youth. They've been coming out since the beginning of Jan. Due to scheduling we've had 2 lifegroups within a month. And I forgot to re-email the leaders an updated copy of their youth, so this particular youth did not get called, two, apparently three times. I found out last time, apologized and said that I would make sure the youth was on the list, I did, he was on the list. But that list didn't get sent out.

So this night comes rolling around, I'm running late, opening doors, running around when the younger sibling of this youth tells me that no one phoned for the youth. I ran to the car to give the address to the mom. She was livid. Understandably, I'd be upset if my kid wasn't called for the third time in a row and was hurt by this. I apologized and said that I forgot to give the leaders their number, she didn't' accept that and went off on my leaders and -that they should know they don't have one of their youth's numbers and ask me for it. The youth has had a rough go at school with feeling rejected and now she said that he's been rejected by the youth group and that he'd probably never come back, and that we'd lost him. He gets it at school, he shouldn't get it at church, and these leader should be leading and displaying Christ.- I was hurt. Big time. I can understand that for the youth it would be really really hard, and I was disappointed in myself for not given the leader the number. It was a huge oversight, and I truly am sorry, however I don't think I should have been made to feel that way. They have to drive like 25 min to get to the youth which is a double crap. She said that if he didn't want to come to youth, then we'd lost the other youth and they wouldn't be going to the church anymore. Ouch. So now I feel that I've failed my whole congregation, and that I've hurt a youth beyond repair. Not cool. I'm not writing this to slander the parent, they have a right to be upset and hurt, however, I don't know. I need grace too and it's hard to feel that when you've been crushed. It's hard because it was so unintentional, and it doesn't display my heart or my leaders hearts for these youth. It's nights like these I feel like a failure. (I know I'm not no worries, and GOd has brought me here with a purpose and will see me through) Lord give me compassion, strength, and wisdom.

Thanks blog, for letting me vent. Thanks Lord for being bigger than this.

2 comments:

julie said...

hey megs... tough tough tough!!!! just reading this makes me hurt for you because i have the same sort of longing to be respected/well-liked and thought of and i know you would do anything to make this youth feel accepted and loved. once i quit a tutoring job with a tough kid but a tougher mother (not a good situation) and felt really guilty about quitting, and my mother in law told me (and i know it won't take the edge off the impact of this youth's mother's words): "you can't be all things to all people". It sorta helped me, and it doesn't hurt knowing that God's got this youth's life and heart in His hands and that's not going to change despite where this person goes to church or what friends or leaders they have. OK.... sorry if that was too much. Thinking of you and asking for some grace and compassion. :) Love you friend!

Allison said...

oh meggles! i'm so sorry - the pressure of leading is so intense sometimes. and parenting is hard, too, so i'm sure it's easy to take out your misery over your kids' hard life on someone else with some level of responsibility or influence on their life.
you have not turned this kid away. you do your best and sometimes things get missed. God's not going to miss or forget anyone- so if the kid decides to not come back, it is their own decision.
you're not perfect in the eyes of the world, but Jesus sees you as perfect and is overjoyed with your love and your ministry no matter what happens.
(ps - if you have free time -hahahhaha - i recommend listening to some of Tim Keller's lectures on work and rest, or reading Larry Crabb's book "the pressure's off')
love you!