Prickly

Every morning at YouthBuild we do a "morning huddle" where we pray, recite our philosophy, and then do a "check in" using "I feel" statements. Some words are banned (good, ok, g's) as we encourage the students to really try to pinpoint how they feel and expand their vocabulary. I'd had a particularly not-so-good Thursday and had both carried over and elected to magnify my frustration on my way to work, rehearsing an arguement I was just certain I was going to have w/ one of my staff upon arrival. As we checked in, it got to me...and "Great-example-Ms. Jen" announced,"I feel prickly". The students were all over the place with it but my staff kinda looked around with that "Uh oh" look.

Back up a few years...I was yapping w/ the now COO of Covenant House International (also a mentor of mine) and he asked me a challenging question which I responded to quite immediately and with defiant resolution. He replied to me,"I guess I can see how you feel about it,"...and the now Executive Director of CHNJ chimed in,"Yeah--you always know what Jen is feeling". Later on my supervisor was reviewing this moment with me and said that I had been set up (!?) to prove a point and to teach me (which I totally missed). "To always know what you're feeling isn't necessarily a good thing. You can change a room with the look on your face. You need a poker face". Hmmm...We decided to make this a goal...one I've been working on, off and on, for about 7 years...and still haven't come close to mastering.

So fast forward to prickly...and the thoughts I wrestled with the rest of the day...Is it always right to be so blantantly honest about how you feel? Me announcing that I was prickly put staff on edge, I felt prickly so my face and tone of voice reflected this and sorta spread a negative air. I pretty much had quills sprouting from my trunk so no one really wanted to deal with me.

Later on, as I was addressing the staff with whom I was frustrated, I realized that my prickliness had produced the "Uh oh, Jen must be mad" reaction I'd been hoping for (yeah! >:) but it also spoke volumes to others who had nothing to do with the situation. I'd even "poked" this staff w/ a quill by making a snapping comment in front of other staff. Duh and ooops...not the kind of leader I want to be.

What would Jesus do? I carried this quandary into this morning, picked up a "Precious Bible Promises" book, and turned to the section on "In Times of Frustration"...and there I discovered a little nugget in Isiah 50:7-

“ For the Lord GOD will help Me;

Therefore I will not be disgraced;

Therefore I have set My face like a flint,

And I know that I will not be ashamed."

I looked up the word flint...obviously it means "hard" or "like rock" but in the Hebrew it is derived from a word that means "to recover" or "bind firmly". I looked up "disgraced" and in the Hebrew it means "confounded". If I understood the context of the verse correctly, it's a prophetic image of Christ being scorned yet he remained "stone-faced", did not react, and was therefore not disgraced or ashamed of any reaction He may have had that would have been contrary to "turning the other cheek".

I don't know if I can train my facial muscles to be still when I'm feeling some type of way...that's something I need to work on. I DO know that although I can't control every situation, especially other people, I CAN control my reaction to it. I can control my attitude. I can choose to lay down the quills and NOT be prickly. At the end of the day we had a staff meeting and I apologized to my staff about my check in and the mood it caused...which I was ashamed about. So perhaps in the future, instead of rehearsing an argument I think I might have and getting myself all in a tizzy (electing to have a defensive attitude), I will pray--pray for a peaceful attitude, pray that I can approach the situation with softness, pray that my face reflects Christ and not a storm (Mark calls me "Stormy" when my face looks a certain way=yikes!) "Flint" may take a while...but, with God's help, I'll get there (or at least closer)