Oh my gosh!? I allowed myself a month of re-reading daily thoughts...and was so surprised at the daily angst I seemed to script day after day, mostly work related. How quickly I'd forgotten! Issues with staff, so-n-so called out and I had to cover, mistakes with timesheets, problems with the kids, starting my workday at 7:30am and sometimes not getting home till 6pm, reports, mistakes, webinars, etcetcetc. How quickly I had forgotten!
I do miss YouthBuild...I do miss running a program, being "Ms. Jen" every day, in spite of alllllll the "stuff" that accompanies such a task. It was all wonderful and if I had my choice, I'd be right back in the fray.
Yet...yet...I started reflecting on all this on my way to work the other morning...noting, to my own humility, how both thankful but pit-in-my-stomach I was about returning to the development department when the position opened...And how blessed I felt this time around...to NOT have to go to Newark 2 days a week but maybe 1-2xs per month...that I can work from home for an hour or two (or 8!) when I don't have any meetings, catch up w/ Mark, have a slower pace to the start of the day...How I don't have to supervise anyone right now, feel the pang in my stomach when the phone rings at 6:45am with a teacher or case manager saying, "I'm calling out sick"and then having to figure out how to cover that, not having to field emails from finance because I miscalculated the timesheets AGAIN (math is NOT my strong suit) or was late on a bill, "Ms. Jen-I-need-to-talk-to-you" every 2 minutes, emails at 1pm for data that will take me an hour or two or five to compile needed by 5pm, etc. No...I have none of that right now...but I miss it...
But...but as I pondered all this I was infiltrated with, "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures...He leadeth me beside still waters...He restoreth my soul..." I got teary and thanked God for the gift of a slower pace, for the time to "sleep in" until 4am each day instead of 3:15am, to be able to have a third cup of coffee and enjoying the breeze through open windows while emailing donors about coming to visit us in Camden rather than feel the pressure to be present in my windowless office. Not that my present position isn't without angst and pressure...but it's different...or maybe I'm different. Maybe God allowed me the gift of YouthBuild after a harrowing 2+ years in development the first time around to "restore my soul" to the work, be "on the ground" as we say, to get dirty and be with kids, staff, and all the issues (and joys!) that come with that...to be "Ms. Jen" once again on a daily basis and be reminded why I was brought to Covenant House in the first place...
And I can almost hear the Lord saying,"That was for a season...and now it's time for this..." And here I am...beside ever stiller waters, green pastures yet again, having my soul restored to do development work. I looked up the Hebrew for "restoreth"="to bring back again"...and I can almost sense that as I make my way through this "raise money for Camden" challenge...being brought back to a place of trust, of dependence, of seeing God in every facet of my day to day work...and not that I didn't have that before...but it certainly on a deeper level now.
Yesterday I met w/ a guy who attends a church in a rather prominent community outside of Camden. They (the church) went above and beyond at Christmastime for us so I was hoping to gain a new audience of folks that might want to help our Camden site. We chatted, I talked about Camden and how one of our board of directors was the chief surgeon at Cooper and had invested the start up money to make our being in Camden possible. The guy looked at me and said, "Dr.(Board of Directors) saved my life!" and proceeded to tell me how Dr. so-n-so had performed a new procedure on him that unblocked an artery that was basically causing him to live on borrowed time. Luck that the two were connected? Chance? Uh, no. He shared his testimony and although we talked about Covenant House, the work, the kids, etc., we continued to insert God and spiritual things into the conversation. As we finished up our time together, he hesitated for a few seconds before we removed ourselves from the diner booth and asked, "Would it be ok if we prayed together?" and so we did, unashamed, in the Silver Coin Diner.
It ended up, from my perspective, to be more "fellowship" than a meeting...and not the kind of "fellowship" where you stand in the church hall after service, scarf a cookie, drink bad coffee, and chat about what you're doing for the rest of the day, but "koinonia" which is Greek for fellowship="communion by intimate participation". It identifies the idealised state of fellowship and community that should exist within the Christian Church...and although I had only met this guy an hour before, by the time I left, I was convinced that was what we had shared.
I got into my car, gazed upwards, teary, and in total defeat and acknowledgement that I am not in control of my life asked, "Lord...what are You doing?" Not a confused ask, not a beseeching for an answer...but a rhetorical inquiry that I trust will be revealed in His time...and it was the trust in knowing that He has the answer, the plan, the next steps of it all, that allowed me to just utter, "Thank You...thank You..." for a few miles...I know that the still waters may churn in the near future...the green pastures may brown up a bit...but I also know and believe that my soul is presently being restored for a purpose that I don't need to know or understand at this moment...and all I can say is, "Thank You!"
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