when not enough...is enough

So this week my new life as a college senior started--in the span of several days, I have packed up my life in Michigan, arrived and unpacked in a brand new apartment, and met a large percentage of the school community who will be such a huge part of my life for the next two months. 

My first morning in my new school opened with meeting twenty something people in the span of several minutes, followed by these words in a prayer from the school principal:

God, we are not up to the task…and that is a good thing.

The rest of the prayer was great from what I heard—it’s amazing to hear people you don’t know pray out loud in a genuine, loving way—but with those thirteen words, an invisible weight was lifted from my shoulders that I hadn’t quite realized I was carrying. I have come to believe something I heard said once—that everyone has a particular burden to carry unique to them, their temperament and experience—and part of my unique battle is this fear of being not enough. This plays out in a variety of ways—in my academics, relationship with my family, friends, roommates, colleagues, and as of late with my students and the work of becoming a teacher.  This fear is in no way helped by the fact of who I am—the klutzy, absentminded part of me who is always dropping, spilling or breaking something. Basically, I often take the harder road and spend a lot of time climbing mountains and feeling really stupid when they turn out to be molehills. When I got here yesterday, I unpacked my car over the span of four hours because I got some stuff out of my car, went to Subway to get lunch, only to realize that my wallet was not actually IN my purse. Immediately, on the verge of a panic attack, I turned around to come back to campus, called Walmart and Campus Safety with no luck, tore my apartment apart, wondering what kind of senior/student teacher I would make if I couldn’t find my wallet. I lifted a box a few minutes later and found it exactly where I had left it a few minutes earlier.

I am very much a work in progress, and I’m coming to terms with my strengths and weaknesses, recognizing that God made me exactly the way he meant for me to be—but some days are easier than others. Walking into a building where I knew no one beyond a few emails and texts over the summer, spending eight hours in a room full of almost strangers is a bit of a stretch. I’ve grown a lot and I’m much more trusting and optimistic about these situations now than when I was, say, a freshman, but even without knowing it, walking into school yesterday, my hackles were up. Without a single conscious thought or acknowledgement, I found myself walking into that school with a determination to prove myself worthy. It affected what I chose to wear, what I brought to school today, how I presented myself. I don’t think it showed or negatively affected anything that happened, but that opening line in a simple morning prayer took me aback and adjusted the way I approached the day. It took me several minutes to find my way out of that hackles up, defenses at the ready mindset, that determination to show the world that I am good enough, and I think I have to talk myself out of that daily. After twenty something years in this skin, coming to terms with who I am—the good, the bad, and the messy—involves a long process of leaning into and learning from my insufficiency without letting it define me. To acknowledge without putting myself down that I still have a long way to go; in my desperate grasp for control, for appearing confident in a new situation where I am anything but, for occasionally failing to ask questions until it’s too late. I still don’t know how to show anger or hurt or sadness in front of a group of students in a way that is healthy and spurs growth. Not to mention I don’t know this school or these people—names, where the gym or cafeteria is, what the schedule is like.  

And yet, after admitting weakness, unpreparedness on his part and that of the school, what came out of the mouth of this man next was a reminder that God shows himself most clearly in my weakness. Entering that school this morning, next week, next month, in anything other than weakness, an acknowledgement that in and of myself, I am not sufficient for the demands and challenges of this year is a way of deceiving myself and others, and I’m realizing that I don’t want that. It’s not fair to me, the teachers and staff I met today, my roommates, the kids I’m about to meet on Monday, and it breaks the heart of God. Because my God chooses the weak, the meek, the mild to do his best work, and I always forget that. It is the weak ones, the ones who come to God and whatever situation with hands empty and open who become key players in God’s redeeming work. I was never intended to get through this life on my own strength. I sing it, pray it, say it, but I’m praying that this year and beyond I believe and live it. God does his best work in and through men and women whose only relevant qualification is that He chose them. They needed nothing other than that knowledge and the wisdom provided to them. Even in writing that, I want to qualify that statement with affirming again how important pedagogy and details and preparation is, and to some extent that is true, but it’s not the foundation. The heart of what I’m about to do, the work of my hands and my mind this semester will be that in Christ, I am enough. In Him, I find the resources, the strength, the experience and content knowledge that I need to do this well. Anything else is a bonus. That, I think, is what I love most about my new school. Even before the kids walk in the door, the first thing the principal does is acknowledge that they are not ready, that they will be surprised and challenged and stretched. That they will come up short and be carried by grace. For whatever reason, this is both incredibly hard to swallow and immensely comforting to believe. I sit tonight simultaneously humbled and graced in my weaknesses, and with Paul, I can pray over this semester that my competence comes from God Himself (2 Cor 3:5).