Kings and queens of promise

I don't often do this, but this song's just been running through my head with its intense lyrics speaking of brokenness and futility:

"We were the kings and queens of promise
We were the victims of ourselves
Maybe the children of a lesser God
Between heaven and hell".

Don't get me wrong, this is not a Christian band. [The bit I quoted now makes it seem so, does it not?] It's just a great song, holding so much of the world's pain in it.

I present to you Thirty Seconds to Mars: 'Kings and Queens'

Talking about Sleepy Time

I just read the most interesting post on Why we need sleep and yet don't want it.

The crux of the matter is:

We don’t like sleep because sleep is an admission that we aren’t in control. It’s a physical expression of our spiritual need to lay down and rest in the arms of One who is sovereign and never sleeps.

I think it's time for me to go rest now, so you read the complete post here at Life2getherblog.com

The Year of Manning Up: NOT Taking Responsiblity

On the other hand, leadership/manning up also involves NOT taking responsibility for certain things. How is anyone going to learn if you keep on doing everything for them? How are people going to be grown, stretched, developed, if you don't allow them opportunities to fall, mess up, fail?

So what does this mean? This means, for one, that I have to stop acting like everyone's functional Saviour. This means that I need to stop doing everything for everyone. This means that whenever someone phones and needs me, it won't always be the best thing for me to drop what I'm doing to be with them. This is not to say that I shouldn't be dependable, but it is to say that I shouldn't be their one and only.

Not being everyone's functional Saviour also means acknowledging that I too need help. Kirsty recently told us how she and her husband had gone to a friend's house for supper, along with a whole bunch of other people. Being the lovely people they are, they offered to help with the dishes, only to have Lisa [I forget her real name, so this will have to suffice], the woman of the house say, 'No, no, don't worry about that, I'll do it tomorrow morning.'

The next Sunday, Tom [being the equal opportunities activist I am, I've also forgotten his real name], the man of the house, came over and said: "I have Lisa's permission to tell you that she's sorry for not letting you help her wash the dishes, and for allowing you to create this over-idealistic picture of her as the perfect woman. She likes people to think that she's capable of doing everything: for looking after the house perfectly, running around after our children, looking after me, helping with my ministries, but she's not. She can't do it all, and next time you're more than welcome to help with the dishes."

This post seems to have morphed from being about NOT taking responsibility into functional Saviourship, but I suppose that if we look at Christ's example, even though he was the Saviour, the Perfect One, He was never a functional Saviour. Look at the way He was with His disciples: there were no magical shortcuts between towns and villages- those disciples trudged the full distance following Jesus. Yet, the disciples undoubtedly learnt so much from him

So it appears then, that in manning up, I'm going to have to walk a fine line between too much responsibility and too little. Hope this made sense.. my head hurts. Sleepy time..

PS I picked up the term 'functional Saviour' from somewhere, so I hope I'm using it correctly...!!!

The Year of Manning Up: Taking Responsibility

In my previous post, I introduced my new year to y'all. Some of you reading might have wondered: "so what? I'm not in any leadership positions. It's always nice reading about Grace's life [why, thanks, guys], but that post didn't really have anything to do with me".

Think again. Obviously I can't tell you what to do in your own life, but here are two examples of things I can 'man up' to. Hopefully that'll spark some thoughts...

1)How we train and model lives to our younger siblings-in-Christ. [See Titus 2]. [See also: Relationships with my sisters-in-Christ.] Leading is more than being. Leading is being actively involved, training, inspiring, explaining to others who are being led. I've come to the conclusion that although placed in many leadership positions over the years, my leadership has been a very passive sort- by just being, I thought my example would be enough. But it's not. An oak tree has no impact on your life by just being on top of a mountain - it must come and plant itself in your garden. In the same way, I have re-assessed my relationships with many in the church, and realized that I have not become involved enough. This is not to say that I need to be responsible for everyone - it means that when I do choose to be responsible for some sort of leadership, that I must engage with it thoroughly.

2)I have this tendency to talk about my life as if it's not under control. 'Oh my word, it's been such a crazy week, with so much to do.' I seem to blame this crazy incomprehensible thing called 'life' for the madness of my existence. Silly. I need to take responsibility for my decisions- after all, I take the call to do something or not. This is just a minor example of me not taking responsibility for things that I have chosen to take responsibility for.

Oooh.. but now it seems as if I have an over-inflated sense of responsibility... Is Grace going to go around feeling guilty about everything/everyone she comes into contact with?

No. 'Cause part of manning up/ being a leader means NOT taking responsibility at times...

2010: The Year of Manning Up

Since 2008, I've given every year a title. Nothing too serious - just something that gives my year a bit of focus and drive.

2008 was the Year of Discovering What I Wanted to Do with English. That meant that I took on opportunities that I thought would be a natural lead-on from studying English, such as tutoring, working at the Writing Lab, creative writing.

2009 was the Year of Social Involvement, which meant that I joined Night Shelter Bible study for the whole year, got involved with Habitat for Humanity. Halfway during the year, it transformed into the Year of Near-Burnout.

This year, I've realized, is The Year of Manning Up. No, no, this doesn't mean that I'm going to be learning how to spit the furthest, or grow hair on my chest, or punch people really hard [I can already do this last thing quite well, mind you]. What I mean by 'manning up' is simply this: to take responsibility for the things that you are responsible for. And that's something we should all be doing, regardless of whether we are males or females.

So what does this mean for me? I've been recently placed into a really cool leadership position- cool enough to make me have an existential crisis about my leadership style and skills. [BTB, any regular reader of my blog will know by know that I quite enjoy the odd existential crisis here and there, so no biggie. I quite enjoy them 'cause I get to learn a lot from them :) And get to freak out dramatically ::))].

Anyway, upon reflection, I've realized that many people have also just assumed I'm a leader type because I keep on placed in leadership positions, and so keep on placing me in more leadership positions. [As my one friend put it, I'm a leader, 'cause I'm loud!]. Hence, a cycle develops, and poor Grace is left in this washing machine, not quite sure of what she's supposed to be doing as a so-called leader. I also try shirk responsibility a lot of the time. [Many of you reading this won't believe me, but it's true.]

This year, it's time to assess what I'm supposed to be doing in my various positions, and to be taking responsibility for my team/s. Hmm. Yes, let's see how this spans out :)

The S word: Submission.... of a sibling sort

The other day, friends and I were sitting at good ol' Maccy D's, when I excitedly shared my goals for the year: 1) to go to a Kurt Darren concert, and 2) to attend a weekend trance party.

"No ways are you going to a weekend trance party", said the Brother firmly, quelling any possible objections from me with a glance. "You are not going, and that's that."

Seeing as I'm not 5 anymore, I don't take too kindly to being told what to do. My hackles especially rise when I'm being told exactly what it is I need to do, instead of having it sugarcoated in friendly suggestions.

So what did I do? Throw my ice-cream in his face (impossible, as I wasn't eating any ice-cream)? Throw a wobbly right there and then, and ask him how dare he treat me like a baby? None of the above, actually.

The Brother gets away with what many of my friends (male or female) don't get away with: telling me what to do. And when he speaks, I do what I don't often do with other people's advice: I take it. My friends have often been surprised at the way the Sister and I 'obey' my brother's orders, but it's really simple, actually:

My brother has proven over again and again, to me and the Younger Sister, that when he tells us to do something (or rather, in my case, not to do something) that he isn't doing it just because he's a spoilsort- it's because he thought through the implications of our decisions, and consequences thereof more thoroughly than we have. Of all the people who come in and out of our lives, it is him who has consistently shown that he wants only the best for us, and that is why we listen. [Most of the time.]

Understanding this has really made me reconsider my inner-feminist's throw-up reaction to the word 'submission' in the context of marriage. After all, don't we submit to other authorities in other fields of life every day: our business leaders/ study leaders/ bosses?

[insert your own cool closing remark here.]

hope/Hope

There's a lot of things I hope for one day: I hope to be happy, I hope to travel, I hope to walk through Siberian fog one day [I'm not joking here; I've wanted to do this ever since I read ... umm... let me get back to you on that one], I hope to end up in deepest darkest Africa and turn on a light switch there.. :). There are many things I'd love to see happen one day, but I don't know if I ever will. During the last two years, I'd especially hoped to see someone I loved as a best friend come to know Jesus, but they didn't, and now our lives are walked on different paths. Anger, frustration and bitterness set in, which I'm still processing now slowly. Why were they brought into my life, and why did they become such a big part of it, if it was only to taunt me, was my thinking, I suppose.

Without knowing it, little by little, my big Hope, the sure and certain truth that because of Jesus I would one day live eternally with God, was being chipped away by the emotions surrounding a little hope, a wish. And I've used a little h and a big H for a reason: the Bible does not talk about our Hope in Jesus in the same way that we speak about our hopes and dreams like I just did: It speaks about this Hope as a given, a definite, an 'of course':
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

It's been very helpful for me to relearn this difference, and so this is why I've written this post. But I also write this, because I have a feeling you might still read my blog every now and then. Hello. :). I miss you. I hope you're well.