This year has taught me a lot about myself—who God has
created me to be, how He is transforming me, and who I am becoming through this
transformation.
Here is what I’ve been realizing this year…
I don’t believe I’m a “natural” teacher. I think I’ve
mentioned this in another post, but I really believe I have to work at it more
than most, because I have a lot of things going against me: 1. I’m a procrastinator. 2. I’m an introvert
3. I’m not much of a planner 4. I’m not gifted at organization….these are
things that I have to work on/work against…and sometimes I wonder why God led me into this profession when I've had to work against my natural tendencies. But I do believe that God has supernaturally worked in and through these deficiencies and has been stretching me,
shaping me, and making me trust Him more when some days all I want to do is
curl up in a ball and hide from everything. If teaching is what it takes
for Him to make me grow and trust Him, and I am able to glorify and serve Him
through this, as well as experience the rewards of learning and love from these kids, then it makes sense why He brought me here. And I also know that
I can’t come to any conclusion/decision/opinion about teaching after 1 year of
it…not to mention being in a foreign country with very little Spanish ability.
The first year is survival, I've heard (aka "complete chaos").
I mentioned I’m an introvert. Now, I haven’t been sure on
this…but am finally taking a stance and saying yes, I am an introvert. I love
people. I love being around them. I feel like I’m missing out on things if I
choose to stay in my room on a Saturday night, like I did tonight. Yet, I’m
realizing I desperately NEED time to myself. And when I get it, I love it and
savor it and don’t want to go to bed just because I feel like I have more
reading and writing and processing and reflecting and praying and guitar-playing
and whatever…to do alone. I feel I finally am connected to myself and my heart
and my mind, and things make more sense. I began to realize that I’m much more
of an introvert than I think I am when I was on spring break in Buenos Aires. I
realized, after getting there, that while it’s great to see a new city and be
with friends, I really just wanted to sleep and be by myself in my room in La
Paz. Conversations and new sights were overwhelming to me, and I felt like I
couldn’t process it all or respond to it or fully enjoy it like I wanted to.
And it’s because I needed a BREAK from everything—not just La Paz. Like, I needed
to be in full, shut-down, anti-social, leave-me-alone, solitary confinement for
a time. It seems funny that it’s taken me this long to realize about myself,
but it has been a strange internal battle that I haven’t been able to figure
out. It doesn’t seem natural to fight against my desire to hang out with people
and go places and see new things. But if I can’t fully be THERE, engaged with
those people, then what’s the point? I need to listen more to that still small
voice inside of me that says “Jules, you need to be still. You need to quiet
your heart. You need to stop and process what’s going on around you. I’ll give
you the peace, joy, energy, and bits of clarity that you need to be fully alive
with people and in your day-to-day routine.”
Another realization that this year has brought is that I
still find myself falling into the same sinful patterns as I’ve struggled with
for awhile. It’s frustrating. I want to
be done with these things. However, I’ve seen God’s slow process of
sanctification in me, as I feel I have been able to see more clearly its
destruction, and consequently, quickly destroy these thoughts/actions with the
increased wisdom and strength I’ve felt the Spirit give me. I feel that this
year more than ever I’ve been able to truly realize and believe in God’s unconditional
love for me and hold on my life and my future. And because of this, I see
myself handling things in a manner that is more mature, more Christ-like…and I’m
walking away with confidence that, through God's promised and apparent sanctification, I can
still defeat these patterns of sin if I keep choosing to believe He loves me
and made me exactly who I am for a reason, is sovereign and behind every detail
of my life, and has a future laid out for me that is better than what I can
plan for myself. If God is for me and with me, who or what can possibly destroy me? I am more than a conqueror
through Christ.
I have a long way to go. I have a lot of this year and what’s
happened to me and in me and through me and around me to still process. I have lots of thoughts about what I need to work on and
how to live better and more sacrificially next year. I have
no idea how long I’ll stay in Bolivia. I have no idea what’s after Bolivia. I
have my own plans floating around in my head, but I know better than to
concretely say, “This is what I’m going to do.”…my heart, my mind, my desires,
and my viewpoints can easily change. Experiences here, friends, books, and
ultimately God’s work in my heart, are changing these things already. I’m
figuring out who God created me to be, how to be a servant, how to live radically,
how to be disciplined, what I need to do to be holistically healthy, how to be
patient, how to love better, etc. etc. I’m sure grateful for
the work God has done in me this year. And it’s not over yet…
