A Confession

As my patience has been tested over the past week in waiting to begin work, I have had plenty of time to think. By last Friday I was nearly pulling my hair out as I thought that I was going to be beginning work. I did not begin work and began to desire to jump out of my skin as I felt like a bum. I have recently begun to think of this time as valuable rather than wasteful. After some conversations with friends and some quality reading material, I have been reflecting over this idea of worth. I have also come to better understand the beauty and ugly in that over the past three years I rarely stopped. So much got done, and so little got done. Even when I did stop (i.e. cottage visits, retreats, quiet times) I always had an agenda of things to do. Read, class, write for teaching, etc. (I think that the only time that I truly stopped and did not have an agenda for "getting stuff done" was on the golf course. I love golf.) Getting deeper into this, I think that I have shown traits of a person who finds their worth (worldly and heavenly) in completing tasks. I wouldn't sleep well if my to do lists weren't complete, and I think that I would even cut conversations/relationships short if I had "stuff" to get done and time was running short. I am sorry. I am also sorry if conversations were part of these to do lists that I maintained so meticulously. As if sharing words with someone is part of some list. I don't really know what this means for Whitney and I out in California, but I do know that I will be intentional with "remembering" this through my quiet days before classes and work begin. I will be living out where worth should really be found. Is it too easy to say that worth is found in Jesus? (I'm sure that some would be content with this answer. And there might be beauty in that. There might also be danger in being content with that... i.e. fitting Jesus into a personal understanding/box.) Where does worth and Whitney come together? Where does worth and community collide? Or how about worth and family? It will certainly be an interesting couple of weeks.