One Year

Today marks one year of working for Denver Rescue Mission and Save Our Youth!  It's been quite the journey these past 365 days.  I remember the morning of day two, waking up and thinking one day down, only 364 days left.  At some point I stopped counting.  And then at some point, I started counting how many weeks left - knowing I had a year contract and not knowing what was going to happen at the end of the year with me or with the youth mentoring.

I want to thank the MANY people who have prayed, encouraged, supported, cared for, laughed, cried, listened, shared wisdom, walked beside me as I grew, were patient even when I didn't deserve it, forgave, loved, ... and probably many other things I can't even think of!  To those select people (you know who you are) that helped me and let me cry on the phone with them in the first three months - a very special thank you!

Here is my top ten list of highlights of my job:

10.  Being back in professional ministry
9.  Falling in love with my job, and finding myself wanting to (rightly) fight for the mentors, mentees, and the job position itself (even in the messy times).
8.  Learning all about boundaries - a MUST when you work AND live in the same place...though I still have a lot to learn!
7.  Learning to become my own advocate
6.  Watching the youth mentoring explode
5.  Being blessed with incredible mentors who love our at-risk (and sometimes difficult to love) kiddos!
4.  Being asked over and over and over - "Miss Sarah when am I going to get my mentor?"  All because these kids are EXCITED to have a mentor and WANT a positive influence in their life! And then I get to match them - all because God provided the exact mentor for them!!
3.  Having supervisors who are proactive at caring for you in preventing burnout
2.  Learning to live simply - required when you are living on an intern income and still have bills to pay!
1.  Meeting great people, especially my boyfriend (who also works for DRM)!! :)


It's not been the easiest, walk in the park, piece of cake year!  It has been a year of extreme growth in many ways!  I'm so thankful the Lord has brought me to Denver!  It was a huge step of faith, but one I'm glad I took!

I celebrated today with my Save Our Youth family by sharing donuts - thanking God for the wonderful blessing of my job, and the many blessings of lessons, friendships, and deeper faith in this one year!

Struggle: Control

The last post on the struggles - that I originally started in May.  Thanks for being patient in my getting these posted!


Again, keep in mind - this is from May...


Hi!  My name is Sarah and I am a control freak!  :)  Yes, I like to be in control of things!  I really like to be in control of my life!  Oh how this is coming out so much right now!  Since October, I have been working at a job that was to only be for a year.  When I came into the job, the previous year had been slow for the ministry.  However, God has brought about lots of blessings and the ministry has grown!  In fact, it has grown so much that the "higher ups" are recognizing something needs to be done, that some changes are required.  Well, these changes not only affect the ministry but also my job - which means me!  We originally had discussions in March.  They asked me some direct questions, I shared my heart.  In the end, it was decided a meeting would need to be held between the "high higher ups" of both organizations I work for.  Awesome!  Sounds good to me!  Two months later...um...how about those meetings???  I wait.  And wait.  Seems to be God thinks I need to learn yet another lesson in patience.  Seriously?  Ugh. 


But I just want these people to meet and to decide...


I think it's fair to feel this way.  After all, it is my future here...and to know whether I need to start the process of job searching soon or not.  With the job market the way it is, not to mention looking for a ministry position, I need time to find a new job before I'm without a job...and income to pay my basic bills.  Oh yes, and since I live where I work...I would be without a place to live.  


I struggle with wanting to control things, of wanting to have a meeting with everyone.  I also struggle with these "high higher ups" making a decision about the ministry and it affecting me, without them even having the chance to know me or to hear the stories of changed lives through the ministry. You can look at all the numbers you want on a spreadsheet (Which if you do, you will see the numbers have doubled.), but without hearing the heart behind everything - can you make the right decision?  


I want to schedule the meeting...with me there to share my heart!


And then I have to realize - who really is in control of all this?  Is it me?  No.  I'm fully aware that God has blessed this ministry, so I need to be fully aware that God is in control of the decisions on the future of the ministry and my job situation!  


I need to trust Him...fully...period.

Struggle: Let Down

**It's been a LONG time since I wrote.  I started the promised posts...and never got them on here!  I want to be a woman of my word, so here is one of the posts I promised on the struggles I was going through as I last blogged about in May.)**


We all experience it - the let down of other people in our life.  It's particularly hard when it's people we are close to, or we look up to.  For me, one of the hardest areas is people in positions of leadership in ministry.  Maybe I put these people on a pedestal.  Or maybe it's because God's standards for leaders is higher than those not in leadership, and I wonder did they not take these seriously?  Perhaps it's because I'm just grieved at this person's sins and flat out decisions.  Whatever the reason, I know it's very hard for me to watch several people and ministry be affected because a person didn't want to fully follow and honor the Lord with all their heart.


In the last few weeks (keep in mind - the month of May), I have had to cope with the let down of a friend who is also in a leadership position in ministry.  The decisions she made have affected her ministry, and so many people including me.  I find myself questioning aspects of our friendship including just the foundation of our friendship, what I could have done to better reach out to her, and what caused all this to happen that she wasn't wiling to turn the other way?  I realize she alone is accountable for her actions, and I can't blame myself.  However, it's hard to watch so many people being shaken by the situation.  It's hard to watch the whole ministry God had blessed her with take such a great big hit.  It's hard to watch her be happy, when there are so many of us in pain and grieving the losses.


For me, it has brought out areas of needing to be healed with my most recent let down of church leadership.  Wow.  I can't even explain that one still.  I do know that my struggle with church I wrote about in my last blog has a lot to do with this situation.  I want to corporately worship the Lord, yet do I trust church leadership?  How do I know if I can?  I wanted to keep myself at a distance from them as well, because being close to them before brought an intense level of pain.  I'm thankful for the sweet times with the Lord in the midst of the pain, and for the ways He has drawn me close to Him and healed me. Yet, I find myself realizing now, that perhaps there are ways I'm still impacted and areas that still need healed.


Of course, this whole topic isn't completely new to me.  Three months after graduating from seminary, I started my first full-time ministry position.  Praise the Lord for this!  I loved the ministry opportunities the Lord provided!  Over time, some changes were made.  In those changes, brought specific events. While the Lord was doing (and continues to do today) great things through the church, there was a situation going on that few knew about.  I was in a new town, with the only people I knew all connected to the church.  I wasn't going to let people know what was happening because I didn't want to bad mouth the person or the church.  However, a friend of mine who lived in another state finally got me to open up...after I had ended up internalizing everything and ending up with several doctors diagnosing my new medical issues as the cause of stress.  Within a few weeks, the Lord was leading me to let go of what I wanted to hold onto so badly and resign.  Recognizing it wasn't a healthy situation for me, I had to.  I spent the next few months intentionally allowing the Lord to heal me.  This wasn't an area I had learned about in seminary, not even in my counseling classes.  I wasn't prepared for this let down.  When people asked why I resigned, I always stated the surface level reason.  I never fully explained...only to a handful of people over the years have I told.


It would be really easy to become bitter towards church, towards God, towards these people, and even towards people in leadership roles in ministry.  However, I don't want to walk down that ugly road.  I know that God has reasons for why all this has happened. I know God still desires to be glorified in the midst.  I realize and WANT to allow this hurt in my life to be turned around and used for good, perhaps to minister and encourage those who have and are experiencing the same situation.  For me, these are the people who can easily hurt me the most, but I think so much of that has to do with my heart's passion for ministry.  


It also leaves me with these big questions - What am I doing today that is hurting those around me?  As a person in ministry, how am I hurting those whom God has me directly ministering to?  Are there things I'm doing that hurt or let down even those whom I don't directly minister to?  


I'm no better than the people in my life I've been hurt by, because I myself can easily hurt others around me, even without realizing it.  It's a great reminder to examine my own life, and to make changes in myself so I can better serve the Lord and others.  It's also a great picture of the need we have for forgiveness.

Struggle: Church

It's been a LONG time since I wrote.  I started the promised posts...and never got them on here!  I want to be a woman of my word, so here is one of the posts I promised on the struggles I was going through as I last blogged about in May.)


Written in May:
My biggest struggle right now is church.  It's hard to even write that sentence or admit it to anyone, even myself.  In my attempt to figure out why I have this struggle, this is what I have found:

1.)  For the first time in 31 years, I don't know the pastors at my church.  In fact, I don't know anyone on staff at the church.

2.)  I am not plugged in at my church, aside from a small group.  If it wasn't for my small group, I would feel even more lost and disconnected from the church.

3.)  I have a passion for ministry and gifts, and they aren't being used at church.  I have tried for months to get connected...with no result back from the church.

4.)  Other than three family members I go to church with, I don't know anyone. (Most of my small group goes to the evening service.)

5.)  I found that due to my small intern stipend combined with increased gas prices, I was running out of gas money in my budget to even get to church.  This got complicated when my car was broken and not drivable.  When I looked up public transportation to get to church, I would need to leave on Saturday afternoon, arriving late Saturday afternoon and have to camp out on the church property, just so I could get to a Sunday morning service.  Even to get to my cousin's house so I could ride with them, brought complications with public transportation.  This also meant that in order to get more involved at church would mean driving more, which meant more gas money needed in the budget, which I didn't have.

6.)  Reflecting back, I realize when I first moved, that I allowed myself to make decisions based on the fact I would only be here for a year.  My job is only for a year, and who knows after that time, where I will be living and working.

7.)  I love the Lord, I want to worship the Lord corporately, I want to grow in my faith, I desire to serve the Lord and others in the context of the church.

All of this left me going before the Lord in prayer, seeking Him in the midst of this struggle and wondering...where is God leading me on the path in this journey?

Realness

Lets face it – we all want to be understood, for people to get us, to not be put in a box, to not be judged, etc.  If we want this, it seems a simple solution would be to give people the chance to know us.  However, this means taking a risk and being real.  It means be authentic with those around us, willing to take off the “mask.”

What does it mean to be real?  Perhaps it means I embrace exactly how God created me and embrace what is going on in my life – both good and bad, that I don’t hide.  I think it also means being completely real with those close “core” friends and family, but also my being real with those God has put around me.  In other words, if someone asks how I’m doing and it’s not been a great day – I tell them it’s not been a great day rather than tell them I’m good.  It means sharing what God is doing in my life, even if I’m in the midst of a stormy time.

About a year ago, this topic was heavy on my heart and mind.  There had been a situation with close friends where I questioned – were people real with each other?  I didn’t know if they were and didn’t know if they hadn’t been.  I just knew these friends were hurting and had been and yet questioned where had I missed the signs they had been struggling.  I dealt with feelings of guilt, thinking I hadn’t been a good friend because I’d missed all the warning signs of people not doing well.  It was a deep rooted question I was struggling with as an outcome of the situation. 

I feel one of the best places we hide is at church and within the church body.  I’ve done it.  I question if we as a church were real with one another, would situations like we encountered last year have happened?  Why do we feel we have to “have it all together” when we enter the doors of the church building for any reason?  After all, God knows we don’t have it all together.  Oh, and just for the record – every one of us is a sinner.  I still can’t help but have the “what if” we as a church felt the Body of Christ was a safe place to be real in…would things have been different?  What does the church body do if we don’t say life is going awesome and we are struggling with something?  Why is there this “we have to be perfect” mentality within the body of believers?  Do we really get that we aren’t perfect – ONLY God is! 

In the past few days, I’ve been struggling with feelings of being betrayed and lied to…by someone I was friends with for the past several months.  She is a sister in Christ, we’ve served the Lord together, we’ve cried and celebrated together.  But then…I find out a big secret of life.  In that secret comes the feelings of being betrayed and lied to, and now our friendship and even the community around us are broken.  My heart is broken, my heart grieves in so many ways.  I find myself again wondering – what if this friend had been real?  Would that have changed the situation, no.  However, it would have not had the shattered effect on the friendship or community that it seems to have now.  While God can heal and restore, I do believe it could’ve been prevented…in many ways.

I find myself again facing the question – what does it mean to be real?  How does that look?  I can’t change the church, I can’t change the world, but I can change myself.  I can model how the Lord wants me to be real with those around me. 

About a week and a half ago, I was real with a group of close friends.  After that time, some of these friends shared words of encouragement but also words of realness in their own life.  A bond that I felt was missing something was found again being tightened.  The distance I felt, had been removed by this mutual sharing and bonding and creating a deeper friendship.  It’s a risk, but one I’m glad I took!

Learning to be real in the good times of life is easy.  It’s being real in the tough times of life that is a lesson for me, and a journey I’m on.  Tonight my boyfriend and I were planning to have dinner with two close friends of mine and people who I’m blessed God has put into my life.  Having had a rough week (or almost two weeks now), a part of me wanted to cancel our dinner.  I wanted to hide – from all three people.  I wanted to just be alone.  However, I knew I needed to go and be honest, even if it meant crying (or even sobbing) with the fact I’m not in a good spot.  It was refreshing to share, to cry, to be honest, to be asked questions, to hear perspectives other than my own, to be accepted despite not having it all together, to be loved unconditionally, to be able to crash and yet have friends who were my crash pads, and in the midst of our conversation they continaully point me to the Lord. 

It’s a journey – of being real despite the struggles.  And so, I’m devoting the next few blogs to sharing those struggles.  My heart’s desire and prayer is that even one person will be encouraged to know they are not alone (or weird, or wrong), and that God will be able to use my story to minister to others in ways I couldn’t do but through this blog.

Mother's Day Surprise!

On Mother's Day, I got quite the nice surprise from my church (www.redrockschurch.com)!  I wanted to share a picture of the special gift and share a little why it meant SO MUCH!

The children's ministry gave all their volunteers a rose for mother's day - whether they are mothers or want to some day be mothers.  The Children's Ministry Director even told us single ladies - "Happy Future Mother's Day!"  

I've been struggling with "church."  There's a lot behind that one sentence, but I'll just mention as it relates to this blog, I've been struggling with feeling connected or belonging to my church.  This has led me to questioning if I should stay or look for a new church.  There are may reasons why I feel this way.  

However, on this particular Sunday it seemed God had the answer to my many prayers.  Earlier in the week, my church had sent the weekly email, including announcements.  One announcement was asking for volunteers to give moms a day off of serving in the Preschool Room.  So, I decided I'd volunteer.  After all, I really miss spending time with little kids (I work with kids ages 3-18), and had free time that day since I wouldn't be with my mom celebrating (other than a phone call).  I *SUPER* enjoyed the day in the 1 year old room!!!  Sure, every kid cried at some point in the morning.  There were runny noses, and a dirty diaper.  I had a kid who cried every two minutes and didn't want to leave my side.  I would get him calmed down and playing, then two minutes later would realize where he was and start crying...and so our process of calming down and playing would start over...and continue until his dad came to get the poor kid.  Such is the life of a 1 year old!  I loved every minute of it!  It was great to actually serve in my church somehow!   

A special extra bonus was a church who celebrates Mothers Day by even making hopeful future mothers feel special too!  I've never experienced this in my life.  In recent years, Mother's Day has been a really hard day for me.  This year was a first, a day of complete happiness and contentment.  It was a day of celebrating! 

To the mom whose place I took in the one year old room:  THANK YOU!  You may think you were blessed by having the day off, but I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to be blessed by serving at Red Rocks and with these cute kiddos!  

Miracles

How often do I miss opportunities God wants to BLESS my socks off, all because I don't prayerfully ask the Lord?

Leaving a job that had good health insurance (benefits of working at a hospital) for an internship that has no health insurance, nor an income that would allow money in the budget to go to the doctor was a struggle of mine.  Over the past seven years, I racked up quite a large amount of medical bills.  As I struggled with this factor before even applying for the job (and even after), I knew the Lord was asking me to TRUST HIM.  It would require A STEP OF FAITH, and to watch GOD PROVIDE in ways I wouldn't even imagine.  I felt more like it was a LEAP of faith.  It's kind of like jumping off a cliff.  It involved risk. It involved me not having control, or knowing what the plan would be "just in case."

After being sick the past two and a half weeks, I realized how sick I really was.  While my voice was back somewhat (I lost it completely for two days), I could tell I wasn't getting any better.  I also was only sleeping about 3 hours a night because I was up coughing so much.  I knew something needed to be done.  BUT WHAT WAS I TO DO??  I had no idea where to find a doctor whom wouldn't mind I don't have health insurance, much less where to even start finding a doctor in the big city.  Of course, HOW was I going to pay for the doctor when my intern stipend is barely able to cover my fixed expenses?  I PRAYED AND PRAYED HARD and prayed for the Lord's help to not worry about the finances.  The Lord brought two people to me - one offering help financially and info on their doctor office and the other offering a doctor office who works on a sliding scale with people without health insurance.  I was ready to call both places...until...I sensed I needed to call my doctor office in my old town and see if there was anything they could do for me.  I didn't want to take advantage of anything, but knew I needed help and I needed to ask for help.  This is HARD for me to do!  I called the next morning and talked with the nurse.  After talking to the doctor, she called me to say while they suggest I find a doctor in the area for the future, they would call in a prescription for a ZPack!  PRAISE THE LORD!  I was so excited that I wouldn't have to pay to go to the doctor office, that was a huge financial help!  MIRACLE #1!!!

Of course, now I would have to pay for the prescription.  I reminded myself that at least I didn't have to pay for the doctor, so I could breathe a little!  I still struggled though.  I sensed the Lord telling me, "PRAY FOR A MIRACLE at the Target pharmacy."  My response?  I questioned - "Seriously, a miracle at the pharmacy?  It's not like Target runs prescription specials in their weekly ad."  "Pray for a miracle at the Target pharmacy."  However, I had no reason not to, so I did, while also wondering what kind of miracle would occur.  I prayed all afternoon!  I even posted on facebook that I was praying for a miracle at the Target Pharmacy!  I got to Target to pick up the prescription and was asked if I had health insurance.  I told him no and braced myself for what was to come, thinking it would be a high total of around $80 (I have a vague memory of paying that much for a ZPack before.).  The pharmacist told me to hold on a minute, he would put me in a financial program that would help save me at least a few pennies in my pocket.  Our conversation turned to an opportunity to share about my internship.  He came back to the counter with the new printout, and proceeded to tell me "It was $29.49 but after putting you in that program, the cost is now $14.30!  Um....wh-what???  I was so shocked!  After paying and turning around to leave, I had tears wanting to form in my eyes.  I can't tell you the LOVE OF THE LORD I felt in that moment...words still aren't found to describe what it was like.  I wanted to sit and cry in amazement, and just soak in the moment.  I also wanted to cry, knowing that in my hands I held a hope that I would soon be feeling better.  It's been a long road of feeling sick, having absolutely no energy, and yet trying my best to continue working and meeting all the needs with of job and even working over 40 hours each of the past two weeks.  I chose not to cry, though.  Besides having a work appointment I needed to get to and keep my composure for, I honestly also didn't have an ounce of energy to spend on crying.  I was just in complete shock that the final cost was something that somehow, in some way would be more manageable financially!  I was in shock, at the Lord's great work right there at the Target Pharmacy!  MIRACLE #2!!!

Do I realize how GREAT God really is?