Risk, Responsibility and Relationships

It's been too long since I last posted in here. Since then I've begun my job with Family Innovations, providing mental health skills work to kids, focusing on behavioral changes all while trying to be Jesus to the least of these. I love it...most days...there is the occasional case note, billing, and treatment plan I grind my way through. What grace and eloquence I have as I smoothly submit each one. Not. I'm in grad school to be a therapist, I know a lot. Not. It's a humbling experience every single day on this job to go into a person's home and start working with their child to better communicate their feelings, understand how to deal with bullies, focus on picking up their toys better, and listening to their parents more. I get paid to push, to not necessarily be their friend. It's hard for me, I don't like pushing people, some days I don't want to say the hard things that need to be said in order to see growth. Sometimes I need to say it to the parent, sometimes the child. And how I do that layered in grace and peace and full acceptance, all while knowing that I don't want to force them to change? Beats me, only God is the one capable of fully making a heart change. But what I do love is the connection, the people I get to be with and the impact I'll hopefully have in the short time I'm there. My supervisor tells me that we never touch someone so lightly that we never leave a fingerprint.

And if we stick our finger into the ocean the ocean level will rise even when we don't see it.

It's a responsibility I love - to use my heart and mind to connect with someone on a deep and vulnerable level. To ask someone to follow me into the places they don't want to go just to see their lives transformed. To find healing and joy. I risk making enemies...and I have in this job. I risk mistakes - remember how a few years ago I was absolutely TERRIFIED of making mistakes? And I risk my reputation every day on the job, and my supervisor's since I operate under her license.

I've also pursued building relationships - romantic and friendship. It's scary for me after having a close friend turn her back on you just because you two couldn't agree and couldn't let go of believing things about the other person that were not true. It's scary to let someone get that close when there's a history of hurt, where real rejection has taken place...it's scary when there's been real traumatic experiences to allow yourself to feel the joy, to be at peace and to let it progress forward naturally. The glaring neon sign blazes in front of me saying "You're not good enough". I'm not attractive enough, I'm not beautiful enough, I'm not feminine enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not introverted enough, I'm not skinny enough, I'm not sold out to God enough, etc. Do I dare look in the mirror? Do I dare believe that I'm beautiful or am I just trying to fake it until I believe it? The shame comes quickly and intensely, and it's hard to fight it off sometimes. But God's love is greater than any battle I face. So I risk believing that someone could see ALL of me as beautiful. I risk believing that someone would choose to be faithful and committed to me for the rest of their life. I risk believing that I could have close relationships with a husband and friends. I risk it because God says "believe in My goodness."

Nothing in life is perfect, and if only we could believe, like really believe, what God says about us we really wouldn't be risking anything in this world. We learn to hold things in our hands lightly and gently so that we can always remember to turn them over to God. We learn to ask God's help in all matters in our life because we know without Him we wouldn't even be in existence. We learn to worship and praise Him in all things, no matter what the outcome and no matter what is up ahead for us. We risk surrender. We risk believing what He says. Because we risk giving up all of ourselves for all that He is.