Four Minutes

I was over at Grits and Glory, browsing around, and read about Alece's "Four Minute Fridays," where she begins with "Go" and ends with "Done" and in between, writes for four minutes about whatever is on her mind. Although I feel a little big guilty about borrowing the four minute idea for this post, and although it isn't Friday, I'm just going to plow right ahead into this entry anyway. With all that's on my mind, I think it will be a helpful processing tool. So, here we...

Go.

I just finished one of the two longest weeks of the school year, Sadie's. Our Student Council puts on several events, a show-like a assembly, and a big dance with mondo decorations. As the StuCo sponsor, I spend every free minute of the week working on Sadie's stuff and was there until late late late three nights in a row (plus the whole day Saturday). I don't love all the pieces of StuCo, but I do love the leadership and the kids and the way we try to provide for the school. But I'm struggling with feeling like it's a lot of work for little appreciation, even from our kids. Today we did an activity where kids could secretly "vent" by putting their complaints on a piece of paper, which someone else read aloud. There were a few pointed at my co-sponsor and I, and although I'm trying to practice what I told the kids to do (which is to listen for the grain of truth, to try to understand why that would be someone's perception, to be honest with yourself and change what you need to change), I'm still struggling a little with the always-being-criticized feeling.

Besides that, I'm working on not being worried about money and the future. Here's a secret: Husband and I would like to start thinking about kids. I'm not saying we want to have them right now, but we're talking about and thinking about it. But the whole how the heck will afford them thing is a little scary, especially considering that we'll both have to work and I know that day care is really really really expensive and we won't be able to afford it. So I'm working on trusting God and trying to think and brainstorm and plan.

In my last minute of writing, let me just make one other comment. I'm trying to figure out whether I'm putting my identity in others or in Christ. I often feel lonely and like I don't have a place to belong (except in my classroom and with my family), but then I wonder whether or not the way I feel has any valid reason or if I'm just looking for something in the wrong place. Probably a little bit of both.

Done.

Well, I think I would need more than four minutes, but I do feel like I started to think more about what I need to think about. I'll need to write in my real journal, I think, to continue this processing journey, but at least I've begun.

Unwrapping the gift of processing and the bizarre comfort I find in blogging about it.

P.S. I've decided to try to read a Psalm each morning, which will take me about 150 mornings, and blog a quick thought about it. You can read my first thoughts here.