On Learning

Today is a Slump Day.  I woke up way late, frantically manuevered getting myself and Dutch ready (Jeff leaves at 6:45am to get stuff ready at church), hurrying him along nursing, and finally making to church, pulling him out of the car to discover he was loaded with a poopy diaper.  Church annoyed me.  I know that’s really bad to say, but there are times when overly happy-happy-joy-joy people can just bug the heck out of you when you’re down in the dumps, especially when you’re really trying to seek God and be obedient and the nice neat “obey=happy” equation doesn’t seem to be panning out so well.  At any rate, we survived, and I arrive back at home, had my first cheesy bean burrito of the day, and tried half-heartedly to clean the kitchen while Dutch played with cars.

By the time Jeff got home around 1:15 I’d stuffed depressing thoughts and feelings–about how something in our life has got to change or I am going to collapse–all morning and thought I was fine then to my horror as we sat down to talk about our mornings, I burst into uncontrollable tears. What a wreck.  He did all the right things–held me, assured me my feelings were legitimate, then left me to my pounding headache and tired eyes, resting on the couch.  At 2:30 I decided something must change when my mom, Mrs. Compassion and Tender Mercy herself, said, “So why are you in a bad mood?”  I am proud to say I didn’t fall on the floor and start crying, but I realized that perhaps my down-sad-depressed-sourness is more frequent then I care to admit.

So, when I get to this point, I usually start racking my brain for a way to pull out of it. Obviously I pray, and I read through Philippians, but for me I need something concrete to get myself back on track.  Usually I turn to a book.  I sat on the couch upstairs and stared at the bookshelf, waiting for some magic title to light up that read, “How to be happy” or something like that.  What I did notice was a book that I’ve always meant to read but never happened to pull it off the shelf.  A simple book called “Teaching to Change Lives” by Howard Hendricks.  I wasn’t much in the mood to think about teaching, I just wanted to not feel so sad, but I’d just finished the last of the 10 novels I recently borrowed from the library (morning sickness gives me an excuse to read fiction), and so hey, what the heck. I opened it up.

Now obviously, it is no secret, my goal is to change lives. If you haven’t figured it out yet, that is why this blog is here.  I don’t just love to see my name on the computer screen, and though it’s therapeutic for me to write, the bigger picture is that my lifelong goal is to use writing to change lives.  That’s why I write. So, ok I thought, this might be good.

Chapter 1:  “The effective teacher always teaches from the overflow of a full life. The Law of the Teacher, simply stated, is this: If you stop growing today, you stop teaching tomorrow.  Neither personality nor methodology can subsitute for this principle. You cannot communicate out of a vacuum. You cannot impart what you do not possess. If you don’t know it–truly know it–you can’t give it.  This law embraces the philosophy that I, as a teacher, am primarily a learner; a student among students…I must keep growing and changing.”

I think I kind of subconsciously knew this, but to hear it articulated so clearly made everything come into focus.  This process I am in, the painful growing process, is necessary if I want to truly communicate any truth about life and faith and growth and pain.  The reason I love love love seminary so much is that I grow!  I change and stretch and hurt and it forces me to learn which enables me to share and teach and impart.  But it goes far beyond seminary, because some of the greatest lessons are those I learn in the times like this morning, when I crumble into Jeff’s arms because I want to move out so bad it twists my guts all in knots.

So I will continue to grow.  I will grow because I want to teach.  I will grow and learn and be a student of life because I pray that somehow by the grace of God He will let me use whatever communication means possible to teach and change lives, in whatever sphere I am, whether private or public.  Oh that we will continue to learn and grow! God please help me to continue to stretch, even when it feels like I will snap in half it hurts so bad.  My bones ache with the growing pangs…but there is life happening, I can feel it.