Refocusing

It's been about a month now since I've been back in California. Yet again I see God's faithfulness and wonder why I ever bothered or bother to fear what is in store. Japan was such a blessing in how God provided for me that it was difficult to leave. While there I not only had a strong community, but I felt that God really just worked on me and my heart. I know that he is always transforming us, but it seemed as though he spent my time in Japan to just totally form my heart and mind. While I'm not entirely certain of why God took me to Japan, outside of where he seemed to be directing me prior to Japan, I believe that a big part of it was to take me so far away from what was normal and take me out of the business I had been experiencing to just hear from him and return more intentionally. I knew when I got back to the states I didn't want to just ease into my same comfortable life that I was living before, I wanted to come back totally focused on serving wherever God wanted me.

So here I am. Already I realize that no matter where we are it is easy to lose sight of what God has for us. I have to keep refocusing and checking myself...asking myself if I'm really seeking after God or if I'm just doing what seems to me like a good "godly" thing to do. It's funny though, because God isn't letting me get too far from having my focus on him. Every time I start to have a wrong mindset he does something to remind me.

When I was preparing for my return I began to apply for teaching positions. The life I pictured myself living involved investing in the community I'm living in and also teaching at a school that is underprivileged. Before I had gone to Japan I was told of a couple teaching opportunities and encouraged by administrators and personnel to apply for them. I didn't understand it at the time. Why would God put these opportunities before me when I was already headed for Japan. After sending out over 25 applications and only hearing back from a hand-full, all rejections, I began to understand. God is totally capable of giving me a full-time teaching position, but he has chosen not to. So I recognize that he has a different idea of what I'll be doing here and I have a lot of peace about substitute teaching this year and having the time and flexibility that comes with it, but last week God kind of checked in on me to see if I was really recognizing what he was doing.

I had a phone call last Tuesday from a principal in a district where I had put in an application for a high school position. She said they had a middle school opening (my age preference) and wanted to know if I was interested in interviewing. I told her yes, of course. I was immediately excited about this possibility. It was the district where I had done student teaching, not exactly underprivileged, but I was familiar with the curriculum, the school, and would be able to work on getting the next level of my teaching credential. However, I quickly realized what the job would actually mean. Quick preparation for the school year starting a week later, long days of work, 140 students, hours of prep-time and grading,etc. etc. I wouldn't have the time I'd recently been envisioning to become more a part of the community I live in. I started questioning if the job was really something I should consider. To make a long story short, after a lot of prayer, a number of conversations with different people and a roller coaster of emotions I came to realize that even if I was offered the job, I'd have to turn it down. I began to pray for rejection...haha. I'm thankful that school started today and I never heard back after the interview. You must understand how ridiculous this is. Right now, no teacher in their right mind would turn down a teaching position. Coming to that decision was a process and I think that's why the whole thing happened the way it did. Now I get to go into this year intentionally. I'm not subbing because I'm waiting for a full-time position and it's just an in between, I'm subbing because it's what I should be doing right now, because it is giving me a blessing of time. I don't quite know how to explain all of it, but I'm thankful for the way God has allowed me to process through what I'm doing.

The Godly Woman

I have also been realizing lately that there are aspects of my identity as a Christian woman that I didn't realize... That didn't make a lot of sense so let me explain. While I was in Japan there came a point where I had a bit of an identity crisis. I had never been around a lot of Christians that really blatantly believed that woman and men have very distinct roles in the church and life, at least not Christians that I respected. While I was in Japan, I encountered a few and it threw me for a loop. I grew up in liberal Portland, in a loving Christian family that just didn't hold those views. Eventually I came to the conclusion, for a second time, that I didn't need to have the women/men thing figured out, I just needed to seek Jesus and trust him in what he's asked me to be a part of and do. I need to simply find my identity in being a chosen one of God, in being his servant.

Well, since being back I have worked through some other ideas that I didn't even realize had crept into my life. In many ways God has brought me through a process of gaining confidence in just being his. I feel he has been setting me free to live more focused on him and more secure in him. I've had a couple experiences after getting back where I realized that somewhere along the way, growing up in Christian culture, that I am not always free to love and be loved by my brothers in the church. Through some interesting conversations and experiences I realized that I believe many in the church are bound by paranoia that creeps in as we are inadvertently taught to fear relationships as brothers and sisters in the church. Instead of some recognizing that on an individual level they need to be careful and give only the Christian side hug, it is taught that that is the only safe hug to give. We are taught to fear how spiritually intimate we get with someone and as a result we are hardly even free to pray for one another, bearing each others burdens. Friendships are therefore made difficult as pressures of marriage are silently placed upon them by the Christian society because of these ideas that first one cannot really be simply just friends, and two if you are good friends then why not just go for it and be a couple because all Christians ought to get married. I am probably taking this to a bit of an extreme but I'm just realizing that this is how I have experienced Christian culture. This does not apply to all Christians or all churches, but I would argue that the ideas are not uncommon, and I think that because of them, we really miss out on gaining from each other both insight and just a familial kind of loving support. And then there is the idea of the role of women that I didn't even realize I had been effected by until I heard comments that I realized I'd never heard before.

While in university I received a few messages. One was that I was just as capable as any other, male or female, and the second was that while I was just as capable, as a Christian woman, I probably wanted to get a good education, but really deep down I just want to get married and have children. Now the truth is, I have come to realize that indeed I do really want to get married, but I'm in no hurry and I genuinely believe that I'll be just fine if God has something else in mind for my life. I won't feel like any less of a person. But I do believe that it is totally possible that a Christian lady could choose to not get married or have kids. I don't think there is anything wrong with this. However, when a professor made the comment to me that I ought to continue on to a PhD and how working for a university is great and gives a lot of flexibility if I chose to have a family or if I chose to be single and travel, I was taken back. Other than from my Dad, I had never her a Christian man suggest that a woman might choose something other than marriage. This was an interesting realization, but an even more shocking realization I had was yesterday. I went to listen and support a friend that was speaking at a university's chapel. He's someone that I respect as a person that really desires to honor God and grow closer to God. He was speaking on identity and at one point he said that there was a story in the Bible that he really resonated with. He then shared the story of Mary and Martha and said that he resonated with Martha in this story as she was really a doer and Mary was more able to just be. Now the message itself was good, but what struck me was that as he compared himself to Martha I realized that in all my years of being a Christian that is the first time I have ever heard a man compare himself to a woman in the Bible. I certainly have heard women talk about how they resonate with a man in the Bible and I think nothing of this, I do it myself, I think the Bible is more meant to talk about the hearts of the people in it than anything else, but I have never heard a Christian man compare himself to the heart of a woman in the Bible or her character. I just found this awareness interesting. I'm not sure if it's necessarily a bad thing, I'm still processing through it. I do believe though, that in some respects, we have things a little distorted, but thankfully our God is a gracious God and he continues to grant us wisdom and insight to see him more clearly.