humility

lately i have been learning some hard lessons.

and clearly, one of the hardest things i've been working through is the challenge of maintaining discretion and of making certain that information that gets passed on is as true as possible.

because i'm becomming well aware of the fact that words are dangerous. very dangerous.

because two people can hear the same words, the same exact words, but hear two very different things.

i have always known this, but i've been humbled lately when i've been corrected. and reminded that what people hear and how they hear it are affected by their current mood or situation.

and being taught more about what discretion and confidentiality is. cause obviously i had different ideas about what can be talked about. i guess anything that relates to me is no longer fair game for me to talk about...although it is about me...

so i'm going to try to be careful to make sure that no one will misunderstand me. cause it gets irritating when people aren't able to understand. or even in extreme cases, aren't willing to understand.

but that is only one lesson of humility.

tonight i just spent a few hours working through an evaluation. which was not easy. cause they maintained their stances. at least they only got defensive once. which i knew would happen. and it happened exactly when i thought it would.

i discovered tonight that none of them would call me to be their pastor at this point in my learning. which is fine with me since i would probably never accept a call to be their pastor. because i am most definitely not meant to be their pastor.

but it still sucks to know that people have managed to separate what they defined as my personal strengths (as in, strengths of who i am as a person) from my strengths in ministry. which in my mind should be the same thing.

because i think that God calls each person to ministry and permits them to be creative in figuring out how to use our personal strengths to serve the people of God.

i'm proud that i managed to keep my temper. cause i was afraid that i would blow up at them. but i tried to stay as non-anxious as possible. and i did. i was oddly very calm. which is good cause i prayed a lot for strength to get through the evening. and i don't think i would have survived had i broken out in tears.