Molded

10 Things I’ve Learned Since Becoming a Children’s Director – Number 7

Hobbies are Essential!

Pastor Bryan and Jennifer both told me when I started “You need a hobby!”  I didn’t get it right away, but it was certainly one of the first lessons I learned.  As a teacher, I worked long hours.  I brought stuff home all the time.  I dreamed about kids, about teachers, about parents, about kids, about kids, about…kids all the time.  It was consuming, but church was my escape.  It was my hobby.  I sang on the worship team and when I was there, I was ALL there.  My mind was not on school, it was on worship!  Ministry was my passion and so when I was there, I was able to leave work (at least most of the time)!

When my work became my passion I began to realize there was no where I had that allowed me to turn it off.  I lived it, breathed it, slept it, dreamed it, talked about it and loved it.  But I had nothing that took my mind off of it.  It was my passion so turning it off seemed impossible but I quickly realized the absolute necessity of figuring out a way to turn it off.  Without an escape, a way to turn it off, burn out would be inevitable. 

I still haven’t found that perfect hobby but I have certainly found a few things that work for now.  I am looking for the perfect hobby, but for all you Dream Weavers out there knitting is not it!

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10 Things I’ve learned as Children’s Director – Number 10

THE CALL!

Shortly after starting my dream job as children’s director I had the amazing opportunity to attend ONE a conversation with senior, youth and children’s leaders at NewSpring Church.  During one of the sessions Perry Noble was speaking  I heard him say something to the affect of  ”you always have to go back to when you were called”.

I truly had no idea what he meant at the time. In my mind there was nothing that could ever make me doubt the call.  It made no sense to me.  I was two months into it and even though I had already experienced some hard times, I was still living a dream!

It wasn’t until one day when I was home with a sick child, feeling the weight of the world, crying out to God “I don’t know how to do this!  Are you sure I did the right thing?  Are you sure I’m the one to do this?”  that I understood.  In that moment, as if he were standing in the room with me,  I heard Perry Noble’s saying “You have to go back to where you were called!”

As tears streamed down my face, I ran upstairs, pulled out the journal I had written in the night God began to speak to me about this call.  I read it over, and over,  and over again.  It didn’t make the struggle I was facing go away.  It didn’t even completely change my perspective.  I still didn’t have any idea how to do this task He had set before me, but it did reassure me to know this wasn’t my plan, it was God’s. 

See, the reality is, if I had taken this job just because I thought it was the right thing to do, that wouldn’t have been enough.  When the rubber met the road there had to be more holding it on course than  “I thought it was a good idea”!  I make mistakes.  I make them a lot, actually!  If all that had been holding this together was what I thought, in that moment, my thought would have been “I made a terrible mistake!”  What kept me going, what will continue to keep my going, what determines what I do – should always be The Call of God!  Today I understand and I’m grateful that I have that place – the place I know God called me!

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