Feeling a Little Defeated

Last night was our first night back at the Merge (Jr. High Ministry) with our new 6th graders. All the other girls that I got to know and love have moved up to 7th grade and I got to meet the new group. What an experience that was! First of all, we had about 15-17 girls and that itself was crazy! We are going to split up next time into 2 groups, so I think that will help. Secondly, I just wasn't feeling it last night for some reason. Out of all these girls, I only knew one...Miss Emily Bickford, who is awesome! I allowed that to intimidate me and I felt pretty awkward at times during small group. Also, I think I focused way too much on the study itself and not enough on the girls and the topic last night, which was small groups. It just didn't go in the direction I wanted it too. I had my little outline and all my mental notes, but for some reason, it just went astray. At one point last night when I was calling on the girls, every story was about someone in their classroom being really short and how sorry they felt for them....don't ask me how we got on that. But once one girl talked about it, they all needed to share a short person story! I tried relating each story back to our topic or telling them something wise, but most of the time I ended up just looking at them and thinking "why are you talking about short people?" Very awkward!

Anyway, I came home last night feeling very defeated and was allowing way too much negativity to seep in. When I went to bed, it just kept replaying in my mind over and over again like a tape recorder and I couldn't shut it off. So I started praying for God to take it from me and allow me to focus on the positive. Eventually that tape recorder went off and I was able to sleep. This morning I felt much better about it and after talking to Scott about it, he gave me some really good suggestions, which I will hopefully put to good use next time. I'm just so out of my comfort zone with being a "leader" and trying to "teach" these girls something. A huge part of me questions my ability, but I need to let that go and focus on just developing a relationship with these new girls and relaying our study in an open and honest way that they will get. No more opening my study on Tuesday night for Wednesday Merge. I think they deserve more than that.

I know, I know....I made this all about me once again. But ultimately my focus is these girls and relating to them and also learning from them. Then by the grace of God we will all gain something from this!

Until next time....