A few hours ago I was mad...pissed. The stress of preparing for the winter retreat was getting to me. Things just kept getting added to the already full list of things I needed to get done. I'd spent an hour at the doctor's office only for them to tell me that they didn't have my shots and I was going to have to come back...second time that had happened. I was ready for this week to be done. I was ready to not have the responsibility of youth to worry about or deal with.
It was 10:00 in the morning and I had pretty much had all the life I could take for the day.
So I left in a bad mood. Dropped my papers off at the front desk, and headed out the door...and then someone knocked on the window. The next thing I knew I was standing in the breezeway having a conversation with one of my old students...a kid who I'd known really well. Who had basically lived at my house on numerous occasions. Who had pretty much been a 2nd younger brother of mine. He'd had a rough go, and he was really beginning to show it. He didn't look good at all. I stood outside with him as he told me about life and how he was being sent away to Montgomery for six months.
What do you say to something like that? He was pretty gracious with my awkwardness...and then he asked me about youth and about everybody at IC. When I told him I was still there he looked at me with this expression that I'm still trying to place. His eyes were so big and so broken, but I swear there was hope in them too... He looked at me and he told me to give them his love and to tell them that he would see them next year and he would be fixed.
It broke my heart. And as we hugged goodbye and I walked away, I felt all of my resolve melting away and it was taking my anger with it. I hadn't been that affected by anything in a long time, and as I drove away I cried. I cried for him. I cried for apathy. I just cried.
I hear God all the time. He hardly ever answers my questions, but he's always talking. And honestly, most of the time I ignore him. I choose to live life slightly detached so that I can get the things done that I need to get done... Sometimes I think I'm afraid to listen, because what I hear scares me. There's a part of me that just wants normalcy...and then there's the other part of me that suffocates within it.
I'm rambling now.
But I just wanted to say that I found God today outside the doctor's office, headed to Montgomery...and he knocked me down a few notches.
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