getting back in the groove of ministry- eating well.

The thing about ministry is that it is easy to "do." It's easy to email, plan, hold meetings, and communicate with people. It is easy to schedule things and to create spreadsheets with contact information and updates and diagrams of how I want small groups to pan out. All these things have been very challenging for me in the last week or two. These are things that I do all the time for my job, and I am quite good at them. I get paid to communicate with students and parents in whatever form works best for them. So, I am suprisied that I am finding it so challenging to do the exact same things with youth ministry. I am having a hard time picking up the phone to call volunteers, to chat with people at church, and to send emails. This is confusing, as these are things that I would LOVE to do on any given day without "being in ministry." There is something about a position and list of responsibilities that makes this harder for me. But that does not really make any sense. I am not different, so why do these tasks feel different to me? Is it that so much more of me is on the line? Is is that I am risking so much more?

I am really not sure why it has been so difficult for me the past few weeks. So today I gave myself the space to "do" nothing - to pray. I am leaning into the awkwardness and bringing that before God and just sitting there. Just being with the God who knows, and who is Center. And that breathing in of Aslan's breath is enough. It is food: vegetables, meat and potatoes for the soul. I don't know that it will make it easier to talk to anyone at church tomorrow, I don't know that it will mean that the meeting tomorrow evening will be any different. But I do know that I need a good meal.

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
        Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
        From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
        If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
        Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
        I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
        "Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
        Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
        "My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
        So I did sit and eat.

 -George Herbert