In less than 3 days I will be in a van full of teenagers on the road to Kentucky for our annual high school mission trip. While it is always my favorite activity of the year it is also my most tedious. My to-do list has looked like this the past week:
- Buy car snacks with Juniors
- Check in with chaperones
- Make van assignments
- Make group assignments
- Have other eyes look at assignments to see if I missed anything
- Confirm vans
- Confirm direction
- Find gluten-free food options near site
- EZ Passes, do we need them (and with the answer being yes)
- Find 5 EZ passes
Each to-do brings with it's own list of other to-dos that spawn from it and the web gets more and more tangled... along with my brain. I am an alarmist which means my preparations go far beyond what any reasonable human would prepare for. I have a first aid kit that could assist with the birth of a child and enough extra toothbrushes that an entire team could forget theirs and be covered.
Let's just say there are lots of rubber totes that join us on our journey.
And, with all of that preparation, this year began to feel more like a burden than a blessing. Something I never wanted my ministry to feel like. I'm not a minister because of my organizational talents or ability to color-code anything (although I find this comes in handy often), I am a minister because I believe in this whole crazy Jesus thing and I am called to share the ways that each of us are beloved, accepted, and affirmed in God's love.
As much as I know that to be my truth... I forget it... often.
I get stuck in the details of things. I get laser focused on what I can control so that I don't think about all the things I can't control:
- Will students have a meaningful interaction with the Living God on this trip?
- Will that one student who feels alone find a friend?
- Will my chaperones feel this was worth giving up a week of work and family for?
- Will someone get sick?
- Will we come back better than we left?
Sitting in the unknown and honoring it is much more humbling and difficult than dealing with all the little things we can control. When we allow ourselves time and space to feel all the things we need to feel and pray all the things we need to pray we quickly recognize our own powerlessness and vulnerability. Those two things: powerlessness and vulnerability are what we are conditioned to avoid as humans. It's how we survived as a species. It is also the place that God often finds space to reveal Herself to us.
The to-do lists, the phones, the activities, the endless stream of GO that we create for ourselves allows us to shut out the very questions and answers that make for a fulfilling life.
- Am I loving like I should?
- What is the next step for our family?
- Will I survive this illness?
- What college will make me my best self and not just look good on a sweatshirt?
- Why are my children acting out?
- What is God calling me to?
I've duped myself into believing that completed to-do lists and a full schedule make for a fulfilling life. The reality is that it makes for a FULL life that can be anything but fulfilling.
So where do we find fulfillment? I'm not sure (super helpful, right?!). For each of us that is going to be different. I do know this one thing: having 15 extra toothbrushes is not making for a more meaningful mission trip. An empty inbox isn't making a fulfilling job. A clean house isn't making a happy family. Straight A's are not making a well-adjusted young adult.
There is something more. I call it God, this something more. It's the Holy that finds it's way into our lives even when we try to edge it out. It's in the relationships and the questions and the conversations and the ah-has and the birth and the death. It's in the space between the tasks.
As I embark on a trip with 26 other beautiful people I pray that I can find space to BE instead of DO, that my own agenda does not usurp the things God has in store for me. I basically need to get out of my own way.
May you do the same things week.
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