Not Giving Up

OK, I am finally writing my post. :) We are back from all our travels, and our guests are here, but they are currently in the yard entertaining each other. So I'm taking advantage of a quiet Sunday-afternoon house and a napping husband to write a bit.

Here's what was happening several weeks ago when I wrote about the temptation to give up:

I have been working since last April to try to fulfill the internship requirements for my Master's degree. First it took several months just to find an internship site (since my MS attack interrupted my search! and by the time I got back to the search, all the "good sites" were gone). Then, as you may recall, I spent the first two months of fall semester at an internship site that turned out to be very frustrating and, although I put in a lot of time there, I was able to make only a tiny bit of headway in meeting my requirements because the work they were having us do was basically irrelevant to our program.

Then in November, I finally did get a site that seemed like a good one ... but it was taking forever to get clients. And week after week, I would even get some things scheduled, and then 90% of them would fall through. I kept thinking, "Really! This is not supposed to be that hard!"

Over Christmas break, I was hoping to put in a lot of hours and start catching up, but again, things just kept falling through, one after another.

So the Thursday before I wrote my post, I was at internship, and the one client I actually had once again pulled a no-show on me. TJ had the car at work so I was stuck downtown for the afternoon. I did my required hours of office work and decided I couldn't stand to stay in the office to wait the 3 hours till TJ was due to pick me up; just being there, and watching everyone else busy with *their* clients ... seemed to mock me. I felt like I'd been fighting an uphill battle where I had to struggle for hours to make an inch of progress.

So I grabbed my heavy computer bag, my lunch bag, and my jacket, and--armed only with my terrible sense of direction and a vague idea of what nearby street might have coffee shops and other hangouts--I set out from the office. And ended up having to walk for BLOCKS before I found a place where I could just sit down. It was one of those moments where no, that day's events in and of themselves weren't so bad, but it was just the cumulative effect of MONTHS of effort with almost no progress to show for it. And I have major pressure--not just for my own sake but for TJ's and our finances--to get these requirements met and graduate on time! It felt like the moment when the straw had broken the proverbial camel's back and all I wanted to do was give up. Or cry. Or both.

Why should I keep trying? I asked God. It seemed so clear that You wanted me to come back to the U.S. to go to graduate school ... but You're not using me. At this rate I'll never graduate. I'm not doing anybody any good. All I'm doing is frustrating myself ... and using up TJ's money on a degree I'm never going to be able to finish! Is this not really what I'm supposed to be doing? Should I be taking these circumstances as a big hint from You to just give up and do something else? I keep praying for you to bring me the people You want me to work with and it's really starting to look like You just don't want me to work with anybody! Not in this context, anyway

But that night, when I was safely back home, I sensed God speaking to me ...
and I realized that, in these months of effort, I've really lost perspective.
Despite my best intentions, I had slowly become focused on the numbers, the hours, on "success or failure." But He gently reminded me why I started this program to begin with: Because I have a passion to be an instrument of His healing and transformation in people's lives. And I *know* that He gave me that passion, and that He has also gifted me and is providing me with the education to indeed play that role. And He gave me peace that, no matter what happens (or doesn't happen!), or how long it takes me to graduate, He knows what He's doing--in TJ's life as well as my own--and He wastes nothing.

And then, over the next few weeks, almost every day the content in the Bible study I'm doing, Whispers of Hope by Beth Moore, somehow either added to or further confirmed that message.

And you know what? In the weeks since then, I lost the one client I was working with ... but God has brought me five other women to work with. I now have over half the client load I need to meet the requirements (which is so much better than none!). And I am awed and challenged and humbled and encouraged at the work God is doing in my sessions with them. It's still very up in the air whether I'll graduate on time, but I delight in each opportunity God does bring me to serve Him and people in this way. It really is a Great Adventure, complete with rock-climbing and riding the rapids.