A State Championship and an Identity Crisis

This post (and more importantly real life crisis) has been a long time coming, but was made even more clear by an incident this past weekend. The school I do Young Life at was having an incredible season of football and during each playoff game I was there rooting them on just hoping we would "make it to the dome" (our state game is held every year in the St. Louis Ram's Edward Jones Dome indoor stadium). Young Life leaders pray for opportunities like this since it is a contact work ministry dream. You get such great quality time with your kids with the 4 hour car ride there, an overnight with the potential for shared meals, shopping excursions, and all sorts of adventures. It's like taking a fall trip with your kids without having to plan anything.

Well the Titans were headed to the dome and I had already asked off work in preparation, which is no easy feat to get off on Black Friday when you work in retail. I eagerly began making plans to fill my car and head to St. Louis. As the days ticked closer I still hadn't found any girls who hadn't already made plans. It was Thanksgiving night and caravans were leaving the next morning and my car was still empty. I was beyond bummed.

During a tearful discussion with Daniel I lamented about the state of my relationships with YL kids. I have been really encouraged by the progress I'm making with younger girls especially. Most of them however were cheering or dancing at the game and would be taking the bus to St. Louis. The senior girls who I've been working with since their freshman year though are another story. Losing momentum with some kids after 4 years is typical, but the reverse is also true. The hope is that after that long some of these kids at least have begun to turn into actual friends. Daniel had this with his guys that graduated last year. We held our annual Turkey Bowl last week where kids and alumni come bowl with friends and YL leaders. Our typical turn out is 75-100. This year, not including Daniel's graduated guys, we had 10. Daniel had almost as many alumni show up as we had current kids attend. Those guys love him, are loyal to him, and miss him while they're away at school. I have a few senior girls who I am close to, but I fear many of my other relationships will slowly fade away completely over the coming years. That makes me sad...not angry or disappointed. I still love those girls very much and don't put expectations on our relationship. I'm not asking anything of them. I'm simply sad that there is distance between us that wasn't there before.

Here's where this post/truth gets difficult to share. In YL leader training it's hammered into your head that you are here to give to the kids. Unlike other things or people in their life we have the freedom to not ask anything from them like say a teacher or coach would since they are in a different setting. If a kid stands you up, you turn the other cheek so to speak. Sometimes after they graduate, a friendship develops and a different dynamic occurs as it would with your peers. However while kids are inside of YL they are free from expectation, as it should be. You wouldn't go to Africa as a missionary and start requiring the people to reciprocate your efforts. After 10 straight years of leading, this football game was perhaps the first time I really acknowledged the natural human side of me as opposed to the selfless YL leader. It was good for me and brought to light some things I was trying to pretend weren't true.

I let myself admit that not having anyone want to ride with me made me feel unpopular and unneeded. Instead of defending the occurrance as a "rebuilding year", I admitted out loud to Daniel that I often feel like if I wasn't at a sporting event, kids wouldn't notice or care that I wasn't there. And that is a humbling place to be. This is where the YL leader stays effective though. We go anyway. We continue to show up for kids over and over even when they don't notice or don't care. We stay constant despite their reaction (or lack of a reaction). And we do this because this is what God does for us. He is faithful in spite of our faithlessness.

So I went to St. Louis the next day. I made the drive alone. I went to the dome alone. I bought a ticket for one and walked into the student section. There was one particular row full of girls who I knew and sure enough there was one, exactly one, open seat waiting for me. The night was good. Really fun actually. Nothing super profound. This isn't one of those inspiring stories of "I went even though it was hard and wouldn't you know God really showed up in a big way". Sorry. But a great experience to share with kids, an exciting game, and a celebration of becoming state champs. But that's not the end of the story for me.

Where to start? Part of my delay in writing this is my failure to articulate what exactly is happening in me. As good as life is right now and as healthy as I feel most of the time, I have a cloud of confusion that has set up camp around me. When people ask how I'm doing the conversation ends with me describing my state of confusion as to what the hell I'm supposed to be doing right now. I know the job I want and in time should be able to have it. But right now I need a job where I can make (and this is hilarious) 4 figures...as in more than $600 a month. So I keep looking for jobs and am still unable to find one. I keep asking God what I'm supposed to be doing and continue to hear nothing. I am trying to be faithful with the little I have in hopes that he will trust me with more responsibility. Nothing yet.

How does the YL piece fit into this? Well I've been humbled immensely this year. I sense God stripping away all the parts of my life where I found my affirmation, confidence, and identity. At the heart of this blog project was my attempt to get out of my performance based identity and rest in who I am as opposed to what I do. My career was the first piece to go. I needed to see who was left after removing a specific title. Now when I meet new people I can't answer the question, "What do you do?" Instead I am left with introducing myself as simply what type of person I am. This is good.

The next "crutch" to go was my relationships. I love my husband very much, but this year of change and my lack of health has been incredibly difficult on our marriage. I have amazing friends and so many girlfriends I can (and have) called in times of despair. But at the end of the day, we still have to go through a lot of harships alone as we have a hard time understanding what it's like to be in another person's shoes. I am lonely sometimes, but this is okay as I discover who I am without the sense of being needed by others.

Now the YL "crutch". The affirmation I was receiving from high school kids as a Young Life leader was perhaps more important to me than I'd like to admit. Walking into a group of high schoolers is easy for me because I'm 29, have already been through the perils of high school and college, and have seen the Homecoming Queen years after her crowning. I'm not intimidated. Kids are attracted to confidence, not arrogance, but humble confidence. While many of them are panicked about what they're wearing, worried about their social status, and just generally insecure, a confident adult who is completely him or herself stands in stark contrast to them and many of their friends. One of the best YL leaders I know is not a college kid who is wearing trendy clothing and always knows the coolest music before anyone else. Rather he is in his 50's, is an attorney, and plays Amazing Love at YL club as opposed to the latest song. He knows who he is and is completely okay with it. He doesn't try to be anything else. He's not trying to be just like them, because he knows kids aren't looking for another cool person to hang out with. They already have plenty of friends. They're looking for someone who is going to offer them something more. This is how Daniel and I have tried to do YL over the years. I don't try to be cool or say things to make kids like me. Instead I am just Hattie and offer them acceptance, kindness, and hopefully the truth that God is in love with them. And for the most part, kids have responded. Ministry has gone well over the past decade.

But something about this past weekend and the lack of kids coming to YL this semester has been too much for me to take. Maybe it's because I'm feeling stripped of every other source of affirmation and this was the only thing that was left. Why for the first time in 10 years did having an empty car feel like such rejection? Why did it bother me more this time than any other? I'm not looking for kids to tell me I'm cool, but I think I was looking for them to tell me I matter. That what I'm doing is important. That I'm needed. In YL training we were taught those are some of the questions we help answer for kids. We tell them that they matter, that they are important, that they are noticed. And here I have been looking to them to give me these answers. A role they were never meant to play. This weekend I felt God using the empty car incident perhaps to break me of this. It's okay for me to ask those questions, but I should be looking to him for the answers, not 16 year-olds. Though most of my intentions with being a YL leader are selfless, there is an element of it that is me performing once again and proving how successful I can be. Since I'm feeling very unsuccessful in ministry right now, it's another place that's made me question my worth. Evidence that an unhealthy amount of my identity is wrapped up in it.

I saw a blurp on facebook from a friend Steve who I really respect that I think may explain the process God has me in. "...significant times of spiritual growth in my life were preceded by intense confusion and doubt. The confusion and doubt seemed to shake me loose from immature or unhealthy places I was in and opened me to new growth." His friend replied, "I think there are times when the god we think we know has to betray us so we can come to know the God that is. In other words we have all crafted a version of God that must be unlearned to some degree." I've made gods out of my job, relationships, and affirmation from YL. My god is performance. I'm not sure what my version of the real God is in the midst of all my self-centeredness, but I'm starting to unlearn my view of my own gods at least.

I've wanted to break this performance based junk for awhile now. My crutches that were propping up my view of my self have fallen. If I'm going to stand up again, it's going to have to be based on God's view of who I am and not what I can do. I'm grateful to be in this place of humility because I feel like I'm really encountering the root of my issues instead of wading through the surface-y symptoms. I feel like I'm at the basement level, the core, the center of my unhealthy thinking from which my behavior stems. It took a while to get here and I'm not sure how I'm going to move forward, but at least I feel like I'm staring myself in the face with a slightly clearer picture of what is left of me with all these things stripped away.

This certainly was a long post, though I think I wrote it for myself as opposed to share with an audience. If you've read this far, thanks for joining me on my journey :)