Deadlines

I don't like deadlines.

However, they do seem to increase my productivity. ~sigh~

I've been so distracted since moving home. It feels as though my heart and my head are in two different places, not connected. It's difficult to concentrate on any one thing and feel as though I'm making progress or a contribution.

I've made new friends at work, and despite not liking what I do, I am glad for the income. I'm so very happy to be with part of my family again, getting and giving hugs is something that you just can't appreciate enough. Sharing meals and daily conversation is a true treasure.

However, I am still a bit at sea. Two people this week have asked me what I plan to do once I'm done with my studies. For the last three years I've answered that I'm trying to leave the answer to that question open, as I'm waiting for God's leading on it. Well, I have been back in Texas for nearly a year now, and still haven't found a place to serve the church again. It's not coming easy, and it's clear that the denomination doesn't really need me right now. It's not harsh, mind you, it's just becoming clear that returning to the local church isn't quite what God has in mind. So I'm looking more seriously at teaching, either undergraduates (like an Intro to World Religions course), perhaps at a church related college, or at the seminary level. I often think about the Bible College in Cambodia, and the devoted students there, whose only desire was to be trained so they could return to their home villages and share Christ with the people there.

So if I'm going to seriously consider teaching, I have to make it through my qualifying examinations, the first of which comes up in early May. It's a daunting task, one that I'm not quite sure I'm up to as yet. That is the deadline which is looming at the moment, preparing for the exam. So much reading, so much information. I don't know how I will manage.

Through it all, I have been working on my prayer life, connecting scripture and prayer. It often feels like a walk down a long dusty road, with no clear idea of the destination. My hope is that by following in the footsteps of the missionaries I have studied, I will be able to carry through. Single female missionaries in the late 1890s and early 1900s had to have a very strong spirituality to survive on the mission field. Leaving home then often meant a long sea voyage with little prospect of ever returning home, with limited communication through letters. Their strong sense of being guided by the Spirit is what sustains me and gives me hope that my study of mission today is a needed gift to the church, and will eventually be fruitful.

So here's to deadlines: may I not die of this one, and live to see the next! :-)