Last night I dreamed that there were not enough classes for all of the teachers here in my program to have a class to teach. My boss therefore asked me to be a student in Anne's class. I remember telling people all the time, "Wow, Anne is such a great teacher!" However, I was really worried that I would not pass her class. The main problem was this: Every morning she would ask a very open-ended question, and we had several minutes to write an answer. Supposedly, it didn't matter how much we wrote. Then she would look at our answers and give them back to us with a grade. I wasn't ever sure what I was doing wrong or what I was doing right when I looked at the papers she returned. But to make matters worse, she had this interesting grading system. Even though she wrote all kinds of numerical grades on our papers, she actually only wrote a zero or a 100 in the gradebook. Everything 80 or above became a 100, and everything below 80 became a 0. I just felt so desperately confused, and I just kept trying harder and harder. Very frustrating.
Clearly this is not about Anne's teaching techniques. Which of course leaves my life. Hmmm. Actually, this is so exactly how I feel right now. It seems like I keep sensing a need in myself or my plans and making a move to meet that need in a way that seems like the best approach I can come up with. But then those approaches rarely turn out to be effective. And nothing seems to be just 30% or 50% wrong--nope, the things that don't work really just totally and completely bomb. And I just keep flopping around in these deperate efforts again and again with no more idea today than yesterday what would really be effective. Sigh. I am clearly a mess. A foggy, frustated, unable-to-succeed, exhausted mess.
If this mess of myself would only live in the truth of Romans 5: "We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand--out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. There's more to come. We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary--we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!"
Just to clarify, I don't feel at all "hemmed in by troubles"--I am feeling quite flooded with abundant blessing. In fact, I keep saying to myself, "There's nothing wrong! Why are you being this way?" But perhaps I am what is wrong. I think I am hunkered down in a corner of those "wide open spaces" with a stubby pencil and a legal pad, desperately trying to calculate how I can possibly "round up enough containers to hold everything" God is pouring into my life. May I begin to throw off the fatigue, depression, and fuzzy-brainedness to stand and sing (I'd rather sing than shout) in the open spaces. In fact, if I'm in the middle of wide open spaces, why just stand there? I want to dance!