Gather my insufficiencies and place them in Your hands.

I need to cling to words like this. I am so weak that I find myself collapsing under any kind of pressure. It's not even the kind of pressure that weighs heavily on your chest - this is the kind of non-threatening pressure that makes your ears pop when you go to the bottom of the diving well. It's easy to giggle and just dry your hair off once you hop out of the pool, but not if you are afraid of the water.

I am afraid of the water, so to speak. I apologize for the truly abysmal metaphor, but it's the best that I can muster right now. Maybe I should have just stayed literal.

I found myself this past fall, beneath all the fear, the anxiety, and beneath the pressure, however big or small. I learned what it meant to die and to be reborn, and I vowed that I would be a positive influence on others, that I would act like I loved everyone even when I felt like punching them in the mouth, that I would (as stated in the "religious views" on my facebook) "Do everything in love."

In a previous post, I mentioned that being reborn is so much harder than it sounds. When you are born you have to learn everything, but you don't realize it because everything is new and exciting. Sometimes learning is hard, but you grow and you develop habits, you refine your own personality based on how others treat you, what you think of yourself, how you treat others. Then you want to change yourself from head to toe, wishing you had behaved differently from the first person you met to the last.

But old habits die so hard. They really do. It's easy to endure the pressure when there is no pressure.

The last week or so has been a serious challenge for me. Student teaching is something I am not enjoying - I'm not looking forward to any aspect of it and it has already torn me apart. I have slipped back into some bad habits and I need to fight them off a lot more. I have also realized that stumbling blocks can sometimes be avoided. If God does not seem to be speaking through me, if I don't understand enough to act and talk in a way that comes across as humble and loving, then I have absolutely no right to call myself a Christ-follower with that attitude - I refuse to misrepresent God in the way that I talk about Him.

It hit me kind of hard a few days ago when I found it impossible to refrain from reacting instantly to my anger at a ridiculous facebook argument that helped no one. Another problem with this other than the obvious ones? I still feel somewhat justified in how I responded. I need to beat out this mentality.

I feel like God is really trying to teach me something here. He allowed me a fairly easy, pampered semester off, and now it's time to apply what I learned.

I'm just really bad at doing that.

I have to do better. The first step is to stop thinking about myself all the time. I had gotten out of the habit of doing that as much as I used to, but it is now coming back with a vengeance.

I felt the need to purge a little bit on here. This is probably completely disjointed, but it is late at night and I care very little and will probably not even edit.

I just needed a reality check. And tomorrow I must force myself to be the person I want to be for God's glory, rather than the person I have become.

Step 1: concern myself with God and with others - stop making my own feelings the priority.

Wish me luck.

END.