How Grad School Ruined My Life…

The final assignment is finished.  It’s ready.  But I’m not.  I just can’t hit “post reply.”

Let me begin by making it very clear that this title is painfully misleading.  I could just as easily write a post about how grad school saved my life, because in a lot of ways, it did.  It took me fifteen years after high school graduation to earn my BSM, because I choose to do life in a different order than what is generally considered normal.  I got married first, had a family first.  I have always loved the role in which I raise my kids.  They are the center of my world, for better or worse, whether it's good or right or sometimes over the top.  People who know me well know that I am generally a pretty nice person, but if you mess with my kids, I turn into something crazy.  I mean, I don't even recognize myself!

By the time I walked across the stage at Indiana Wesleyan University and grasped the all consuming piece of paper that finally proved I knew a lot about something as opposed to just a little bit about everything; I was exhausted.  And five little faces, ranging in age from two to eleven, stared back at me with a certain sense of relief, because Mommy was finally finished with school.  I didn't have the heart to tell them I was going back on Monday. 

I had spent the summer deciding what I wanted to do next with my life.  I had been accepted into multiple graduate programs.  Did I want to stick with business or organizational leadership?  Did I want to dive into something different altogether?  Did I have what it took to do graduate level coursework at all?  I finally decided on a theology degree at Northwest Nazarene University.  That place has been calling to me since I was eighteen and lived on the corner of the school property for about six weeks in a house that no longer exists.  It was time to throw my hat in the ring.  Just two years, though.  I was going to blow in, be awesome, and blow out, with another framed diploma to hang on my wall.

Honestly, I thought I was pretty great.  I was also cynical and jaded, mad at the world and certainly mad at the church.  I started that first course wondering just how many people I could tick off in eight weeks.  It took me about three days to realize I was in over my head and the entire first semester just to figure out how to keep up.  But, I have always liked a challenge.  This one rocked my expectations… pretty much all of them…

I was not going to be friends with anyone in my cohort.  I think they figured out early on that I was volatile and broken in about a million pieces.  Try spending two years with people like that, who want to be friends, discussing the deepest issues of spiritual formation, and just see how that not being friends thing works out for you.  I held out until October, I think…

In 2014, sitting in my four year old’s room at bedtime, after an incredibly awesome birthday party for my middle child who had just turned “double digits,” I watched the tape delayed version of my graduation from NNU, went to bed, myself, and woke up early the next morning to preach my first sermon.  I loved it.  Over the next couple of months, I carefully considered my next move.  Would I really take a year off, as planned?  Should I make an attempt at law school?  Maybe it was time to pursue doctoral work, back in the field of organizational leadership.  I could have chosen any of it, but that sermon set me on a path from which I couldn’t turn back.  Scratch that.  I still believe in free will, so we all know I could have turned back, but I knew I wouldn’t.

Sometime later, I received what was probably a form letter to all M.A. graduates of NNU, encouraging me to come back to complete the M.Div.  Before I knew it, I had enrolled in “just one class” for the upcoming fall term.  I think I told Phil about this a few days before the school year began, primarily because I needed his books.  I would have kept it a secret, entirely, except my returning cohort friends were all like, “What the heck are you doing here?”  I guess I should have used a pseudonym…

Well, “one more class” turned to two… and then three… and then fourteen…

The truth is; I found myself at NNU.  I feel more like who I was always created to be when I am there (on campus, for sure, but even online).  I’d move there, with hardly a backwards glance, if I could find a job.  And in a matter of moments, I am going to make one final click on this keyboard, and I am no longer going to be a student at NNU.  Excuse me while I cry just a little bit longer.  It’s something of an identity crisis.

I don’t know what’s next, but here are some things I do know…

I am called to ministry.  There is no denying it, no escaping it, I’m not even trying.

I am good with people.  I never would have guessed this to be true, but it is.  I also need more community than I thought possible.  Go figure.

I am passionate about education.  That’s always been the case.  I’m never going to stop learning, and I’m never going to stop teaching.  I am, however, slightly terrified about what that may or may not look like in the coming years.  I have big dreams, but they’re a little bit scary to pursue.

I’m a good writer and a good editor, even though this particular post reads something like a grocery list.

I still love being a mom more than anything in the world, and finding out who I am has not hindered that in any way but has, instead, helped me to raise kids who are stronger than I ever imagined they could be.

Something will happen tomorrow… and the next day… and the day after that…

I kind of stink at endings, but I’m good at beginnings, and they always follow, so it will be OK. 

L.

Cynicism Comes All Too Easily...

... at least to me.

A little over a month ago, I wrote a post titled, "This Might Be the Most Important Post I Have Ever Written".  That was probably not the brightest idea I ever had for a title.  I wrote about some of my struggles from the previous month, and then I entered into a new one.  The past month has been overwhelming, again, and I am relatively sure there are a few things I could share that would be of much greater importance than my thoughts from my earlier post, many of which are a direct result of the things that I discussed (or did not discuss, as the case may be) related to the post, itself.

I remember being almost obsessed with the concept of the "dark night of the soul" in my early 20s.  I am sure it never occurred to me that a person could experience a dark month... or two... or longer...  But it's been really dark here.

I was going to write that there have been external circumstances that have contributed to this, but then it occurred to me that the very idea is, at least most likely, very wrong.  There have been external circumstances, no doubt, but the more I consider it, the more I think they are actually symptoms of a much worse internal conflict.  I have, quite literally, made myself sick.  I cannot remember the last time I had a good night's sleep.  My stress level is just skyrocketing, and I'm putting this pressure on myself.  No one else is at fault.  I am the problem.  And I hate that.  And I need a stronger word than hate, because that just didn't cut it.

I have never been any good at lying.  I am a prophet.  Not the kind of prophet who foresees the future (at least not consistently, but that's another thought for another day... or never...) but the kind of prophet who tells the truth.  Multiple stories with great entertainment value have been written about characters who are "cursed" with the inability to lie.  I have to imagine those stories are so much funnier if they're not your own.  But I've learned to live with it - this painful desire to tell everyone about everything that is wrong with the world, cynicism, and this painful desire to tell everyone about everything that is right with the world, which is sometimes worse.  I've learned to live with it by mostly being silent.  "Live" might be too strong a word here.

In order to protect myself, I have also learned some moderately valuable tricks such as tact, sarcasm, and nuance.  I'm much better at sarcasm and nuance than tact, but I can pull even that one out of the bag if I have to, most of the time.  Problem is, I'm exhausted - physically and mentally and emotionally and spiritually exhausted.  I can just feel it coming.  If I'm not very careful, words are going to start spewing out of my mouth (and, very likely, my fingertips) that I can never get back.  And then what?

I am working really hard, right now, to find the proper way to move forward by speaking the truth in love.  I was going to say, "see Ephesians 4:15," but you know what, just see Ephesians 4.  All of it.  I was reminded the other day that, "There can be no way forward but through prayer".  This is truth.  I can speak this.  And I can do this.

And so, even in this meandering post, God has been working.  God is working.  I don't want anyone to misunderstand.  The time for eternal silence and censorship has ended.  I'm not afraid to speak the truth.  But I need to make sure I am centered precisely on the truth that God would have me to speak "for such a time as this".  See Esther 4:14.  Or, you know, just the whole book.

Pray for me.  I am praying.

L.