Cracked Pots.

Hey folks. I did write up a post a bit over a week ago, but I wasn't able to post it up for reasons. Not sure as yet whether I'll end up posting and edited version, or just posting it up at a later date....though then it will be edited anyway, because I talked about stuff that was in the future at the time, that is now in the past. Anyway.

Life has been a bit crazy of late. A lot crazy, really.

Work is starting to pick up, from a couple of different places, which is awesome. But it's still early days as yet, and rather a lot that's still being worked out there. I've just come home from two nearly back-to-back camps - one for work, and one for Crusaders that I was speaking on. They've both been awesome and tiring in their own ways. I think I was able to really notice this week how drained I was feeling emotionally - not so much from the camp, because I've done that before. I think it just reinforces that I'm not in the best place emotionally at present. Keep wondering about whether I need to actually look at getting professional help or something - but yeah, money. Ha.

And that's the fun one to come back to. At the end of the first camp, I came back to my car after a couple of days and found that I'd left the headlights on, and needed to call the NRMA. But, it turns out I'd discontinued my membership, because I didn't have a car for a year....so I needed to pay for the full year, and the call-out, on the spot. Yay.

Also, yeah, I have a car now. It's rather nice, and I got it quite cheaply. But still, another expense, that I'm working on paying off. Because it was a bit cheaper, rego/green slip is due soon - end of next month. The car also has a push/pull lever for someone that can't use the pedals, and I'm supposed to have it removed (because I'm not disabled). That costs another fair amount. Bank balance is currently sitting in the red, by a fair bit - mainly because of the unexpected NRMA callout. Not fun.

It's hard to know what you're supposed to do, sometimes. Was it too soon to buy the car? Should I have waited longer? Should I not even be considering moving out until next year? I'm wanting to move out shortly after my sister gets married (now only two weeks away, it's crazy....), but the mounting costs seem to be pushing that further and further away. Is this God asking me to trust him to provide - or is it God teaching me to be careful and a good steward of what I'm given? I just don't know. I really don't.

The camp this week was - hard, in a way. Speaking is one of the things that I do quite naturally, but I found these talks harder to write; I also think I didn't like that I didn't have much opportunity to share from my own story, even though I ended up working it in at the end. But when I was giving the talks, and on the camp - a lot of the time, I felt I was wearing a mask. I would get comments about how great the talks were, or things like that; but I just felt terrible. And it was hard to be....honest, in that. Because you have to be on all the time, for the kids. You don't really have space for much of your own emotion, if you're not doing well. You're up before the kids, stay up after them, and then the only time you have to yourself, you're asleep. Or in the bathroom. I actually ended up being glad that I'd forgotten a couple of things, because it meant that I had a quick drive back home and then out again. Some of that I spent just praying - but a lot of it was more....stewing? That might be the right word. Just letting the emotions have some space, because I'd been too busy to let anything have space for a while.

Don't get me wrong, the camp was amazing. I'm not saying anything against the people running the camp, that's not my intention, please don't think that, they're awesome people - I just felt like I was in an unhealthy place when I went on camp, and have been for the past while. I'm preaching on Sunday as well, and don't really know how that's going to go.

The great thing was, though - despite where I was at, God still used me in powerful ways. The kids were engaging in the talks, the leaders were engaging in the talks - I had a few kids that kept asking me to play worship songs with them on the uke. That was fun. Even though I often felt pretty terrible, God was able to work through me. And I think that says rather a lot about what he can do, and the power that he has. And the patience and grace he has with people like me, who are still rather incredibly broken.

Each day that goes by, I seem to just see more cracks, and places that need healing. But each day, he shows me love, and calls me beautiful. And I am swept away.

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." 2 Corinthians 4:7