School has started, and God is just as good as ever! I feel unsettled and unruly in my heart, though, and I can't imagine what would quiet me. I doubt I'd do it if I knew. I am ready to call it fatigue and leave the question to be sucked up by the fan in the window.
I'm undertaking a few challenges this year, friends. The first is a prayer challenge: to pray in the girls' lounge for a half an hour two nights a week, from about 10:15 - 10:45. The second is to read one book from my writing class's reading list every two weeks. I often say, rightly, that I don't have time to read; but I want to make time, because I enjoy reading and because I have the happy excuse of calling it career development.
This being my third at the residence hall, I have two points, and am able to finally draw a navigation line between them. Year one, I thought my job was tough, filled with apathetic or annoying teenagers who were inherently my excuse for not building community. Year two, I thought it was my sole job to build a community, to pray it into being, and then, when I failed, to accept that I should have done more and better.
Year three, it seems obvious now that building a community is not something a person can do alone. There's no amount of willpower or hard work that can form it. No way. It takes a friggin' village, and the grace of God. The residence hall is a village. Sorta. By the end of last year, it was time for me to admit that the students of the RH were a big part of my community, and therefore my calling and my ministry.
Also of note, a writing student informed me today that she is considering getting a tattoo of a semi-colon, because though the sentence seems to have stopped, like life, it goes on. Awesome.
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