Growth: new roles and responsibilities

Taking on different new roles and responsibilities can be quite a stressor. In my context, I realise that there are many new areas of roles and responsibilities I am taking up in the workplace. I can now better empathize with people who are going through life stage transitions. It's tough!!

There's always that nagging self within me that doubts whether I am competent enough or not, whether I can meet up to expectations of people around me, of myself as I compare myself with what I perceive is the ideal person who is performing the role well, and as I compare myself with others who are in similar roles. It's easy to slip into beating myself up or to just feel like giving up.

On the other hand, maybe going through this is not such a bad thing. I am even more inclined to depend on God for my sense of security and self worth, and to depend on Him who is still the grand weaver of my life.

I have observed that there is a self justifying nature of the human heart. We tend to rely a lot on our successes and achievements to prop up our self esteem and sense of feeling like we are good enough. And when this happens, we don't turn to the One who truly justifies and is Giver of our worth. There's nothing bad with achieving success, it is the meaning that we make of it and whether that meaning impacts our self worth that makes the difference. And I feel that it is all-too-easy to equate the success we find in fulfiling our roles (whatever roles we predominantly play in our lives) to our level of self worth. So the greater success, the greater self worth we have, and vice versa.

I do want to be competent in my role at work, because all my gifts and talents are graciously given by God to put to good use. It is also important to think through how I can best use my gifts here for the better of society, individuals, and the environment. But I also recognize that it is a process that will be filled with a mixture of potential failures, risks and successes. Perhaps at this point in time, I will experience a greater sense of uncertainty and possibly, failures/setbacks along the way.

In any case, I'm thankful that at the end of each day, and even in moments I feel at a loss and incompetent, I know that my setbacks, failures, weaknesses in fulfiling my roles and responsibilities do not determine or change my self worth.

One of my ex-supervisor's at work once wisely said that our person/being and our skills/knowledge can be seen quite distinctly. If we lack in knowledge/skills, we can spend time to hone our areas of lacking, but our lack of knowledge/skills should not determine how we feel about our worth and confidence as a person/human being.

And I'm thankful that I can rely on who I am as created in God's image and as a child of God because of Jesus to continue to shape how I see myself as a person. If not, then how can I even conceive of what being a person/human being means?

Conversely, knowing who I am helps me to be braver to take risks and accept failures/setbacks in the areas of knowledge and skills, knowing that I am still loved and accepted, and that my life is in His hands no matter what.

Feeling human

It's the end of the work week.

And I'm thankful for wonderful colleagues:
- who make me feel I belong
- who make me feel safe to be who I am
- who make me feel happy and make me laugh
- who show me grace and mercy
- who are patient to hear me express my views and feelings, and validate my experience
- who empower me to reflect on growth areas

:)))))

I'm still amazed that such human beings exist collectively! I feel human.

I think within me lies this desire to be loved, empowered, affirmed for who I am. I've never connected so deeply with such experiences before. I'm not saying that I've never experienced such feelings but there's still a strong desire for such experiences.

Growing up, I've experienced being put down, or encouraged to perform and do well. I've experienced being disconnected from people around me and having to prove my significance.

Of course at work there is the element of performance and appraisal. But this community is different. I believe people actually do care about well-being of another person, not just because it's about increasing productivity, but because we are all human.

I'm deeply thankful for these life-giving experiences I've had these (close to) 3 years. I feel like I am alive, regularly.

Thankful for these experiences that have shaped the way that I work with the people I help. It's a constant reminder that there is power and healing through human-to-human interactions, of which I'm always intrigued about as I work with the people I'm suppose to help, empower and assist.

Thankful for my wonderful boyfriend who has been supportive of me all this while. :)) <3 I think if I have to thank him it will be a whole new blogpost.

and thankful to God for this phase of my life. being someone who likes control and thinks that I have the best plans for myself... well... I've been proven wrong time and again.

treasuring and savouring these happy and joyful moments.

Authentic Relationships

Was just reflecting about the youths that I am leading in my church. These days we've been taking turns to lead devotions, and it has been refreshing to hear from them share about some truths they've gathered through reading Scripture.

In the past, I used to be very hard on myself to deliver a well organized and coherent lesson every time we meet for Bible studies.

However, now, I still put in effort to prepare devotions and Bible studies, but God has been convicting me that it's not so much just about organization and coherence, but about authenticity in our relationships, and our relationship with Him.

Therefore, it is my prayer that the girls and myself will grow to be real with one another, and real with God. And for God to be real to us. And I pray that the girls and myself will not think of God as someone we happened to grow up with, or think we already know God and all there is to know, but develop a reflective spirit to continue to know and love Him, and most importantly, to be convicted that God knows and loves us. The latter will make all the difference in our growth from the inside out.

Reflections on Anxiety

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight Proverbs 3:5-6

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus Phil 4:6-7

Recently, I've been reflecting about my relationship with Anxiety. In other words, the function of anxiety in my life.

I realise that I am easily anxious about the things in my life. Especially things or people that give me a sense of security and identity. Also, I have reflected that it seems like an almost "default mode" I get into by getting anxious. It's as if I subconsciously believe that getting anxious is the best way to go about doing things. After all, I've learnt growing up that being anxious gives me the energy to press on with attaining my goal(s) and what I want in life. I can recall incidences in childhood when being anxious was being modeled to me, and I can also recall all the exams that I was anxious about where I ended up scoring good grades. I recall being anxious about things where it seemed that I got what I wanted by being anxious.

It's as if I need anxiety to survive all the time. It's become my sense of security when I am under stress or distress. It feels uncomfortable to not feel anxious and I feel like I need to worry to give me a (false) sense of control. In other words, anxiety has somewhat ruled over my heart and my life, at least in some aspects that I find security and identity.

Proverbs 3:5-6 and Phil 4:6-7 came to mind when I was reflecting on my relationship with this thing called Anxiety. In the past, I used to read the verses as God wanting me to change to have more faith in Him. Being someone with quite a lot of performance anxiety, thinking about the verses this way, sometimes ironically adds more anxiety. And then I feel even more sinful when I cannot measure up to having enough faith.

Reflecting on these verses again brought to light my relationship with Anxiety and my relationship with God. It's not about how much faith that I have, but who I want to find my security in.

Proverbs 3:5 says to "trust in the Lord with all your heart", "acknowledge Him" which really paints a picture of a relationship of security in the Lord. It's about the heart, it's about our person trusting in His Person. It means to lean on God, rather than on our own thoughts and our own abilities. It doesn't mean to not think through things. 

Phil 4:6-7 also says to not be anxious but present our requests to God and about the peace of God that keeps us in Christ. This peace is a relationship with God through Christ that is secure.

What I gather from these verses is really that I have to decide whether I want to continue to have a relationship with Anxiety and let it rule over my heart and let it give me peace, or whether I want to grow to be convicted my relationship with God through Christ, which is secure and in whom and which I can trust in.

And I pray that the Spirit will walk with me to convict me of the security and peace I can find in God through Jesus Christ, rather than continue to have this relationship with anxiety where anxiety rules over my life and I derive some sort of warped sense of peace by being anxious.

I know it's not something easy that I can walk through because this "default mode of operation" of being anxious has been instilled in me by my significant others and life events in my life as I was growing up. 

But the journey is worth embarking on because I want Jesus and I want God. Trusting God is no longer something that I need to do because it is a Christian thing to do, but because the more I reflect on this God who gives us true identity, worth, meaning, hope and security, the more I desire Him and want to put my faith in Him.

Life is no longer about thinking/doing the right Christian thoughts/things, living out the right christian character and doing the right acts of service in church. I've had enough of that as a so-called second generation Christian. Honestly, no one is a second generation Christian by descent.

Change starts from experiencing the grace and love of God from the inside out. And when there is love, trust and security, we will desire to love and trust Him back. We need to constantly stay with experiencing the grace of God, His beauty, His character and reflect on the gospel in all of our lives, rather than say or keep thinking of how we need to be a better Christian. We need to stop being anxious about producing spiritual fruit, but we need to rather be abiding in the true vine that God is still at work with.

Disappointment

As a young adult now, somehow it feels very different from how it was like as a child or as a teenager. As a child, we were taught who could be trusted, and where safe places are. We believed in all we were taught. As a teenager, it was a world of idealism. We have unrealistic ideas of love, friendships, of life and ambition. But now as a young adult, I've come to realize how unrealistic some of my beliefs about the world and people are.

It fills me with disappointment and sadness, and I have come to a point where I need to realize that people are imperfect. Okay, it does sound silly that I ever once thought that most people were pretty perfect, especially people in admirable places in society. But that was how I believed people to be, and I realize that I was really wrong. It can be slightly destabilizing for me to realize this truth.

It doesn't matter what status and image you have in people's eyes that matter, and we shouldn't expect people to live up to the image or status that they have, because we will be disappointed.

I suppose we can just start to look at the people around us as people, fellow human beings, who are prone to fail and fall. And when they do, we need to take a deep breath and seek to forgive.

It's hard.

I'm angry, upset and frustrated with some of these people, whom I sought to admire, unrealistically. It's so easy to just want to quit and leave. Spare myself the heartache of having to work together and love the other person when it is so difficult to.

But I know that I do not want to leave because if I do, I will never learn to love and engage with people who are difficult (from my perspective) to love and work with. As uncomfortable as it is, I really hope to persevere. Because if I don't, there will always be another painful and uncomfortable position where I will feel like leaving again.

As they famously say,"keep calm and press on"

Really need to learn that. Praying for God's grace to do so.