I don't want to talk about it

Cousin L's daughter started kindergarten last month. Little Miss, as I'll call her, hasn't been in preschool or daycare, so this was her first encounter with a pretty structured setting. Upon arriving home, Little Miss was asked about her day. Her reply? "I don't want to talk about it." It came out later, probably after a while of settling it all in her own head, that Little Miss was struggling with the restrictions of the classroom, having to sit down, not talk at certain times, ask to use crayons, all the things that a kindergarten child has problems with. Little Miss will figure it out, I'm not too worried, but her reaction to her day has stuck with me. "I don't want to talk about it."

I'm feeling like I'm in an "I don't want to talk about it" place. One of the things that I heard at the youth workers convention was that often, the change that needs to take place in our ministries, needs to start in us first. Over the past couple of weeks, the past month, if I look back probably the last year, I've felt that change coming. There's an unsettling in my soul. A recognition that God is molding and shaping me. Changing what was into something new. Part of that change has left me feeling discontent in many ways. And while I want to talk about it, I don't want to talk about it. The words aren't formed yet, the thought hasn't matured. The ah-ha, light bulb, flashbulbs, fireworks "I get it!" moment hasn't happened yet. I don't know what God is doing completely...but I do know that it's painful.

It's painful to have little moments of insight into the complexities of me and realize I don't like those things about me. It's painful to ask God to do something, have it happen, and then realize that it sounded nice but in reality, stinks. God chooses moments to speak that feel awkward and way too exposed. Some of the stuff that God is whispering is opening up those old wounds, the ones that have been long covered up by a mask of "I'm OK" when really I was not. Some of the whispers reveal truths I don't want to see. There are moments when it seems that my prayers, cries, my pleas seem to be floating out in the middle of that vastness which is God and God's timing. The waiting is painful, the examining is painful, the change is painful.

Little Miss has adjusted to school. She's learning the new structure, getting the pattern down, adapting to her environment and I know that somewhere on this journey, a new pattern, a new structure, a changed me will emerge. I guess I just talked about it.