Nature has a way of helping us cope with difficult situations - the defence mechanism of "forgetting" or "repression".

This post is long overdued, and I guess it was because I was derailed by other stuff around the last few weeks of my work at my previous job. And now with greater clarity, I think the other stuff has affected me much more because there were all sorts of emotions that unconsciously were suppressed due to my job change.

Yes job change felt a bit like 2006, when I stepped down from being a CGL. The same kind of emotions invested in a ministry, the calling I had heard from God to go forth and step up, the same kind of sadness in leaving, the same feelings of loss, the same heart that continues to beat for the people I serve, and the same kind of weariness that comes with it.

It is indeed just a thin line between being jaded/bitter and becoming stronger. Each experience either leads you towards learning new things, or it leads you towards bitterness. The heart is the well-spring of life.

It is learning to trust, to let go, and to know that God has a season for everything.

In choosing my options after my previous job, one of the options was to go on to the Discipleship Training School at YWAM. I chose my current job instead, good exposure and organization and international work. A stepping stone, I believe, to what lies ahead.

The past few months I have been derailed...or rather...I have been distracted. And it has been good..actually.. I believe it is part of the process that I need to go through, that process of surrender, and of knowing God's grace. Which is even difficult to explain here.

I guess the distraction was more painful, because I am/was unwilling to face up to my pain of loss from my previous job, and it kind of added on to it. Sigh. I love the ministry with all my heart. To love at all, is to be vulnerable, as C.S. Lewis puts it. Pastor Edmund Chan says, people think that leadership gets easier with time, but it doesn't, it only gets harder. That's why leaders need to persevere.

My current job has been interesting, and its a whole new world. In terms of meaningfulness, it can no way measure up to my previous job of helping women and children, and the looking forward of trips to developing countries. And yes I must pray. Pray and ask how and where He is leading me.

::Lois Travelled@8:42 PM::