Monday, April 9, 2012

Pine Needles and Greens

I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but I was drawn into the Masters coverage yesterday in a way that I couldn’t explain at the time. Not normally a big fan of golf, I was mesmerized. But by the time Charl Schwartzel was helping Bubba into the iconic Green Jacket, I knew exactly why.

There was something for this first grade teacher to learn from Bubba Watson. What I took away from watching was simple, but might as well have been a flashing neon sign among the magnolias and junipers. Then again, when you’ve been in the desert waiting to be delivered out from Egyptian bondage for what feels like 40 years, you look for signs wherever they can be found.

Bubba is unconventional. If you watched you know why; if you didn’t you can google him and read about all the ways he doesn’t fit the mold. Observing this reminded me that God gives us the skills we need to get to the platform He desires when we seek His will with all we are. God gifted Bubba Watson in extraordinary ways, but Bubba persevered and honed his skills on his own, using every ounce of what God put in him. He followed God’s way, not the world’s way - the conventional way, and now he has a national platform through which to further the work of the Kingdom. Lessons & swing study (connections, the right net-work, perfect résumé, the right experience…) or not, when our time comes to drive it out of the pine needles, God will make sure we get on the green.

As in any pursuit - sports or otherwise, some are heralded, others not as much. Watching Bubba illustrated that in sports and in life it doesn’t matter what the world rewards, how full of trophies (or empty) your mantle has been, how much you’ve been lauded by those who profess to know. The world may give you acclaim, but that is no indication of your real contribution. On the flip side, when God decides to “promote” you, to fully make a way for your legacy, it won’t matter if you can see the green or not, He’ll get you there. The timing of that promotion, though, is up to God.

Past shots have nothing to do with today’s; our previous success (or failure) really doesn’t have a lot of bearing on our future. We need to learn from our mistakes, but with each new round, each new tournament comes new opportunity; and so it is with each new experience in life.

Watching the Masters gave me hope. Watching the Masters made me believe that my Augusta is out there, I just haven’t found it yet.

And so I wait. Wondering. Watching for what God will do next…believing that He’ll deliver me at some point from the desert, through the pine needles, and out onto the green.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Brackets and Wires

Yesterday Max got braces. And he’s mad. He feels awkward, conspicuous, abnormal.

He hasn’t articulated it exactly that way, but I know.

I remember feeling that way myself, at just a little younger than he is now. I remember wanting to recede into the backdrop, to go totally unnoticed for a few years, and not emerge until my “chrysalis” phase was long behind me.

Kids don’t want to hear their parent’s words of wisdom in moments like the car ride home from the orthodontist, but I let my words fill the empty space of the car anyway: I know you didn’t want this, that you were happier yesterday, and that right now you’re mad at us. You’re in physical pain, and you’re worrying about all kinds of things. I also know that in a couple of years you’ll thank us. Because we can see the big picture, we have to do what’s right for your life. I hope you’ll be able to look in the mirror and feel great about what’s taking place even though you don’t like seeing braces. Doing something to address the problem, taking action of some kind signals progress; the amazing thing is that you’ll be able to see the progress as it’s happening if you watch closely. There will be subtle daily changes that will add up to have a compound effect of something huge and beautiful in the end, and it will all be worth it.

As my words echoed through the silence of the car, I wondered how often God thinks those same thoughts about us. We may be irritated or even angry at having to endure something that’s annoying, difficult, or painful. We’re worried and can’t see the big picture. Yet He knows that whatever our brackets and wires may be, they confine us for a greater purpose. At some point, when the process is complete, our attitudes, hearts, minds, souls will have shifted. We will have been moved, and something beautiful will emerge that will have been well worth the pain.

If I Keep Getting Better, Why Does it Keep Getting Harder?

*I Wrote this over two years ago, but didn't post it. Looking back, I feel the same - even stronger - about heeding the call of God, and it's now time to tell the story, even though the ending isn't written. Posts to come about what's happened since I wrote this, enrolled at Butler, have graduated, and the lessons I've learned along the way.

Not long ago in an email regarding an extra-challenging student, I raised the question, “If I keep getting better, why does it keep getting harder?”

Today I figured out the answer.

I just finished reading this outstanding book on the topic of non-linear leadership. In it the author talks about the importance of challenges. Challenges keep leaders stretching and growing. Challenges keep people who want to be extraordinary from growing stagnant. Challenges breathe life into organizations by calling on our deepest reserves of problem solving and creativity.

Challenges, I now realize, are one of the things that fuel my fire and ignite my passion. I’m not sure why I didn’t quite get it in this particular way before since I over-analyze everything including myself, but I didn’t.

Now it’s clear:

I really do need just enough challenge to make me continue to stretch and grow into who I am supposed to be, but not so much that it makes me break.

I get it.

It’s not just my perception – every year it really does get harder even though I keep getting better. And that’s exactly the way God designed it to be so that I would stay. He keeps giving me new challenges on purpose. Challenges designed to develop me in the particular ways He wants me to grow. Challenges that force me to become who I am destined to be.

Five years ago I started a business. I didn’t plan to. Nothing about my doing it made sense. It left a lot of people scratching their heads. I guess I needed a challenge.

Not long into it I was doing well. It was attractive in a way that school wasn’t in that when I met the challenges or exceeded them, as I almost always did, I was well rewarded financially and otherwise. Soon people started asking me why I was still at school. The income was very, very large and some of the very same people who were scratching their heads when I started the business were now scratching their heads because I was still teaching. I had to constantly answer questions about why I was teaching when I could afford to stay home, when I led a big team, when I seemed to live two opposing lives. People couldn’t get it.

To the friends and family (and even strangers) who asked those questions, my answer was always the same: I still feel called to be there and until I feel otherwise called, I’m staying.

And while I did believe that answer was true with all of my heart, some days – on the hard days, I didn’t really even understand it myself even though I believed it.

The fact that I was still teaching defied logic. I just knew in my heart that doing anything other than that would be wrong. But I’ve made some really fantastic decisions based on faith, not logic.

I stayed because something deep inside of me held me there like an anchor to life.

Something kept me at school that was more than new markers and my deep love of office supplies. It was something more than adorable kids who say hilarious things. It was even more than the adrenalin rush of a spontaneous lesson that bubbles up out of no where that is one of the best, most creative and engaging lessons you’ve ever taught, while producing this incredible work that you had no idea your kids had in them.

It was something deep in my soul. The still small voice of God whispering, “You were made for this. When you do this to which you are called, you use every gift that I so carefully placed in you. When you do this you leave the legacy I planned for you in deeply impacting kids’ lives. Doing anything less causes you to rob yourself of your own destiny.”

Probably some people at school viewed my dual life of business and teaching as a sign that I didn’t care anymore, that my loyalty was divided. The truth is that it was crazy that I stayed at all. Because of the business I didn’t need the money. I would’ve come there to teach every single day for free.

Many times destiny defies logic. Its fuel is passion, your very heart and soul, burning to create you into who you were always meant to be anyway.

A few weeks ago something started to stir deep within the core of who I am. That always makes me nervous…it always means something big is about to happen…and it always involves a heck of a lot of work. But that spark started to flicker and one day I woke up with a clear thought in my head and determination in my heart: I want to be a principal.

What if I am supposed to be the first drop – the one that starts the ripple effect that causes an impact so large and powerful that I have yet to imagine it? What if I have been preparing for this very moment for my entire life and I hadn’t even realized it?

I’ll have to give up my business. I’ll have to give up the perks I love that go along with the business. I’ll have to make space and time in my life to go back to college to get that additional license I’ll need, and that means giving up some other activities that I love in order to make room. I have a lot to learn. There’s a lot of growth that still needs to take place in me. There’s a lot I don’t know. A lot.

Part of that makes me sad. Part of it makes me scared. And frankly, part of it makes me sick to my stomach…But mostly I see how the business, as well as every other thing I’ve ever done in the last 40 years, has been the perfect beginning training ground for what’s next.

I don’t expect to be handed anything.

I expect to work my fingers to the bone.

I expect to miss what I’ll have to give up.

I expect the work, the process, the journey to be hard.

I expect to make mistakes and to learn unbelievable leadership and life lessons along the way.

But I also expect myself to live in a way where I heed the call God places on me. Even if it means doing a 180. Even if it means having to let go of some things I love.

And I expect the biggest challenges of my life. Not only do I want them, I’ve learned that I need those challenges in order to thrive.

Bring it on.