by way of explanation

after verbally processing a lot of things that have been stewing over these last three weeks--this is what came out. i needed to write it all down so i could communicate things fairly to my boss. i gave this to him, so here it is for yall to hopefully understand as well.

i'm sorry if i've been facetious, even on this blog where my hope was to uphold honestly & transparency for you, the people i love the most. so here it is now--the nitty-gritty of how i've been feeling & what led me to the decision to leave the internship in KY.

i want to give myself wholly, heart & spirit. not get the job done & feel empty at the end of the day.

my explanation follows:

I am not passionate enough about this work.

--I came into this opportunity hoping to have the chance to explore a ministry outside of children’s so I could determine if that was the ultimate place God wanted me. I thought youth work would be a great place to do that, but I’ve already come to see that this is not fair on my part. I’m not all in. I have no idea what I’m doing & I’m not really excited about doing it. With all our planning we’ve been doing, I feel about 20% excited about the opportunities for ministry, and 80% unsure and inadequate. I don’t want to keep lying to you or to myself or to the kids when my heart is with children’s ministry. I keep thinking about finding a children’s ministry internship when I finish this year, or going to school for children’s ministry when I’m done here. I even got jealous of the Crossroads children’s ministry internship announcement, wishing that I could be doing that instead if I was going to be out here. Clearly this shows that my heart is not in the right place, and I know that you want someone on your team who is 100% youth-driven. I see that in Derek very much, but I don’t see that in myself and I don’t think that’s fair for anyone.
--I feel God has gifted me for children’s ministry, and that is where my passion lies as well.

This all happened too fast & I think on both sides we’re guilty of diving in without looking.

--I had a whirlwind college experience trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. For a while I was settled on children’s ministry, but when I decided to drop out of the school of education, I got nervous about pursuing any type of work with children. I wanted to make sure that’s where I belonged by trying something else for a while instead. That’s how I ended up here instead of with a children’s ministry internship somewhere. I can see now that that was a decision that wasn’t well thought through. If I wanted to explore other areas of ministry, I should have done so in a less fully-involved capacity. This is full-time work for a year away from home, and I don’t think I’m cut out for it. To be honest, I haven’t enjoyed the work so far, and I know it’s only been a time of adjustment & transition, but as I said above, I don’t think I have the passion for this work, so I don’t foresee myself flourishing as things progress.

--I think I looked really good on paper & perhaps that hasn’t translated as well as we both hoped to the actual job. I find it a little strange that I didn’t have to fill out an application or give any references—everything happened so fast. I sometimes am not sure if you’re aware that I have no background in youth work, for example when you asked me one day whether I had taken youth ministry classes in college. I have no experience in this field & I think it was my hope that I could translate my work in children’s ministry & my leadership in my college ministry into some kind of youth ministry compromise. That certainly is a mistaken impression of my own, which I can now clearly see.

I think God wants me to experience failure

--I’ve been struggling with call since I’ve been here. Why would God bring me here to be miserable? I have been trying to trust that He knows better than I do what I’m doing here, but now I begin to see that perhaps God wanted me to come here & fall flat on my face. He wanted to show me that I can’t do everything. He wanted me to face failure & have to deal with it. To crawl away with my tail between my legs for the first time in my life. To not be perfect. To not be able to handle a job with finesse, skill, and passion. To recognize that I’ve messed up & made a rash decision, and to deal with the repercussions of that decision.

I’d like to pull out before I become too committed—before small groups start, etc

--I know that I’m letting you down, especially after we made all these great plans at the overnight retreat. But truly I think it’s best if I do this now before things have even gotten off the ground. Right now it is all ideas—things that can certainly materialize without me. I wish I could be here for the young women of this ministry, but I know there are leaders who can step up & fill the need for girls’ ministry.
--I feel a lot better about leaving now before I’ve connected deeply with much of anyone, instead of having kids feel like I’m deserting them after having been here a couple months or something.

I feel completely unconnected

--I like my roommates a lot but don’t feel that we have a lot in common or that they’ve been overly welcoming
--Likewise with the college small group. I feel like I’m barging into the middle of things, and though they are kind, I’ll never catch up but always be on the outside.
--Coming in 6 weeks after Derek has also been hard. He’s already established himself here, and has been interacting with the kids once a month this whole year. And he’s from KY, so he has a brother here & a girlfriend nearby. The contrast between his connectedness & my lack thereof is stark.

I’m miserable away from home in NC, my family, and friends. I’m worried about getting depressed.

--I’ve been really lonely. Again, I understand that’s part of transitioning, but it’s been far worse than I was expecting. I think I took on too many transitions at once—away from college, away from NC, away from family & friends. I don’t think I can handle all of these at once, and at least by going back home I will be dealing more primarily with just the transition from college into work/”the real world” instead of that transition plus the transition of a new place and new friends, completely separated from family & friends.