The Frenzy

We survived the weekend frenzy. We had Jack & Melanie staying with us Saturday and Sunday nights. We had Nat's birthday gala on Sunday night. And I got a draft of my paper written yesterday. We got through it all, but I still feel a sense of disquiet. I think that having my first class tonight will help.

Last week I had an email conversation about my service at our church. I tried to point something out about how I perceive this guy, but apparently I didn't communicate it very well. What I got from the response is that I need to toughen up and that I have much to learn about people and small groups. I'm trying to take this with humility and see what it is that he has to say. I don't disagree with him, but it's never fun to contemplate the areas where we need to change. I've made some progress with people skills, but I probably need a lot more progress before I start serving in full-time ministry.

I still have this sort of "buzzing" feeling. It's like I'm not quite settled. I think that I need more peace and confidence about what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. If I'm not doing these things right I need to see that and change it. I also am starting to think that I may need to do less with Setting Captives Free, but I hate to do that. I love my involvement there and hate to cut anything out. Perhaps I need to be less active with my small group since that may not be my most effective place.

I am excited to have lunch plans with a friend from church. It turns out that he works in technology at a rival local bank. It will be fun to swap some war stories about the craziness that goes with the banking industry. His wife was the one that Amanda helped out a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully we can become friends with them. We've been a little bit lazy about making connections with other couples because of our own schedules and because we have family in the area. Frankly, we don't spend a lot of time with Amanda's family anymore. We used to see a lot of Nat before she and Eric became more serious. They will live 5 minutes away, but we likely won't see much of them.

As I write this I think about how I could use more whitespace in my day. My days have very little slack in them. I try to get some things done at work that I can't otherwise get done during the normal day. If I couldn't do email from work I would have some major problems. What concerns me is that we are so busy serving that we don't make many solid connections. I'm going to talk to Amanda about this. That is if we can slow down enough to talk when we both have energy...