Learning to rest

"It was a startling revelation in my own life when the Holy Spirit showed me that I had become more preoccupied with the work of the ministry than with the One who called me to it. Busyness in serving Christ can block intimacy with Him...resting in Christ is the sole responsibility of the Christian. Everything else flows out of that." Grace Walk by Steve McVey

I am one of those people who is a real combination of both parents. For example, Sarah Beth is very much like me in personality, John-John is Marc's mini-me, and Hannah has definite characteristics of us both. I evidently look just like my mother (I honestly don't see it, but I'll take the compliment), but I also have some of her personality traits. As I have gotten older, I also see more and more of my Daddy in me. I definitely see him in my type A side, and he is there in my weepy side, too. (Sorry, Daddy. I just outed you as a weeper.) But the one thing I get from both of them is a very strong work ethic. Nothing in my life has made me more who I am than this characteristic--I am a busy, busy bee.

Now, that can be great. Ask any boss I've ever worked for, and he or she will tell you that they didn't have a harder worker on staff than Kellye Hooks. Ask any professor from graduate school who the hardest worker in every class was, and they'll likely say Kellye Hooks. And it wasn't so much a choice--I cannot help myself from giving 100% to everything. That includes church work. I don't believe there would be a pastor I've had in the past twenty years who would call me lazy. They might call me some other things, but not lazy.

But this can also be a great problem, and it's something I've been meaning to write about lately. As I look back over my life, often what I see is not a deep contentment in who I am in Christ, but a really frenzied attempt to make my life meaningful and fulfilling, to somehow insure that what I do counts for God. Then I came here. Know what I can do for God here? Right now--nothing. Learn the language. Take care of my family. For years and years, that simply would not have been enough for me, and it was something I struggled with for a long time when we got here. Then my friend Cathy, who has been here for two years, handed me a book that someone gave her when she got here and struggled. The book, Grace Walk, is about allowing God to live through you. It's about giving up being busy for Him, and instead learning to rest in Him. Now, that might not sound revolutionary to you, but it is to me. I once said something to Cathy about the frustration of not being able to do anything well here, and her response was that God was stripping me of the need to do well and be good at everything. This was echoed in a meeting, when someone I really love and respect told me that her concern for me was the high premium I placed on succeeding at things. Success looks different here. It feels different here. God is definitely stripping me of the part of my personality that needs to feel successful.

Here's the thing--I'm happier than I've ever been. Don't get me wrong--I loved being a teacher and the administration's go-to gal. It was very gratifying. I loved the praise team and the solo work. I loved all of it. It was very satisfying to my ego. But I have never, ever been more fulfilled than I am right now. My ministry circle is very small--it consists of Marc and the kids. But they are who God gave me for this time in my life. Sarah Beth leaves home in three years. I only have three years left to have her in my home. Then it's off to college far away from us, then marriage and children and all of the things she wants out of life. For such a time as this, God has called me here to be this person. And I'm not doing my best to do it well. Instead, I'm learning to rest in the knowledge that I can't do it well, but He can do it for me. I promise this is a thought revolution for me.

Well, I need to run. I'm taking John-John to the grocery store and the big playground across the street this morning. The big boy has put himself to bed for two nights in a row, and there are rewards for this kind of behavior. By the way, in case you're wondering about taking him out to play in the freezing cold--Russians believe in the absolute necessity of taking kids outside for fresh air (kind of an oxymoron in Moscow, where pollution is such a problem), and they do so until it reaches about -20 F. No kidding. So, it's practically spring here today, where the high is going to be around 15 F. I pray that wherever you are in the world, whether you are freezing cold in the snow and ice or trying any method necessary to stay cool in the heat (that was for you, Tara), that you are not worrying about being a busy bee this holiday season, but are resting in the One around Whom the season revolves. Blessings to you and yours!
His,
Kellye