There have been a handful of personal struggles that I have been fighting with. For those who do not know, all of my life I have been battling a low self-esteem, a lack of feeling of personal worth, an overzealous sense of perfectionism directed at myself and my perceived faults... and as a result I often lack the ability to open up and show my emotions, my thoughts, my dreams and my fears, my very heart and soul - everything that makes me uniquely me. The fear of rejection for what I see as either irreconcilable faults or odd & strange personality traits has kept me from sharing much of myself with the people around me, making friends, and having so many of the blessings that God would wish for me to have. It has taken at least a year of serious struggle and reflection and growth to come to this conclusion - but the real battle is yet to come, the battle to change.

This highly personal issue has made it all the more difficult as I also wrestle with the question of "what is my purpose in life" - what my career should be, what I will do with my life and whether I will make any difference at all in God's world. I have never had a remotely certain idea what I wanted to do "when I grow up", not once within my 29 years of life... though I had plenty of momentary thoughts of what I could do. When I was considering college, the idea of music made sense to me - it was one of the few things that I could do well that I actually enjoyed - but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. At the time I had no idea what area of music I wanted to get into, how I wanted to apply myself, and teaching did not appeal to me. For lack of knowing what else, and knowing how music was a produce-or-starve occupation, I went into music education with the idea that I could always "fall back" on that option. But Principal Edwards from the movie "Mr. Holland's Opus" was on the mark when she said that teaching is not a "fall back" option. You either love it and do it full tilt or you really shouldn't be doing it. In order to make ends meet for Corey and me, I have been doing substitute teaching this past semester. Corey has commented on the confidence and joy and growth he has seen in me since I have been doing this, and I will admit that to a surprising extent I have enjoyed the kids and my work with them. For now our plan is to continue substitute teaching next fall, with both of us doing it in the Lincoln Public School system and for Lincoln Lutheran as well. It's probably still too early to tell, but it is very possible that I might decide that teaching is what I want to do after all.

A few people in my circle of family and friends have been surprised to hear that I was going on a mission trip. Let me tell you a little secret - the idea of mission work has been tickling the back of my mind for eight, nine, ten years, maybe even longer, because I forget when it started. It would pop briefly into my head, I would get confused where the thought came from, and then I would shove it back into another corner of my mind while I got back to the matter at hand. Moreover, I have had a curious fascination with a certain nation and a certain people - Russia, to be precise. As time has progressed the two ideas have clearly shown themselves to be as one in my own mind, and I cannot shake the solid feeling that it is supposed to be part of my future. When I first shared with my husband, my own parents, and my best friend last fall that I was interested in mission work (especially to Russia) - it was completely out of the blue as far as they were concerned, and they were quite shocked to hear this from me. It was something that I hadn't taken seriously so far, and so I hadn't shared the idea with anyone at all... not even my husband, my best friend, or my own mother. But lately it's been another matter - the notion has bulldozed its way back into my head and has gleefully started jumping up & down on my brain and refuses to go away almost to the point of obsession. Ack! So when I told Corey, he remembered that Christ Lutheran has been sending short-term mission teams to Haiti every summer and suggested that we join them... to see if this is something that we could do, that we're interested in possibly doing, and if it might even be exactly what God wants for us to do.

That, in a nutshell, is why I decided to go on this mission trip. It is an exploratory mission, a learning mission, and an opportunity to serve a people who need the Lord so very very much. Even if Corey and I decide mission work is not our bag, we will still be thankful and grateful for the experience and the lessons we learned while we were there.