To those who feel like God can't use you:

Hello, as you are most likely aware, my name is Laurissa. Today, I feel like telling you a story. I am not a very talented person. For the sake of kindness and love, most of my friends would disagree with me. They are right in the sense that God has pretty much given us all some sort of gift, but if you were to just look at me without much attention given it might be hard for you to tell what my gift(s) is(are). I am not physically fit or coordinated. I am not brave, I have no rhythm, I am tone deaf, I am not much of a leader or a teacher, and I am not especially good at team work nor am I very innovative. However, I work at a camp. An adventure camp to be specific. With lots of high ropes, water sports, archery, riflery, and a worship team. I am not certified in any of the special activities and I can't help with the worship team. How does this work? When I first came here last summer I felt like I had made a really big mistake. I felt like I could not be of any use here. I still feel that way sometimes. Just yesterday I told someone I don't like adventure and they said "well you're in the wrong place then." So why did I come back? I still ask myself that sometimes. It is tough sometimes being surrounded by people with a skill set that is either very different from yours or much more various than yours or both, but I am continually reminded of two things. Number one: it aint me who is awesome, it's God. So the first reason I am here is because I'm pretty sure He wants me here. He can use anyone anywhere, because He's God and he has chosen to use ME HERE and that might seem like an odd choice, but I'm ok with it because it's God and I'm thinking He knows what He's doing. The second thing I'm constantly being reminded of here is that He HAS given me some gifts. They aren't necessarily the same gifts as those around me. I don't necessarily have as many gifts or as much of a variety as gifts as others, and I'm not necessarily as well versed at using my gifts as others are, but I think He has given me gifts that He wants to help me learn how to use.

So that's my little speech, but here is the story I promised you:

Last year a couple weeks into camp I was feeling pretty down. I had tried really hard to get certified, but it didn't work so I was leading a lot of random activities that don't require certifications. People were trying to convince me that people were needed for these activities too and that there were not a whole lot of people who could bring as much enthusiasm and energy to these random activities as I could, but I didn't necessarily believe them. Then something quite interesting happened. I heard that someone was still needed to work one on one with a guest who was coming to the camp for the rest of the summer. I already had experience working one on one with people and it's something I love to do. Not only that, but just because of the way this camp works the only people who could switch over to this other job were female assistant cabin leaders which just happens to be what I was. However, I have a lot of trouble with confidence, so I thought to myself: I won't be good at this, someone else will do a better job. So I didn't tell them I wanted to do it and, though I didn't know it, they kept searching with no real leads. I did do one good thing though, I prayed. It was kind of a funny prayer, but it worked. This is what I prayed "Hey God, I really want to do this thing, but I don't think You want me to. I think You probably haven't called or equipped me to do this. You are probably going to provide someone who would be much better at this. However, just in case I am misunderstanding You, I want You to know that I really do want to do whatever You want me to do. Therefore, if You actually want me to do this, You know how my mind works better than anyone and You know how to change it and I would love for You to change my mind to suit Your will, whatever Your will is."

So a little while after I prayed that slightly odd prayer one of my boss/ supervisor type people came up to me and said they still needed someone to do this job and they thought I would be good at it, would I be willing? I was blown away. God knows that I have trouble saying no to people when they need my help, and He also knows that I needed to know that someone else thought I could do the job and that there was no one else available who was capable or willing to do a better job. He knew how to change my mind and He did. It was kind of funny in a way.

Anyways that is my story from last year. The moral is that God doesn't just utilise super duper awesome folks, he can utilise you too, have no fear. It's a lesson I'm learning again and again and again, but hey that's ok. Here's to continued learning.

Pros and Cons

Choices/Pros/Cons

·         Masters of Library Science

Pros

1.       It opens up a larger variety of work opportunities than the librarian technician college program.

2.       It would let me work in a small town where there are fewer librarians in each branch.

3.       It could lead to being the head of the children’s department which would mean puppet shoes and program planning.

Cons

1.       Masters programs are hard.

2.       Being a librarian involves computers.

3.       Libraries may be going extinct.

·         Library Technician College Program

Pros

1.       It is quicker than the masters program.

2.       It is probably easier than the masters program.

3.       It might make it easier to get jobs within big cities where there are more technicians hired than librarians.

Cons

1.       Being a library technician involves computers.

2.       Libraries may be going extinct.

3.       It would be harder to work in a small town.

4.       It wouldn’t let me be the head of a children’s department.

5.       It offers less of a variety of types of employment.

 

·         Teacher’s college

Pros

1.       It is just one year.

2.       It would let me work with kids.

3.       It would make my BA seem useful.

Cons

1.       There are no teaching jobs.

2.       I sometimes have a hard time explaining things to kids.

·         Staying in Peterborough after school and trying to find work.

Pros

1.       I get to stay in Peterborough with my friends, church, the lovely river, my favourite coffee shop, and the places where I love to volunteer.

2.       I would get a break from school.

3.       I wouldn’t have to work the job I found forever. I could always go back to school.

4.       It is easy to find a place to live there that is relatively cheap because I could keep living in student housing.

5.       I have enough money saved up to live for at least the summer maybe longer if I could find a place to sublet for a bit. If I couldn’t find work, I could always move back in with my mum in St. Thomas after my temporary rent was up and just be a bum till I make a new plan or work at Starwood.

Cons

1.       There are very few jobs in Peterborough.

2.       There is a lot of competition for every job.

3.       I don’t have a lot of lovely looking work experience.

OR

·         Go to college for a program other than library technician (For example: Early Childhood Educator, or that one job that takes a three year college program and has something to do with working in a class room with students with exceptionalities that I forget what the name is)

Pros

·         I can choose something I actually want to do instead of just doing something that is available to me based on the education that I did just because I wanted to do it for fun.

·         College is supposed to get you a job quicker than university.

Cons

·         More school

·         More money

·         More research

·         What if I still don’t get a job.

When You Hate Yourself For Being Different

A little while ago, I found myself asking this question: why does everyone say you need to love yourself when we are so messed up with badness. I talked about this a bit in my discussion of forgiveness (of self and others) here - http://aragtaghooligan.blogspot.ca/2013/06/for-times-when-you-sort-of-kind-of-just.html but I have something else to say on this subject. I think that sometimes we fall into the trap of hating something about ourselves that isn't even bad. I think we sometimes hate things about ourselves because we see that other people don't like these aspects of our personality and we assume that this means that it is something really bad. HOWEVER, in the past seven weeks of living in Quebec and working at camp and discussing all sorts of complicated things with my friends I have come to the following conclusion: It is possible for two people to be different in such a way that their differences cause them difficulties with communication without the differences being rooted in a sin or bad trait in either person. If you went to kindergarten ever (and even if you're like me and you never did go to kindergarten) you probably know that people are like snowflakes. We are all different. The world would be boring if we were all the same and it would also be difficult to get anything done because everyone would have the same skills and some skills would be had by no one. It takes all types of people to make things work. Or in Christianese: we are the body of Christ and we all have different God given gifts. We pretty much all know this, but it is hard to actually walk it out. Part of the difficulty is to work with people we don't understand and who may annoy us, but for me I also find it difficult not to hate myself when I know that other people have difficulties with my personality. It is good to try to understand how others work, it is good to try to respect others by not doing what annoys them if you know that something you often do annoys them, but I don't think it is necessary to go and hate yourself because you aren't like them. It truly is ok to be different.