The whole pain thing...

Pain is an interesting thing, isn't it? There are so many forms of it, so many vastly different causes of it, and so many ways that we react to it.

This week I was in pain. Some of it physical, some emotional, but all frustrating.

With the weather constantly changing here, from almost spring back to winter awfulness, joints get confused and stop working. I'm not 30 yet, there isn't supposed to be weather-related joint pain, right? Wrong. But physical pain I can handle. It is frustrating, but you learn to adapt and cope and do what you have to do to get things done.

It's the heart pain that gets me.

I'm still processing, trying to figure out what exactly is going on and why I'm hurting, but I am.

Maybe it's because I feel like I'm totally unprepared to do what I do each day, and definitely not smart enough or wise enough or old enough to help my students figure out what they are meant to be doing and how they need to change some of their habits now.  I'm not perfect...and they're not perfect...and sometimes I feel like there is just this unperfect mess of us trying to figure it out.

But I love my job, and I am learning and growing and figuring it out...day by day and prayer by prayer.

And then there is friendship pain. The pain that comes with us all being human and messing up and inadvertently causing pain to people that we love. For some reason this pain gets me on a level that I can't put words to. The thought of being the source of someone's pain broke me this week.  It was the straw on top of an already precariously stacked Jenga pile that came crashing down.

And you know how competitive I can be. The reality of the pieces falling down around me while I sit in shock that I've failed...that's the pain that may be the worst of them all because there's a shock factor that goes with it.

Sometimes I wish I could do it on my own. That I could retreat to some oasis and just get it done and not need anyone or have anyone that needs me. But alas, community and relationships are key (especially to an extrovert like me).

And so I'm working on sorting out the pieces, waking up each morning and remembering to breathe in and out.

It's been a rough week, but a new one is right around the bend.

So if you've been having a rough week, too, I'm with you.  We'll make it out of this.  We can get through it.

And if you don't know how, maybe a good start would be watching this panda video :)