EEYORE TRIES TO BE REAL

I felt like quitting today. I had an altercation at work in which I was unable to defend myself, and unable to reason.

These are the heavinesses I long for someone to talk to about. But I simply annoy people when I’m like this. I aim to be Piglet, I long to be Tigger, and I end up as Eeyore; my guess is that most people are fed up with Eeyore.

There was nothing I could do. In the end I just gazed at the desk, letting my eyes droop as I processed the problem, and hoped for some deus ex machina to rescue me. No such thing appeared. I resigned myself to hapless silence.

What was it? Was my pride being dented and I didn’t like it? That was an unpleasant enough thought without being attacked. Was I simply not listening, as the person was suggesting? Or was my tiny brain not latching onto what they believed to be the ‘simplest’ concept?

I’m old-fashioned I know, but the ‘simplest’ concepts ought to be the easiest to describe. As Confucius once said, “nothing is taught until it has been learned.” The onus to ‘get it’ was not on me today! Yet there I was, feeling thicker than a tapioca sandwich.

I went home at the usual time, made a very peculiar dinner out of what I had hanging around in the fridge, and ate it in the coldness of my room and the blue  glow of my iPad.

You know, perhaps the worst thing is that there is still a voice in my head that says: oh you mustn’t write about this, where everyone can see it! Guard your heart, bottle it up, man up! Show no weakness. How can you be in ministry when everyone can see these massive flaws? What will they think?

But I want to be a real person. The truth is I’m not super-holy; I’m not strong enough to keep it, or suppress it. I am rubbish at hiding my emotions. My face is a giveaway. I can’t help it. If that disqualifies me from being a worship leader or a minister or a pastor (of sorts), then I’m probably never going to be fit for the job.

I’m not quitting. I have to hope that I can find a way to balance the tension in me, particularly at work where the rules are so different. I do still believe that love is the only response that can deflate an all-out attack, so I quickly resolved myself to pray for my accuser. But that isn’t me being super-holy, that’s just me doing what I think Jesus would. And worship-leader or not, I suppose it has to start right there, in obedience and discipleship.

It isn’t easy to do though, particularly when you feel so much like Eeyore.