Expectations.
Perceptions.
Judgement.
Criticism.
Other people’s opinions matter, and I won’t pretend that they don’t. The important thing is who you’re listening to, and how much you are allowing their words to dictate your life.
There is a common (mis)perception that every maternally inclined woman who attends church would also like to teach Sunday School. I have, in no less than four churches, ‘served’ in this capacity. Do you know what bondage looks like? It looks like a mother who has harangued her own three kids into getting to church early, fakes a highly caffeinated smile on arrival, wishes for the 90 minutes she is ‘loving’ on the sunday school kids that their parents would just learn to discipline them already, and leaves church feeling angry and frustrated. Not exactly the portrait of Christ.
I am not proud of it, but regardless of the fact that I have loved three kids into being and taught them about Jesus, I am not fit to be teaching other people’s children. I have felt guilty about this perceived shortcoming for years, until I finally stirred up the courage to tell the leaders at church that this isn’t where I serve best.
Their response was this ‘Faith is a journey, not a guilt trip.’
Did you hear that? Those words breathe life. They breathe freedom.
Freedom, like faith, is a journey. Guilt, fear of failure, and people pleasing look like detours but are really dead ends. They lead nowhere. Take the time to listen to the people who speak life and freedom to you. And for those that don’t, reject their words and replace them with the truth.
