{Dis}comfort Zone

"I feel inadequate."

"I don't know if I can really do this..."

"Why would you choose me to teach this when..."

"How am I supposed to do that if you say that I can't even do this?"

"I have lost all of my confidence in this job"

"I'm obeying God, but I'm not ready to be happy about it yet."

These are all things that I have been caught saying this week as my ministry began to take a turn in a different direction.  I haven't been trusting that God will figure out the details of this ministry.  Details that he genuinely cares about.  Details for which he has already orchestrated a plan.

I have officially accepted the Elementary Music teacher position at the SCCLC.  I will be doing this job on top of teaching Reading to the 7th and 8th grade classes.  Before I left, I was worried that I would have too much time on my hands.  Now I feel like I don't have enough time in my day to completely cross off the things on my endless lists.

When I accepted the job to be the Elementary Music teacher, I couldn't help but think.."what?  I can't even play the piano! I might be able to sing..but that's not enough!" I still have the fear that my students will see right through me when I attempt to teach a subject that I'm not even trained for.  I feel like my students are going to walk all over me because I don't even know where to begin as far as managing classes from Kindergarten to 6th grade.  I have enough trouble dealing with middle schoolers.

I have all of these fears that keep creeping in on me, and my confidence as a teacher is low at best.  I don't believe that I have started this school year off with a good foot forward because I came in late, and I also had a few hard meetings to sit through that shattered my confidence as well.

But I'm realizing that this is not me.  This is not the way that Rachel Gentry does life.  I have always been a "low self esteem, high confience" kind of person.  I've known those weaknesses of myself for a while.  It took coming to Santa Cruz, Bolivia to realize that I am not adequate or qualified.

Tomorrow marks the first day of actually stepping out of my comfort zone.  Up until this point I have been doing things that I am confident in even if I'm not incredible or the best at it, I at least have KNOWN what I am doing.  God is officially telling me to step completely out of my comfort zone and allow HIM to do the work.

PLEASE be praying for me this week as I start this new journey in my {dis}comfort zone.

• Pray for my poor new Elementary students as they wait patiently for me to get used to them & learn their names.
• Pray for time management on my end, so that I can get all of my prep & planning finished
• Pray for the administration as they patiently answer my countless questions
• Pray for myself and my roommate as we continue to grow together and learn about eachother
• Pray that I will lay my burdens down at Jesus' feet instead of having this fear of inadequacy
• Pray for God to continue to show himself across the SCCLC & that His love will permeate through all of us.

Thanks for you constant support, prayers, and encouragement!

Rachel