First day of school, part XXI

  For the 21st time, this is my first day of school.
  You'd think, with that much practice, that this would be easier.  You'd think I'd be ready and enthusiastic and eager to begin a new phase.
  Instead, I can't help but question whether I've gone completely out of mind and taken a large step off the deep end.  I've spent most of today trying to figure out exactly how I ended up here, why we moved 7 hours north to embark on a 2 year journey of new beginnings.
  I think what it comes down to is that I, like so many others, get trapped into thinking that I'm not good enough.  I look to all these external places to get my validation, when ultimately some part of me knows that it doesn't matter how many other people affirm me, that it doesn't matter if Ohio State thinks this is the right decision--what matters is whether I'm willing to look in the mirror and accept that God loves me no matter what.  Until I'm ready and willing to accept God's perspective on things, I'm going to struggle to find other people and other things that will tell me that I'm good enough.  Until I accept God's grace as the final word on my status, I'll wrestle with the sense that I'm a fraud that doesn't belong.
  It's tough.  I was comfortable in the pastorate.  I was pretty good at it, and growing at some of the not-so-good parts.  I loved the people I served dearly.
  But I do believe that God was calling us into the next step, and I desperately want to give Rachel the option of working part-time so she can spend more time and energy with the kids.  I believe that we are being faithful (although I also recognize that just because I believe that doesn't always make it right).
  Change is simply difficult, and some part of the psyche always resists change.  On the evening before my next first day of school, I am nervous about new places and new people and a whole world of unknowns.
  So I breathe in, and I breathe out, and I remind myself that God will use this, that his sovereign will can lead us into a new day, where a new pattern of life might help us live and grow in discipleship in a new way.  I am a child of God, and nothing that happens tomorrow or over the next 2, 20 and 200 years will change that.

  And when people ask me what I did on the eve of 21st grade, I'll tell them that I made some pretty impressive looking muffins: