When Life Hands You Lemons...

Make brewed, black, barako coffee and sit back as the world wonders how you did it. get right back to work after a quick shower at 2 AM, because you can't afford an extra minute of sleep.

Life is pretty tough in teaching. Especially in teaching in a public university. I'm not sure how it goes in other universities. I would like to think that somewhere out there, there is an institution that (1) has the most conducive teacher-student proportion, (2) has all their administrative concerns taken care of by an entirely different set of employees, and (3) has its curriculum and academic activities all properly ironed out all throughout the year, so that all their teachers are left with only the original tasks they are supposed to deal with--teaching a handful of kids, one or two course preps, and focusing on how to be a positive influence to the lives of these souls.

But there's never a perfect school in this fallen, crooked world. Every ideal institution has its drawbacks in one or more of those areas, probably in other aspects I have not even mentioned too. I am only in my second year of teaching, and I have come to realize that and the great, seemingly endless demands of my chosen vocation. It does take a good juggler to do well in the teaching field.

And I am not complaining about this.

I love what I do. I love what teaching, and all the concerns involved, teaches me. I love how I get to know Christ better in a thousand ways whilst I tread this path. I love how the fruit of the Spirit is literally being extracted out of my selfish, self-seeking, arrogant, impatient self as I get to encounter hundreds of souls every day who need to know of God's grace, and probably whose only way of knowing Him is through their marred, extremely flawed, imperfect teacher/colleague. Teaching, in ways more than one, has drastically taught me some of the most important lessons I have learned in my walk in the faith. This job has grown me so much. And after contemplating a lot, today I can say that I don't think I will leave this profession any time soon.

But it doesn't get easier.

Life sure doesn't say, "Oh, wait, Bekah has done a relatively good job adjusting to all the load given to her. Let's give her a break." On the contrary, I really, really, really felt this semester that life seems to mock my exhaustion. "Bekah is tired. Let's add more lemons for her to juggle with all the others." And life kept throwing. And throwing. And throwing.

From lemons of legitimate school/adulting work of checking researches, establishing and co-advising a language student organization, writing your own research yourself (because, yes, university); to constructing exams, checking outputs, and trying to figure out which student is failing. To the lemons of trying to build a positive influence to the people I daily interact with--dealing with students, dealing with students who are potentially bullied, dealing with students who are evidently bullies, dealing with depressed students, feeling entitled-to-the-world students, students who challenge you, dealing generally with imperfect, sinful, totally depraved, desperately wicked souls. Being totally depraved myself, I struggle to juggle this pretty tough set of lemons.

And then there are those lemons of interpersonal relationships. Dealing with other people. With friendships to "maintain" (yes, readers, this is a struggle, contrary to popular belief). With relationships to keep intact and to nurture and seek growth for. With new acquaintances to invest in and so to cause growth and development. With colleagues who stress me out because they do not fit well in my comfort zone, but also who need to know God's love and saving grace and who would probably have no other chance of knowing that except through seeing the life of one saved by grace.

With familial interactions and how I have to invest continually on these so our family would keep growing in love for one another. With the task I've placed upon myself to take care of my parents and to make them feel all the love they deserve to feel--which includes a lot of time, something I do not have so much of.

To the more difficult lemons thrown at church. Lemons of having more and more visitors to entertain every Sunday, to trying to make them stay and feel welcome still as I leave them for a while to go to another group of visitors, to trying to still cultivate a healthier relationship among those who are actually members of SGC. To reaching out to childhood friends who I perceive to be having struggles of their own. To working so hard to ever, consistently, exponentially, expand my heart for love towards all these people--people of God, people who hear of God, people who seek God, people who have come to know a lot about God but never quite coming to know Him personally.

To the toughest, biggest lemons of all those in the crate being thrown at me--the lemons of my own struggles. To the lemons of emotions. Of internal wounds that still haven't healed completely. Of new slashes and pricks and bruises and blows on a regular basis. Of lemons of uncertainties, countless fears, doubts. The ever-present thought of maybe I'm doing all these things wrong.

In all these juggling and getting back up after falling, I find my strength to continually fade. Not just emotionally. Even my body, I can feel it wasting away. And the more I look at myself, the more I realize that my hands are too shortened, my vision too shortsighted, and I am too limited. I feel like I can't reach out to my friends enough. I can't extend my hand to those new people at church long enough for them to feel like I want them there to stay. I can't devote enough time for my family to make them feel important and loved. I can't help out my church enough for them to be encouraged and edified. I can't exert enough effort to really, effectively help those of the Body who I perceive to be in need. And I can't seem to expand my heart large enough for me to tirelessly, consistently, relentlessly love all the people placed by God in my life.

And still life keeps throwing. The greatest of these lemons is the paralyzing fear of maybe not ever living enough for the Savior. Almost every morning, I am bombarded by fiery darts, by thoughts of I am not living enough for my Lord and King. And I think this is the most painful lemon that I have to juggle. I just don't want to look back at my life after living many years and say, "I wish I served Jesus more." And so I keep trying. And so I keep going to and fro, one person to the other. One task to the next. But even as I try, I instantaneously feel that I'm spreading myself too thin. That maybe I'm trying to be someone I could never be for the people around me.

More lost than ever in this sea of life complexities, I find myself praying the prayer of King Solomon. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind (1 Kings 3:9a). Because, really, in these tempestuous waves of the unknown, how do you really know what to do? I honestly feel as lost as I've felt the first time I stepped into this university.

For every look at myself, I feel my strength wasting away. Because I'm never meant to use my own strength to accomplish these tasks to begin with.

And this is what I would most certainly forget, had I been handed lemons less than the crate that I have to juggle now. I would've relied on my own capabilities. My time management skills. My I've-got-it-all-ironed-out, somewhat neat-freak tendencies. My properly-distributing-and-planning-tasks skills.

But God is breaking me again and breaking down my self-perception.

He is proving to me that I cannot survive on my own, because as basic as it sounds, my heart still so easily forgets. As plain as this doctrine may sound, my mind still tends to seek out to "get things done" by my own gritting and grinding. I still tend to act as if I can accomplish all my task should I just be disciplining myself enough. I keep forgetting that I can never be enough by my own efforts, no matter how grand those gestures are.

And in this season of my life, God really is bringing me down to my knees, hands clasped in prayer, as He makes me realize that it must be Him who moves in my life, and that I must rely on His bidding for my every step. 

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

If God's grace is sufficient for my salvation, it is even all the more sufficient for my sanctification. For my growth. For my day-by-day walk. For my daily juggling. If God's grace is the one that led me safe thus far (and it truly is), then it is also only grace that will lead me safe back Home. And it is the grace of Jesus that will lead me all the way.

When life hands you lemons, make a black, brewed, barako coffee. Go to work. Give it your best, your hardest grit and grind. But never, ever, set aside grace.