Bench Warmer

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I am back in time on my high school basketball court.  I can hear the crowd bellowing, particularly the student section that’s right beneath our basket; I can see my friend, wearing his “Hot-shooter 32, I heart Kate” t-shirt; I can smell the wet socks when our point guard Danielle gets hurt and has to take off her shoes to get her ankle wrapped, again; I can taste the salty sweat that drips down my forehead during a free throw; I can feel the high fives and butt slaps as the throttle of competition rises  within me.  It’s a different world.  For two hours of my life, everything disappears and nothing matters except putting that “brown thing in the round thing,” as our team once quoted.  We take our place on the battlefield, the enemies in their rival maroon and yellow, daring to take their stand against our white and blood red school colors.  It’s not “just a game,” as my mom would say to me after a loss, and I would respond (in immature teenage fashion) by slamming my bedroom door to shut myself away for the night.  Just a game? No, this is war.  The real enemy isn’t the opposing team, the real battle isn’t the scoreboard.   The battle is to make them proud, the enemy is the war of emotions within me.  I have to learn to tame the beast, to learn through defeat. 

In times like these, now ten years later, I am thankful for those moments, those memories that still teach me so much.  As the saying goes, it’s not about how many times we fail but how many times we got back on that battlefield.  Even if we shouldn’t.  In basketball, I hated the bench; I hated rest.  There was no rest during a game, no relaxing during battle.  I would endure the rest only when Coach forced me to come off the court, but never of my own choice.  What a shame it would be if I gave up.  At least that’s how I saw it then.  Weaknesses must be mastered, and the court was the perfect place to do that—to learn how to battle my emotions, fix myself, and get stronger, better.  Who has the desire to rest when glory is on the horizon?

I laugh now at myself.  I laugh looking back at my life in general and see how much of a Martha I really am—always doing, never resting.  Even in college, I hated naps (I still do), because it felt like a waste of time (that and I never liked the way I felt when I finally woke up).  But there comes a point when a limit is a real limit.  We get taught in sports to push and go beyond.  In cross country, I learned how to beat my body into submission to my mind’s will to keep going, keep running, don’t give up.  But there is always a limit.  The thing about rest is that rest can help us to stretch our limits, to prevent us from breaking along the way.  And then again, sometimes breaks are the best medicine for us.

This life I live now has been non-stop for the past year and a half. The ministry has consumed me.  I’m on the basketball battlefield and refuse to get off.  Only when Coach pulls me out do I realize how much I desperately need rest.  And oh, Lord, you know.  No matter what pep talks I give myself, He knows…He knows how much I desperately need that bench.

For lack of ability to explain in detail what has been happening the past few months, I simply confess God is putting me on the bench for a while.  And somehow, I’m relieved.  Starting in January, my life will be drastically different, though I’m not sure how.  I have no idea what it will look like, except that I will no longer be the house mother for my fifteen girls.  (I will still be serving them but I will be finding my own place to live.)  As a ministry, we are separating from our partner ministry MYC that owns the home and has opted to keep running the home and keep all the girls.  From an organizational standpoint and with the decree of social welfare system, we must submit and let MYC take over in order to grow our own organization.  When I prayed and prayed about what do to, God kept reminding me, “The Lord your God will fight for you, you need only be still” (Ex 14:14).  Yes, “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10).  God made two things clear to me: 1) our ministry has become so thin because we are trying to cover too much.  We have the girls home, Mangwaneni ministry, street nights, and the workshop; all supposed to be run by just one full-time staff (me) and our year-long volunteers?  As Rachel put it, “We don’t want to be a mile wide and only an inch deep.”  Because the needs are SO tremendously great here, it is difficult NOT to try to help.  But we have definitely been spread thin.  So, as a ministry, it is clear that it’s time to pull back, call a timeout, re-strategize, and reconnect with God’s intent for who to help and how.  As the executive director, this actually thrills me.  I’m so excited to see where God will take us because there are SO many different options and directions!  I know He will grow us tremendously to be a mile deep and a mile wide.  But as just me, Kate, the mother figure in these kids’ lives, well, that’s a different story—one I’ve been avoiding dealing with at the current moment, because it just may destroy me.  2) I need to find me.  I have never faced such a battle as I have the last four months.  I thought things would get easier, but the battles have increased.  Face to face with demons, praying endlessly for the freedom of some of my girls, frustrated and confused, empty and bitter.  Angry.  Angry that I can’t be the mom I’m supposed to be (I didn’t realize how motherhood could bring out the worst in us!) or the friend I want to be or the director I need to be. Angry that I keep shooting but the ball won’t go in the basket. 

In a couple weeks I will be going home for the month of December.  It’s my extended timeout.  Time to catch my breath and get Kate back.  Somewhere along the way, I feel I’ve lost her.  Surrounded by so much heartache and disappointment 24/7, she couldn’t survive like I thought she could.  I can do it, I said.  I’m fine, I said.  It will pass, I said.  Yet, now I see how pride is so sneaky.  Pride has put a veil over my eyes.  Pride has prevented me from keeping Kate.  So I’m letting go of pride.  I’m admitting personal defeat by clinging to spiritual victory.  For, He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world.  “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” (2 Cor 12:9)

For the first time in my life, I think I’m really looking forward to that bench.  During my prayer time the other week, I asked God what He wanted from me, what I was supposed to do this next year.  His response: “Come and enjoy life with me.”  I don’t know what that means, but I know I’m going to love being a bench-warmer.   

“Therefore that I might not become too elated, a thorn in my flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.  Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.  Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”  -2 Corinthians 12:7-10