When you look in the mirror, what do you focus on?
Besides checking to make sure that my hair doesn't look ridiculous, I tend to focus on any physical changes I see. I've recently noticed that I have little wrinkles on the sides of my eyes when I smile that I don't think I've always had. I check to see if my acne is worse than it was the day before. I make a note of how yellow my teeth are. I determine whether or not my eyebrows need to be plucked again. Recently, I've started looking for any white hairs that have dared to emerge. And during my transphormation challenge, I took note of changes in certain muscle areas (I've been on a bit of a hiatus from exercising, unfortunately, so I've put looking at those particular changes on pause).
But sometimes when I look in the mirror, I do some self-reflection.
The current series that our youth group is studying is entitled "Authentic - Be true to your true self". We've been discussing our identities at length and how we determine our true selves versus the versions of ourselves that we present to the world. Two Thursdays ago in particular, the topic of reflections came up and how important it is to take time to reflect on the changes that occur in our lives, whether those changes have occurred in the past week, the past month, the past year, or in the past five years. That idea resonated with me a lot, because I realized I don't tend to participate in self-reflections often or intentionally. So for the past two weeks, I decided to do just that, and I decided to specifically take into account the changes that have occurred over the past year.
I'm going to start with my career, because that aspect of my life has been particularly exciting as of late. A year ago, I had one regular student. I first signed up with Wyzant last September, and I met with one student at the end of September for what would end up being a one-time session. Later, in the middle of October, I acquired my first student, who would become a regular for the remainder of the school year. Today, I tutor full-time and have ten regular students and seven students that I proofread for, not to mention one-time students who need help preparing for an exam or the students that I meet less regularly, like a couple times a month. Isn't that remarkable?? And throughout the mere beginnings of my small tutoring business, I tried to reach out to as many students as possible, and I was very hesitant to turn students away. Now, I can afford to be more selective of which students I take on (just to clarify, I only tend to turn students away for things that might become a hassle in the future, such as students who try to negotiate my hourly rate or students in a different time zone). Currently, 90% of my students are online, which is absolutely wonderful. I love the flexibility of tutoring, I love that my students are between the ages of four and thirty-two, and I love that I'm still making an impact even though I might not be in the classroom anymore. Things are going really well on that front!
The whole getting married thing is another big change as well, although I've discussed that more than anything else. Peter and I have almost been married for five months now (I know, we're babies lol), and we continue to tell people how much we love being married. It's not always easy because we're human and we're full of flaws, and as compatible as we are, we're still different people, but boy, I'm still very much crazy about him. We're slowly making our house a home too. My home office is still in the works, but now I have my desk in here, so I can tutor in here instead of at the dining table, which is progress! We're still hoping to finish cleaning this room out and organizing the basement as quickly as we can, because we both agreed we'd consider getting a cat as our reward for doing so hehe. I was never a cat person, and I think I'll always be a dog person, but a dog is too much of a commitment for us at this point, and I'd rather have a furry friend around than not have one at all!
Then there's my relationship with God. That has certainly changed in the last year. It's been a year since we started attending our current church, and the fact that I ended up at this church is enough to show a shift in my relationship with God. I never liked the idea of going to a small church. I preferred the idea of a contemporary, medium-sized church (maybe a couple hundred members) with a healthy population of young adults, but one that was evenly distributed among families and older folks rather than a church that's solely comprised of young adults. I liked the idea of having several small groups to choose from and several options for where to serve. When Peter and I first stepped into Beacon Hill, I immediately noticed the lack of young people. The average person was in his or her fifties. There were maybe ten students and less than five young adults. And in total, there were maybe sixty people in attendance. The service felt very old-fashioned, and reminded me too much of my parents' church, which I left as soon as I could manage. I thought there was no way this was the place for us. However, one of the elders (who quickly became a mentor and a good friend to us) came up to us after the service and invited us to hear him preach the following week. Peter thought we should go. I reluctantly agreed. During the week leading up to that Sunday, I started to pray, asking God to soften my heart if Beacon Hill was where He wanted us to be. That Sunday, we found out that the senior pastor the church had finally found after a year of being without one had changed his mind about coming. Just like that. Ironically, it was in that moment that I was convicted - I knew we were supposed to stay. And boy, has God done incredible things in my life since I joined that church. I've talked about how desperately I wanted to make friends in Connecticut, and now I have several that I've made through church. The thing I've come to love about our small church is the fact that everyone knows us. It's actually a wonderful thing, because being the introvert I am, my tendency is to hide when I'm surrounded by people I don't know, but the people at Beacon Hill have never allowed that to be an option for me, and for that, I'm grateful. I started singing again by being on the worship team, which has been wonderful. And I've discovered that I can work with high school students now that I've become a youth leader. They're really not all that bad lol. There have been other positive changes in my walk with God, but I'll get to those in a later post. ; )
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