August 10, 2014
Scripture: Romans 12:3-16
Today I want to reflect on something that has been a struggle in my faith journey. This is a teaching in the 8th-Day genre of sharing about one’s faith story. It’s a message for those of us who have struggled with self-confidence, of recognizing what we can contribute to our faith community and other communities that we are a part of.
What I’d like to share about is how I am too harsh with myself. I suffer from too much self judgment and it sometimes stops me from living a Christian life to its fullest. I’ve increasingly become aware of how being too hard on myself can be an obstacle in my job as a teacher in a DC high school and, perhaps, in other leadership roles.
I’m sometimes harder on myself than God is with me.
First, I’d like to share an old-fashioned testimony about grace. I was raised in the Mennonite church and baptized when I was 16. But I point to an experience I had when I was 25 as the point when being a Christian really was my own decision.
When I was 25 I lived with my parents for a year and I took classes to get my teaching certification. I went to church with my parents but I didn’t keep it a secret I was questioning the existence of God. The pastor and his wife were in their early 40s and really cool people and became my closest friends that year. They didn’t pressure me to believe in God. They invited me over a lot to hang out with their family. Their love helped me not to abandon the question of whether God existed or not. My parents didn’t pressure me either to take a stand on Christianity.
In the winter I was in a car accident. I put on the brakes too late at a four-way stop and slid into someone else’s car and totaled it. I also smashed the front of my parents’ car, but my Dad was able to fix it. No one was hurt, but I couldn’t forgive myself for the accident. I cried and cried. I went to bed and I didn’t want to leave. My mother came into my room and hugged me and told me that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself because no one was hurt and that was the most important thing.
Still, I couldn’t forgive myself or get out of depression. But then I had a really strange experience. I felt that some force beyond me touched me physically. I had a sensation as if my innards were all twisted and tight and suddenly, everything became untwisted and I no longer felt stressed out. I felt peaceful. I attributed the feeling of release as intervention from God. I felt that God had forgiven me for making a mistake, so that I could also forgive myself. From that point on, I identified myself as a Christian.
Now let’s fast forward to 25 years later where I am now. I am more self-confident than I was when I was 25 years old but my tendency to be hard on myself is a recurring theme. It hasn’t gone away. What this means is that because of being overly judgmental about myself, I can be the one to block opportunities to use my gifts fully.
I’ve been reflecting on this problem this summer. As soon as school was out I participated in a weekend silent retreat at Dayspring and the issue of my own self-judgment arose.
Where does this self-judgment come from? I blame in part my Mennonite background, where humility is a very strong value. In Romans 12, the Bible says: “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” Particularly in Mennonite culture and perhaps in the broader American society, women are taught to be modest about their talents and not toot their own horn very loudly. When I was growing up, my parents didn’t brag about themselves and they didn’t give me a lot of direct praise. But my tendency to focus on my weaknesses rather than my strengths may also just be part of my personality. Of my three siblings, I seem to be the one who has the biggest issues with self-judgment. My sister, who knows me quite well, often tells me “You are too hard on yourself.”
Recently, in a birthday card, my mother wrote me a note in which she acknowledged the Mennonite value of humility but put her own spin on it. “Even if we are to be humble people, we can recognize the gifts of our children.” She wrote: “We can be proud of your good skills as a journalist and now teacher with good ideas as you relate to students and you are a good communicator.”
I think my mother has grown in her faith to give equal weight to humility and another part of the scripture passage in Romans. It says: “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage, if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.”
The list in Romans is quite long and I can find my gifts on that list. I have the gifts of teaching and encouraging. And it’s meant to be a list of examples, not a definitive list. So there are many other gifts that we might add, such as those we have among our people here at 8th day. As I mention these gifts, you can likely think of people whom they match: the gift of interior design, of leading joyful singing, of playing jazz on the piano, of dancing, of drawing people’s attention to wider political issues in the world, of expressing strong emotion (such as love), of speaking in a frank way about issues that are sometimes hard to talk about, such as racism.
What happens sometimes in the church or in other communities is certain gifts are valued more than others and some of the other kinds of gifts take more teasing out. They may be drawn out with a prayerful, supportive community. But they also come out as we recognize God’s grace individually and are then able to share our gifts.
How does self-judgment play out? Recently, as a high school teacher, self-judgment has sometimes stopped me from being a leader in the school, from feeling that I have something to share with my other teaching colleagues. This is the area where I’m asking God to help me, so that I can celebrate my accomplishments in the classroom and advocate more strongly for the students I teach. All of my students are immigrants and they sometimes don’t get much attention in the school.
What’s been really hard for me is dealing with the district’s teacher evaluation system. It was designed as a way to get rid of ineffective teachers, something that I support. But from my point of view, the evaluation system tends to stress certain aspects of teaching, such as carrying out procedures, giving a lively performance, and being highly organized, that aren’t a great fit for me.
I tried not to let the evaluation system get to me, but still I made myself miserable by internalizing the “judgment” of the evaluators after each visit. One evaluator said I didn’t teach enough vocabulary words in the lesson. Another said that my transitions between activities were rocky. Others said that I didn’t ask deep enough questions of my students.
The evaluators always said my classroom was a place where students seemed to be very comfortable learning and asking questions. That is a point that I should celebrate. But I still tended to get stressed out by the criticisms they made. On my bad days, I question if I really have the gift to be a teacher.
But then something unexpected happened at the end of last school year. I got the surprising news that the District had added up my evaluation scores for the year and for the first time this school year, I actually got the highest ranking of “highly effective.” Then I had to wonder, why did I give myself such grief?
So how am I trying to move ahead in experiencing God’s grace and not stymieing joy with self-judgment? When people affirm my gifts, I try to savor their observations. Sometimes I save affirming notes, such as the one my mother wrote me on my birthday, and read them later to encourage myself if I get too judgmental. I told one person here at 8th day about the fact that I’d finally gotten the “highly effective” ranking at school, and she took me out to lunch to celebrate. I found that affirming.
Recently, my three siblings and I helped my parents to move from their community of 50 years in a small town near Pittsburgh, Pa., across the state to live in an apartment near where my sister lives in Lancaster, Pa. The big move took all of the skills that we had. Two of my siblings spent hours sorting through stuff and finding “good homes” for it or discarding it. My role was to talk with my parents, particularly my Dad, about their feelings about the move. My siblings told me I shouldn’t feel guilty about not helping them more with the stuff and praised me for doing a good job keeping Dad company and supporting him emotionally.
Prayer and sensing God’s presence has helped me. Also I find that spending time with friends, family, or in community with others is affirming and helps me to get a more realistic view of myself, rather than focusing too much on my weaknesses.
I recognize that I’m not alone in sometimes blocking God’s grace by being so self- critical. I encounter students who have difficulty sticking with a task such as writing because they are too self-critical and don’t believe in themselves.
This summer I received a post card of Mount St. Helen’s in the mail with a poem by Denise Levertov. It was sent anonymously to me by someone who was on the recent silent retreat with me at Dayspring. The poem was one long sentence about grace. I have no idea if the retreatant picked up on something I shared with the group and sent it only to me or if she sent the poem to everyone who was at the retreat. I’ll read it for you:
As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain free fall and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.
I’d like to end with a prayer that I will read two times. I invite you to pray silently along with me.
Dear God: I release to you feelings of self-judgment or self-criticism that keep me from using my gifts and experiencing your grace.