"It's not enough, but it's something..."

During CPE we adopted our motto from the above quote from John Goldingay, a Fuller professor. As we reflected on our interactions with patients and families in group time we were frequently struck by the enormous task that we were doing as chaplains. We were entering in people's lives in their darkest and most stressful moments. In group time we would evaluate how past patient visits had gone, critiquing ourselves and each other, identifying times that went really well and other times that well, really bombed. In feeling the anxiety and pressure surrounding our job, we kept coming back to, "it's not enough, but it's something." For me, I found much comfort in knowing that I was not alone in ministering to patient's but that God was right their with me, was there before I was there, and continued to be there once I was long away from the hospital room. The pressure and anxiety was relieved, that in my human mind that what I did was the "end all be all" really was not. No matter how great of a chaplain I was, I could not make the pain and suffering go away from that person's life, what I did was "not enough but it was something..." I was a tiny little part of the magnificantly huge plan that God had in that person's life.

Somehow over the last quarter I had forgotten about that quote, that lesson that I learned last quarter. Each worship leadership task I was given this quarter caused me worries and nervousness. Performance anxiety some might call it... And now as I'm preparing my sermon to preach in two weeks that anxiety has reached it's peak. But as I sat in the library this morning that phrase came back into my head... "it's not enough, but it's something." Preaching God's word is an awe inspiring and terrifying task but I was reminded today that whatever I say on the 30th... it won't be enough, but it will be something, and that's all I can do.