I'll be glad

I'll be glad when this week is over, in the sense of it being Sunday afternoon or even next Monday morning.

I think I mentioned I'm supposed to be in charge of the service on Sunday, in the absence of the person who usually does it*

(*And it occurred to me the other day that we really have gone back to our Disciples of Christ roots; we do not currently have a full-time pastor but have people filling the pulpit. Oh, the person who ordinarily does it is quite good and it sounds like he's willing to do so through at least Christmas, it's just....I worry what happens if a member dies, will those of us in positions of something-like-authority be the ones who conduct the funeral? And what are the rules/laws about that sort of thing? I mean, I get that I couldn't marry a couple, being neither ordained nor a judge nor the captain of a ship at sea, but what about funerals.....not that I would want to be involved with helping to conduct one.)

The sermon is pretty much written though I think I need to add some more thoughts on the idea of "lostness" and "being found" (the Scripture is Luke 15, which is the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son (better known as the Prodigal Son)). And I need to make sure I have an invitation to the Table typed out, and a benediction, and even a prayer, so I don't find myself doing an impression of a deer in car headlights up there.

I mean, I don't usually need notes for public speaking, but I always HAVE them, just in case of an onset of fear. (The prayer, I am waiting for Saturday to do that, in case anything big and bad happens that needs to be mentioned.....and 2016, you know what? You better NOT. You just better NOT. You are ON NOTICE, 2016. As it is Sept. 11 I will make some commemoration of the day, but I want to be sure there's not going to have been a flood/earthquake/attack/whatever somewhere)

But yeah. I've started doing the waking-up-at-2-am thing. It starts innocently enough, my brain going, "Oh, hey, you better not forget to have an offering meditation typed up. And the prayer, you will need that....and you probably better go down on Saturday and practice the sermon just to be sure" and then from there it goes to

"the sermon is too short and it's not very innovative or interesting and no one is going to learn stuff from it and who do you think you are anyway, doing this? You're not qualified."

And so then I lie there and feel bad for a while and try to tell my brain that I was asked to do this and I wouldn't have been asked if I couldn't do it and I am probably qualified seeing as I am Head Elder and there isn't really anyone MORE qualified who is stepping up to do this and....

And I remind myself: other people see stuff in you you don't see in yourself so you need to trust them.

But I'll still be glad when it's all over and I sincerely hope we get someone on a permanent basis soon so I don't have to do this again.

And I also remind myself of something several people have commented on, which is wise and true: you see your "insides" all the time (in the sense of: what's going on inside your brain). You only see other people's "outsides" and they only see YOUR "outside" so you have a skewed perspective where you think of yourself as this giant mess-up and Failure As An Adult but there are probably lots of other people who think that of themselves and who *probably* look at you and think you have it mostly together, so....

But yeah. (And funny mental picture: someone is looking at me sitting thinking somewhere and they are thinking, "she is probably contemplating something deep and philosophical or maybe she is planning some kind of new innovative research" and I am actually sitting there going "Pony pony pony pony pony pony what would Fluttershy look like if she had Pinkie Pie's hair and how would Luna and Celestia's manes look if they were actually really real and not cartoon characters...")

and it's probably good people can't read my thoughts....