Sunday School Teachers Anonymous

Meeting last week.

Kim began her sharing that nearly had me in tears.


She spoke of how she tried so hard with her girls, desiring so much that she help them. But ultimately, God was teaching her to let go and let him change them, because she could not.

Dawn shared the same thing with different words- saying how she no longer makes herself feel guilty for not meeting her girls every other week.

Yes we do desire the best for the youth in our charge, but we're not the ones who can change a person's heart.

Kinda funny how all our leaders were all saying how they are doing less work now, and our pastor was happy to hear that.


I was so moved when Kim shared, because that was exactly my sentiments a few years back.

I was trying to help people, to save the world, and I would never, ever, give up.

Blame it on the cartoons I watched when younger.


I never gave up on the people I was trying to help, and eventually hurt both them and myself, more than once.

This is what the world says.


But I no longer believe in that philosophy.





This is a song about human effort.

Which is why it's so depressing.


"I'm not sure why it always goes downhill-
Why broken cisterns never could stay filled."


This first line in the song is a reference to what was mentioned in the Bible:

"My people have committed two sins: 

They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, 

and have dug their own cisterns, 

broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

-Jeremiah 2:13

We try and try and try, but it just does not work:


"I've spent ten years singing gravity away
But the water keeps on falling from the sky''


"I've spent ten years trying to sing these doubts away
But the water keeps on falling from my eyes"


"I've spent ten years trying to sing it all way
But the water keeps on falling from my tries"


I tried to find the cure for the pain.

I found it's not in me.

"Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you . . . remember that the lives of others are not your business. They are their business. They are God’s business . . . even your own life is not your business. It also is God’s business. Leave it to God. It is an astonishing thought. It can become a life-transforming thought . . . unclench the fists of your spirit and take it easy . . . What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought. I suspect that there is nothing more crucial to true spiritual comfort . . . than being able from time to time to stop that chatter . . . "

-Frederick Buechner (Telling Secrets)

Ultimately, there is some relief in knowing I'm not the answer the the problem. 

But the difficulty is in accepting that fact.