November

The month of November, which some dudes call "Movember", a month that has brought so much upon my life in recent years. When I was trying to sleep last night, I was thinking; and suddenly, it was brought to my attention, I was reminded, that November has typically been a crappy month for me every year. I checked my blog's archives, and I can kind of see it there. I didn't write a whole lot about my down times, but seeing what I did write about and the places I were in, they were definitely not the best. Tough Novembers extend beyond just the life of my blog, I've had a couple really bad Novembers in high school too.

I know that life works in cycles and such, but I had no idea that mine would be so definite and lined up so well with the month of November. Not to say that I don't have good times in November or bad times in any other time of the year; but the predominant things that define the month for me have all come within the span of these 30 days, give or take. No different this year, in terms of circumstances. Just the magnitude of things and how I've responded to them are different.

I just don't know what to think of all this! Back in grade 11, I was forced to make the first real decision of my life to quit piano. After taking piano lessons for 11 years, I just couldn't take it anymore and if I wanted to quit, I had to do it myself. It was painful for me to quit piano because I knew that it was really sudden for my teacher; and for me to have to work up the courage to do it, it hurt quite a bit because I'm not really strong enough to make big decisions and have to follow through with them. The year after, my senior year in high school, I was failing - literally. I was below 50% in one of my courses for the first report card; and it being a big deal as people were starting to apply for university, I approached my teacher and she felt bad enough to bump me up to a 50%. It was quite the miracle that I finished grade 12 with a 78% average.

When university life began, and coming back from my internship in Vancouver, it was tough being thrown right into the school thing without having much time to prepare for it. I think that from October to December, and even into January the next year, I was having such a tough time dealing with my direction in life. Studying music at the UofA was just not for me, but at the time, I just did not think that Bible college was something that was reasonable. So I duked it out for the rest of the year (and I have no idea how I did it), and went on to take a year off to work in order to earn money for moving out. When I started working that next fall, I quickly began to find it taxing on my hands because of the work that I had to do. Selfish of me to say this, but by this time of that year, I kind of wanted to quit after just having worked for a little while.

And finally, after moving to Calgary for school, the entire first few months was a huge test of my independence. I remember encountering certain things at this time last year that frustrated me and forced me to think about what I look like to other people. I really had to examine my outward expression and what people perceive me as because I knew that going into ministry meant that I will be constantly under watch and criticism.

So with the things that have brought me down this November, I don't need to mention them anymore because then I'd just be beating a dead horse. But I'm beginning to wonder if things might turn out to be like my year at the UofA. I was forced to just deal with the rest of the year, and when the next September rolled around, things were a lot better because I had a real purpose for what I was doing by that time. If so, then somehow I'm going to need to find, somewhere inside of me, the strength to endure this year with the way things are going.

I have found, now that I've kind of recounted my past several years' Novembers, that God really tests my patience. Having to wait to finish the year before I could start preparing for Bible school, having to wait a year to earn enough money, etc., there's been a lot of waiting that I've had to do. Although, it's unfair to assume that just because things have happened this way in the past, that it will happen like this again. But at the same time, it wouldn't surprise me if this was another test of my patience because I know that I'm going to need a lot of it when I'm full-time in ministry.

The thing is with me, that I'm always going to see something - I'm very much like a visionary - and then I'm going to do everything in my power to achieve that as soon as I can, but sometimes I forget that the process of it is every as important as the end goal. So, maybe God is trying to do something good after all.

My Novembers.

P.S. I think everyone should purchase and listen to Michael Buble's Christmas album. Stellar.