On Monday, support raising was the last thing I wanted to do. I was tired of setting up meetings and driving around. I was frustrated because my monthly support stayed at 65% for two weeks straight. The bottom line was, I wanted to give up.
Thankfully, every other Monday Goers meet with our cohorts. My cohort is a group of 5 amazing girls, and this week they were particularly encouraging to me. As I voiced my frustrations, they asked, "Why don't you just take a break?".
I thought to myself, LOL what? Is that actually an option?
They helped me realize that I needed to take time off since I wasn't in a good head space. But, could I afford to do that? My numbers hadn't moved in a while, and I had two meetings scheduled for the week.
Where would the money come from, and if I chose to rest, how would my monthly support increase?
Nonetheless, their advice was convicting, and I decided to take off Wednesday and Saturday this week. I was hoping God would meet me in the midst of my frustration and grant me rest.
The feelings of frustration hadn't escaped by Tuesday morning, and I had a looming feeling that I wasn't going to get anything done. Rather than focusing on my Bible reading plan, I googled a liturgy for rest. I didn't find one, but I did find this. It helped me to reflect on different things that were causing me to stray from rest in God. As I longed for relief, the Lord met me when I needed it. He showed me how much pressure I had been putting on myself to improve my numbers, rather than relying solely on His provision. I wasn't finding rest because I wanted to meet my expectations for what fundraising was supposed to look like.
GoCorps gives us amazing fundraising training. They give us specific goals to meet each week like working 40 hours, contacting 30 new people, and having 10 meetings. These are great goals, and I lost sight of the fact that these really are just goals. Sometimes you won't meet a goal, and that's okay. It doesn't mean you suck. It just means that's not what God wanted for you that week.
I'm competitive, so when I heard, "You have 12 weeks to meet your financial goal," I thought, Great, I'll do it in 10 because I need to beat everybody. Through my time of reflection, God revealed to me (again) the prideful reality of my heart and told me to knock it off.
After spending a longer time with the Lord than usual, I decided to work for only a couple of hours that day. I let go of my weekly financial goal, the very numbers that were dictating my annoyed attitude. By the end of the night, I received $260 worth of new monthly commitments.
Wow. How could I go all day, barely working, and increase my monthly support by 10% in one day? In hindsight, the answer is easy:
John 5:17 ESV "But Jesus answered them, 'My Father is working until now, and I am working.'"
In this passage, the Pharisees are confronting Jesus for healing a blind man on the Sabbath. The Father and the Son don't need rest, but I do. He gives it as a gift to me.
Honestly, it would be enough if the story stopped there, but it doesn't. Flash forward to Friday. Feeling more inspired by the work that God already did on my behalf, He provided again. A church responded to me about their amount of monthly and start-up support. Again, even when I wasn't working, God was.
This week didn't go anything like I had planned it would. I worked the least number of hours this week, but God granted me the 2nd highest amount of monthly financial support. I'm still trying to figure out what rest looks like, and I have a feeling this is something I'll continue to work on for a while. However, I'm confident that God will give me grace through His persistent teaching.
Part 2 coming soon...