Room at the Table

I’ve been listening to the Oprah Channel on Sirius XM Radio whenever I’m in the car lately.  Which is a lot.  I’ve always preferred words to music, lyrics being the dominating factor in choosing songs I love.  My iPod is loaded with audio books and podcasts.  Anyway, these days Oprah and I are besties.  The Oprah channel runs a lot of stuff from her new network, and old episodes of the Oprah Winfrey Show.  It has that Oprah “live your best life” stamp- lots of self help and words to live by. 

Recently she had on some life coach lady who will have her own show on OWN in the fall.  The topic was on “hurting others” and Oprah was talking about why women in particular seem to hurt others.  The life coach lady said it was because women, unlike men, tend to view success as a finite entity.  There is only so much success to go around.  As she put it, “if you get yours, if you get some success, then there won’t be any for me.”  As a result we tend to sabotage each other at our very worst, deny each other joy and congratulations at the very least.

Oh my word did that hit home.  I do this.  I have a few dreams for my life that feel too good for me.  One of those dreams used to be a career as a youth pastor.  I can vividly remember a journal session with God where I held out that dream and felt like God was maybe calling me to it.  And yet I couldn’t speak aloud that dream or God’s call.  I felt so unworthy of it.  I wasn’t good enough to be a youth pastor!  I wasn’t trained enough, educated enough, smart enough, disciplined enough, Godly enough.  (And yet, here I am, 4 years into a career as a youth pastor.  Silly really.)  Meanwhile I saw green whenever I heard about anyone else going into a career in youth ministry.  Every person obtaining a job as a youth pastor was stealing my job (never mind the fact that I already had a different career and I wasn’t even applying for any of these positions).

When I sense that someone I know is going to try to achieve one of those dreams that feel too good for me I get panicky.  I stress out, worried that their success will take my place at the table.  I find myself miles ahead of the actual situation, secretly hoping they will fail at achieving something they haven’t actually started- I just perceive they might want to start.  And of course they will succeed, they are worthy of the call (unlike me).

I don’t know why that is.  Why do someone else’s’ successes have to threaten my own potential?  Why do I think there are limited numbers of places at the table?

Why don’t I trust that the passions and dreams God has laid on my heart are there for a reason?