vacation's all i ever wanted...

oh dear...i've been away so long the format here has changed? i can't for the life of me get this thing back on its feet. it's something i miss, something i wish i could engage in...but i just don't. does that happen to anyone else? it's like my battle with coke. try as i might to quit it, i somehow always end up drinking it. and LOVING it. so the first semester here is over and two weeks of vacation are here (it was three but i spent all last week working, so...) and i can't say it finished excellently. dragging myself to work each day after 7 months of nonstop working was the highlight. lots of sick teachers and kids, three fathers passed away within our collective body and just a general wear and tear. is this what it looks like to work in ministry? the stark thing i see missing is that inner joy, inner strength that gets renewed...as corinthians reminds us, we do not distress because though we are wasting away outwardly, inwardly we are being renewed everyday. that became my daily anthem the last month and a half of school...because it's a promise, even though i don't believe it and therefore don't experience it. let's be honest. obviously i want that to be true and i want to believe it. but can i really say, YES! i am being renewed inwardly even though i feel downright awful in the physical? mentally and spiritually drained? nope. my faith is teensy tiny in that aspect. and because if i am really honest, i just like doing it on my own strength. and i KNOW that's why i just get run into the ground. it's hard for me to understand what it really means to rest in Him, to rely on Him for my strength, to let the Spirit work through me and back me up. The few times He has done it, it's exhilirating and exciting, not overwhelming and exhausting. So how does your typical type A driven perfectionist learn to not lean on her own understanding? to really rest in His ability, His working in her? TO trust rather than worry? i don't really know. there are patterns of thought and habit that have to change. and in the end, all i really know is that i can't change myself (that'd kinda be defeating the whole point now wouldn't it?) but i do know that His word says ask and it shall be given, seek and it shall be found, knock and it will be opened to you. so i'm asking, seeking, knocking and trusting that He who started this work will see it out...and that, more than anything, is refreshing. all that to say, there's some decisions to be made...a fork in the road where i thought there was just a logical one way camino. but since it's presented itself, we have to evaluate, seek and wait. and you know how much i love waiting...and though nicaragua has definitely tempered my patience, it has not cured me of anxious heart syndrome. so your prayers as we feel our way out in this would be appreciated.