To silly to sleep

So it's 12:30 AM and I just finished playing a game of Apples to Apples with three of my high school girls club girls, who are having a sleepover chez nous to ostensibly work on their club requirements so they can get their awards at the end of the summer.  I think they have actually done just a little bit of work but mostly they're just doing girl stuff.

Anyway, the computer got left on when I left it to join them and when I returned I clicked on the wrong button and the bloglovin' feed came up.  I kinda automatically clicked through to one of the first posts and found myself challenged to list some things I learned in June.

And because I'm silly-sleepy I'm writing an answer instead of clicking the correct button and shutting things down so that I, if not the girls, will get a little sleep tonight.

So my first thought upon seeing the question was, 'Gee, I'm just in head-down-and-work mode.   I haven't had time to learn anything!'

Then I thought of a couple things.

Firstly, migrating a data base is hard work.  There's a lot to learn.  So I really AM learning a lot of stuff.  Brain stretching and paradigm shifting.  If learning new things keeps you young, then at the rate I'm going on this stuff I should start going backwards soon.  But that's not really I'm-growing-as-a-person kind of learning, and I think that's really what the challenge was about.

I've also learned that I am not very good at communicating technical things.  Somehow I manage to convolute it all up.  I could call it job security, I suppose, because the standard response is, 'Wow, you are the person for that job!  I can't believe you really CARE about all those details!'

Which means that I really am not explaining the lack of grace that is part and parcel of a data base.  In stage costuming, if a detail isn't seen from 10 feet away, it's not there.  Details don't matter.  But this is a data base and the data base only knows what it is precisely told.  It's not me that needs the details...it's the computer. And the computer doesn't explain, doesn't excuse, doesn't care.

So put that in the 'need to learn' option.

But I've also learned I'm really not in this alone.  I have been encouraged by more than one of our pastors to MAKE SURE I take some time off to get away this summer.  Pastor Mom -- she and her husband are, among other things, the Senior Adult pastors --  stopped by my office yesterday as I was rubbing my computer weary eyes, hugged me with the kind of hug that you give to someone who NEEDS a hug, and spent a couple of minutes encouraging me in my efforts.

Which was really sweet and touched me deeply, but beyond what she did I realized that Someone is using the folks around me to keep me from getting discouraged and cynical about how much there is to do, even when I'm on the edge of being overwhelmed.   It helps to know that there are folks who notice that I really am trying to do my best here...because they're noticing because He notices.

I'm doing a pitiful wee-hours explanation of something that I couldn't really articulate even in the broad daylight, but suddenly I realized that God has got my back on this.

And that's a pretty big growing-as-a-person kind of thing.