Stubborn clay?

"Look, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand." Jeremiah 18:6
Last weekend, Ian and I went on a mini-retreat for young adults at what I think will be our church here in Charlotte. (I think we've finally found a church with enough of all the things we've been looking for.) As a Jesuit parish, there is a focus on Ignatian spirituality and the retreat was a bit of an introduction to Ignatian contemplative prayer. Honestly, I was mostly interested in the retreat because I thought it would be a good way to get to know some people. I hadn't gone on a retreat since undergrad, but I also thought it would be a nice way to get out of the everyday life routine. The focus of the retreat was the passage from Jeremiah about going to the potter's house (Jer 18:1-6). The last verse is above. Sometimes I think that any scripture verse can seem very relevant to what is going on in our lives if we just think about it enough. This one hit home very quickly, though. My sister-in-law, Cortney, worked at a non-denominational Christian coffeehouse called The Potter's House that ministers to college students in Springfield, MO. (For those WU folks reading, it's a lot like the CSC, but with more coffee and less punch.) It's actually where she and my brother met. I'd read this passage at some point before (that's one of the beauties of a religious studies major... I've read it all at one point or another), but I didn't really remember it until I talked to Cortney about it. So, the idea of the potter's house stuck out to me right away. The priest leading the retreat actually is a potter, too. The room was decorated with some of his pottery (and it looks a lot like PoHo pottery, Cort!). So that was all a nice personal connection for me.

Beyond that, though, I've wondered so much about my life and my path and all that stuff since we moved here. During the retreat, we did a meditation on the scripture and imagined the pot the potter was working on. What kind of vessel is it? For what purpose is it being molded? The last four years have been so busy working and going to school and always moving forward towards the time that Ian would finish residency that there really was never much time for reflection. Now I think I have a little too much time for all that. :) In school, I felt very sure that I was meant to be a counselor. I've always been drawn to the idea of healing and easing suffering. This lead me to start college as a pre-med, but I quickly (maybe not quickly enough) realized that the sciences were not going to be my way to a healing profession. I thought about ministry for a while, but in the end, counseling felt like the best fit for me. But then I had a hard time finding an internship site and ended up doing career counseling... not really what I'd been looking for. (To be clear - I am thankful for that experience, though, and for the fabulous people I was able to meet and work with. It just wasn't the path I'd been seeking.) I did worry a lot last year about what kind of work I'd be able to do after I graduated, since I really wouldn't have any experience in mental health counseling. It hasn't helped that we then moved to a new state where I have no professional network and that has a particularly unfriendly environment for new counselors. It's a tricky stage of professional identity development (identity development is always important to we counselors) :) to have just begun thinking of myself as a counselor and then not be able to do the work. I've been reading my journals, reviewing my textbooks and doing things here and there to help myself still feel like a counselor, but it's hard to do. Like the tree falling in the forest, I've been wondering, if a counselor has no one to treat, is she still a counselor? I'm not sure. I think so, but I would like not to have to answer the question. :) The priest who led our retreat talked about the different types of clay and how it sometimes can be stubborn, too hard or too soft. I wondered what type of clay I have been. I'm sad about not finding a job, but Ian has pointed out to me that I've been offered every job I've interviewed for here so far. They just aren't really the jobs I've hoped to have (not in mental health) and there are only 2 so far. I just had a second interview at an agency yesterday and the receptionist thinks they're going to offer me a position. :) There are a lot of catches with this position... again, it's not really what I'd have preferred, but it is actually a mental health counseling job. The biggest problem is that the site is over an hour's drive away. I'd probably only work there 3 days a week, but yuck. One reason we moved to Charlotte was that I wanted to stop having to spend so much of my life commuting. Now, instead of taking an hour or so to get into the city, I'd be driving an hour or so to get away from it. The population has the potential to be a challenging one... It's not a group I'd ever felt particularly drawn to or imagined myself working with. And I'm a little scared of it. I think I'd probably feel a little scared of any job, so I'm trying to keep that in perspective. In many ways, I'm back to where my internship class was at this point last year when we were all anxiously anticipating our first sessions with our first clients. The possibility that I might be offered this job is somewhat amusing to me. I've had one phone interview and two personal interviews. When I heard about the drive, I thought that there's no way I can do that, but figured going to the interview would be good practice. I really liked the people I interviewed with and figured that if I can work with this population for the rest of this year, I think I would feel pretty confident about any work I may try to get into once we move on to wherever we're going next. Then I drove to the site and thought again that there's no way it makes sense to drive that far for a job. So, I went into the second interview - again - thinking that it would be good practice. Now I think that if they do offer me a position, I'll take it. It really is the only place I've found that's hiring new counselors and isn't solely focused on addictions work (which I'd really rather not do as a focus). Maybe this opportunity is coming up for a reason and I should go along with the molding rather than being stubborn clay.

Really, at this point, I think it might be best for my own mental health to take any (reasonable) opportunity and run with it. We had an exterminator come to our apartment a couple weeks ago and I found myself wondering what kind of training you need to do that. (He didn't need to have any direct contact with bugs, after all. He just sprayed stuff along the base boards. I could do that!) If I'm starting to imagine my next career as an exterminator, I think it's probably a sign that I should get to work soon... and maybe not stay inside and inhale the fumes from the bug spray. :) I have been working on some other good things to keep myself occupied. I'm hoping to get involved with a bereavement ministry at church, which I think will be a good chance to work on my counseling skills in a different environment. I've also found a great yoga studio and I'm excited to get to know some folks there. My golf lessons have finished up, but I'm still practicing and may end up taking the Golf 102 class that starts up in a few weeks. We'll see how the scheduling goes. After all, I may have a job I need to work around!