Facing the Demons of My Past in My Semester of Practicality

So this semester started off about as crappy as the last one ended, but the good thing is that all of my most difficult classes are behind me, aside from Scriptures 4 with the distinguished Dr. Todd Still. This semester I have the pastoral/ministry/leadership classes. The weighty theological classes and scholarly biblical classes have always been more difficult for me, but let me in a class about rethinking the way we do church, ministering to the needs of people, or leading congregations and I light up. This semester is different though. There are a few things I have really been dreading about it, like for example...

1. Visiting the funeral home (which I skipped out on today with the complete blessing of my prof. I think it's the best thing in the world that ministers in training do this, but let's be honest. I've spent more than enough time in those places lately. It is a sadly familiar routine. I thought I'd be better served by sleeping a little later and working out this morning.)

2. Hospital Chaplaincy-Here I've chosen the difficult route. I'm visiting patients on the renal/geriatric floor which is the last place I saw both my daddy and my maw maw. I made my first rounds on Tuesday. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I actually liked it.

(So two down and I'm making it , but the one to go is what I'm most nervous about)

3. Learning how to baptize people in the pool at the SLC. Maybe I should have saved the skip for that day. I know I really need to do it. It would probably make the first true ministry experience with baptism a little less scary. The truth is that baptisms will never be the same for any of us. They may actually be painful for a really long time (like maybe forever for some of us), but I don't feel like I should run away from them because of my fear. So pray for me on Feb. 9. WAIT, I'm out of town that day. Darn...Good... Hell, I don't know what it is.

All that worry for nothing, but maybe Dr. Price will take me and the other UBC kids in that class another time. I still don't wanna run. I know baptism is a beautiful thing in the life of a church and of a follower of Christ. The fact that it will stir up so many other things in us from now on is tragic on about a million of different levels. I don't know what else to say but dear God please heal us.