Impostor Syndrome

We talk a lot about impostor syndrome in grad school. Basically, it's the idea that you aren't smart enough to be where you are and, soon, if you don't do everything exactly right, everyone else will realize they made a mistake letting you into their circle. I struggled with that a great deal in graduate school. In reality, I knew I was smart enough to be there, but I looked around me and knew that I didn't care as much or as intensely as the other people around me. I just wasn't as invested, and heaven forbid anyone else find out. Wasn't this what I had promised to do? Wasn't this the plan I had always said I would follow? How could I leave it all behind and start something new?

I started a new job on Monday. It isn't what I want to do long term, as I am hoping to go into ministry, but the great thing is, everybody knows it! I told them so in the interview. I told the interviewers that I needed a job, but that I was hoping for something else to come through later. I told them straight out that I wanted to go into ministry, but wasn't sure when that might happen so I needed a job in the meantime. When the people I meet at my job ask what I'm studying (because most of them think I'm still a student) I confidently tell them that I've graduated from grad school and am working here as I wait for this ministry opportunity to work itself out.

Guess what? They love it! I had multiple conversations just today about campus ministry and what we do and what our goals are. People really seem to want to hear about it! They asked me. All I had to do was stop hiding and stop believing that if people knew what I really wanted they'd laugh me out of the room. Instead, I'm grabbing on to the opportunities that God is opening up before me with confidence and telling the world about it.

Today's Verse
Hebrews 13:6
So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"