tender splendor

self-discipline. i have very little of my own. i so fully depend on the Holy Spirit to touch my motivation circuits. which is the only reason i'm here writing now.
so thank you for joining me.
i have a button on my heart that is labeled "failure". satan knows exactly where it is. and so does God.
much to my disliking, God knows that the only way to disable a button like this is to let it be pushed so that i can watch God move in spite of me. like tomorrow, i will be leading, teaching if you prefer, my sunday school class while our normal leader is out. the first thing in my head is 'who told you i was a good teacher and why?' but i didnt ask. i just accepted it, and i've spent a while working through the material...not nearly as long as i should have, or would have liked...but it's a topic i love, the goodness of God.
i have the capacity to be scared out of my mind over this whole ordeal. satan is trying to push my "failure" button with great abandon, yet Jesus is so gentle about guarding my tender place. i'm an introvert, i'm an artistic type, yet i'm a studier and researcher and love sharing my thoughts to my friends. but this... it's like asking a high school senior to guest lecture in a university weed-out class. i mean, this isnt really a group of my peers. many are married and have children, and there are a sprinkling of those who have pastored their own churches for a time. who am i? well, i'm a young woman who has already tried to lead a sunday school class and "failed". i'm not eloquent and if you've read much of my blog so far, i'm no writer either. my thoughts don't flow, even when i'm using a published book as a guide. but because i do live in the faith of God's goodness, i know he will be glorified in my feeble attempt to share why anyone else should see it.
thankfully i wasnt given time to consider saying no to this offer. she approached me, and i said yes. so now i have no room for satan's words of "dont accept a chance to fail, how stupid." ...oh, two buttons in one sentence, he's a talented being. well, i guess that just means he's calling me stupid. yet, even that button was silenced, for she told me that i was being asked because someone told her that i was a good teacher. if it was you, how dare you. but in all seriousness, thank you. i couldnt be given any greater honor.
if a high school senior is nerding-out over a particular topic, and has dedicated his life to digging into it, and then is invited to share to a lecture hall of advanced thinkers - surely that kid puts the listeners to shame, right? they werent asked to do it. i know this is far fetched and many of those 'students' have already guest lectured in my parallel universe...but it's what it feels like, even though my real thought is that they will simply be humoring me tomorrow. "isnt she so cute?" oh sigh. God, you are about your glory, and i plead that i am used to bring about an understanding of your goodness. you use the weak, you warned me a long time ago that this was true. here goes.