Apostleship

Yesterday, while decorating for the banquet, one of the other students was talking to me and telling me how much she loved party planning. As we were both seminary students, it seemed reasonable to ask her if hospitality was one of her spiritual gifts (because we've all taken a test like that at least a dozen times). She said yes and we got into a discussion about it. I told her mine were faith, mercy, and apostleship. The funny thing is that no one really knows what apostleship means.

I haven't really found another one person with this gift. The book I got describes it as a person who sees an area in need of improvement and gets the momentum going to resolve it. I suppose that Paul is the best example of this, despite how much I dislike Paul. He goes around spreading the Gospel, laying groundwork, and then leaves. But through the banquet I think I understand this a bit more.

Apostles are inherently lonely people. People who are always on the outside of a group. As I watched the groups of friends and the couples at the banquet I felt lonely. There were 150 people there, many of which are friends, but I stood there half-relieved that everyone was having a good time and half-fighting back tears. Paul never stayed in one place very long. His letters reflect someone who really cares about those around him and considers them as friends, but there's a profound sadness to them.I don't doubt that he felt restless and traveled a lot because he felt a calling to be a missionary, but I also wonder if maybe he always left because he knew that he was never really going to be an insider in a group of people,

I've struggled with this my entire life. I'm constantly lonely, even when I'm with a group of friends because I never feel entirely at ease. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and to be replaced. I don't really have many friends from when I was growing up because my friends would always find new friends and new interests and I'd slowly be weeded out. Part of me has always wondered if maybe I'm just a bad friend, that I'm too needy and too cautious for anyone to form a strong bond with, and I'm sure that's partially true. I don't trust in other people's affections because I don't want to be hurt, but at the same time if I don't see them then I know that I'm right.

I've been in countless groups of friends, but always on the periphery. One of those people that you invite when it's a large group going out, but rarely privy to the inside jokes and the more mundane activities of relationships that so many other people seem to have with one another. I know, like Paul with Timothy, that I do have some solid relationships and for that I'm thankful and blessed, but even with those I live with the fear that one day they are going to dissolve too. This has been particularly difficult since moving to Waco because I'm not able to be invited into their lives as much and an inevitable distancing is bound to happen.

I don't write this to sound whiny or angst ridden, but rather as a statement of a realization. Perhaps the reason I haven't found any other people with apostleship as a spiritual gift is because they are out there somewhere, lonely and not in a church that consistently reminds you that you should go to a Discovery Weekend. And maybe that's why we see things that need to change. When you stand on the outside you see a lot more of what's happening on the inside. And why we can only stay around long enough to set things in motion. Building things takes relationships and we seem to fail at them. But at the end of it all, we're still lonely and it still hurts. Paul doesn't fit the pattern as well because he eventually got enough notoriety that everyone wanted to be his friend (which can be lonely in and of itself) but he also was remembered because of it.

So I'm not sure if it's worth trying to forge new relationships anymore. I'm not good at keeping them and if history is indicative of anything, other people don't seem to be all that interested in keeping them with me either. I'm lonely and I think that maybe loneliness is just my burden to bear.