God has put me in a place of leadership. Being a leader was nothing I ever really sought out or longed to be, it just happened. God just seemed to orchestrate it all, he led me to and placed me in this position. I have had this job as being the leader for the Young Adult Community for over a year now. He is beginning to teach me some hard lessons about what it means to be a leader.
Right now the lesson is that "leadership is lonely". I absolutely love my job and wouldn't trade it for the world, this is just one of the challenges that comes with the territory and it is okay, I am just exploring it for the first time.
I guess part of that feeling comes from the fact that God has shown me things and given me insights to things that I can not show to everyone, but I have to make decisions based on those truths and on what is right even when people can't see my reasoning. Sometimes the reasons are simply things I cannot share in order to protect others or to avoid gossip.
In a speech called "The Loneliness of Leadership, I think Gordon B. Hinckley states it well, "The price of leadership is loneliness. The price of adherence to conscience is loneliness. The price of adherence to principle is loneliness. I think it is inescapable. The Savior of the world was a Man who walked in loneliness. I do not know of any statement more underlined with the pathos of loneliness than His statement: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). There is no lonelier picture in history than of the Savior upon the cross, alone, the Redeemer of mankind, the Savior of the world, bringing to pass the Atonement, the Son of God suffering for the sins of mankind."
Looking to Jesus in his utter loneliness on the cross, losing his life, his friends, and His Father in that moment, reminds me that I have a comforter who understands everything he takes me through. But also I remember that because Christ took on this ultimate loneliness I will never have to. He will never leave me or forsake me.
This morning as I was praying I was telling God how hard it is to have people not be able to trust my decisions that I know are best for reasons that I cannot reveal. I sensed Him say to me, "Molly, welcome to my world". I was deeply convicted as I realize I myself fail to trust God for his decisions in my life, his sovereign control over my life, his reasons for things that He cannot reveal to me.
I understand now to some little degree... how lonely it must be for God to do what is right and best for us when we continue to accuse Him for not caring for us when he doesn't give us what we think we want or remove the problems we want Him to remove.
In this, I am able to trust his reason which I cannot see as he continues to allow hard things to happen and as he continues to walk with me in this loneliness of leadership he has placed me in according to his wisdom, good-will, and perfect reasons.
