Overwhelmed
This week has been a rough one. I've been feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed, and inadequate. For the first time in my life, I honestly feel as if I cannot keep up with all my commitments. I'm discovering that I cannot do everything. My pride is being shredded, chewed up, and spit back in my face.
I'm working as a tutor, a Chemistry study-group leader, and a T.A. I love all three jobs, and I legitimately look forward to work. However, with all the time I invest in work, I'm having trouble finding time to study. I'm barely keeping up in my classes, and I find that even when I do have time to study the time is unhelpful and poorly spent because I am so tired that nothing sinks in. I'm involved in several ministries, one of which I'm directing, and I'm passionate about the service we're doing through them. However, I'm spending so much time on "ministries" that I hardly have time or energy to invest in relationships- including with God. My prayer life has been reduced to brief, disjointed, illogical snippets of conversation with God at intervals in the midst of a million other things going on. At the end of each day when I crawl into bed I'm so physically and emotionally exhausted that I feel as if I'll never be able to wake up.
This morning at chapel, as we were praising God together, He very clearly spoke to me and told me to wake up, open my eyes, look at Him and see who He is as I'm praising Him. I'm feeling overwhelmed? Everything going on in my life is nothing when held up to the Universe. I'm having a difficult time juggling a few activities- God consistently, justly, powerfully and eptly is handling all of creation (including everything I am dealing with, and everything you are dealing with, and everything anyone is dealing with... and those are just the things we can see). If that alone does not cause my heart to race with overwhelming awe of this great God, I must be a vegetable or a rock- and even that analogy falls through, because I imagine that even a rotten tomato must somehow find voice to praise such a God.
So I'm still feeling slightly overwhelmed. But God has it under control... He always has had it under control, and He always will... and since He's not bound by time I am finding complete peace in the knowledge that there is nothing I can do to interfere with His power and His plan. And even if I completely fail at everything I'm doing and fall apart at the seams, it doesn't really matter because (how incredible) I'll still be allowed to stand in His physical presence someday and praise Him face to face- and that's all that counts.
k. rose
I'm working as a tutor, a Chemistry study-group leader, and a T.A. I love all three jobs, and I legitimately look forward to work. However, with all the time I invest in work, I'm having trouble finding time to study. I'm barely keeping up in my classes, and I find that even when I do have time to study the time is unhelpful and poorly spent because I am so tired that nothing sinks in. I'm involved in several ministries, one of which I'm directing, and I'm passionate about the service we're doing through them. However, I'm spending so much time on "ministries" that I hardly have time or energy to invest in relationships- including with God. My prayer life has been reduced to brief, disjointed, illogical snippets of conversation with God at intervals in the midst of a million other things going on. At the end of each day when I crawl into bed I'm so physically and emotionally exhausted that I feel as if I'll never be able to wake up.
This morning at chapel, as we were praising God together, He very clearly spoke to me and told me to wake up, open my eyes, look at Him and see who He is as I'm praising Him. I'm feeling overwhelmed? Everything going on in my life is nothing when held up to the Universe. I'm having a difficult time juggling a few activities- God consistently, justly, powerfully and eptly is handling all of creation (including everything I am dealing with, and everything you are dealing with, and everything anyone is dealing with... and those are just the things we can see). If that alone does not cause my heart to race with overwhelming awe of this great God, I must be a vegetable or a rock- and even that analogy falls through, because I imagine that even a rotten tomato must somehow find voice to praise such a God.
So I'm still feeling slightly overwhelmed. But God has it under control... He always has had it under control, and He always will... and since He's not bound by time I am finding complete peace in the knowledge that there is nothing I can do to interfere with His power and His plan. And even if I completely fail at everything I'm doing and fall apart at the seams, it doesn't really matter because (how incredible) I'll still be allowed to stand in His physical presence someday and praise Him face to face- and that's all that counts.
k. rose
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