Meetings and deadlines and schoolwork, oh my!

Ok. So...well...I know I've talked about this sort of thing before. But that was months ago. And it's important. And I'm taking a different viewpoint on the subject, this time. :)


Yesterday I spent, with the exception of about 35 minutes in which I came home, ate lunch, and changed -- 13 consecutive hours away from home; at church and meetings. Which was GREAT, and all; it was a FANTASTIC day. It was just...long. And pretty tiring.

It's another one of those weeks. *sigh*

I have fours papers due. I have a meeting or commitment every single night this week. Today was the deadline for a few magazines that I needed to submit writing to (goal for tomorrow). There are two contests I really want to enter that MUST BE POSTMARKED NO LATER THEN SATURDAY. My room is a mess -- even *I* can see that. I need to plan a Sunday School lesson for this week. I have a million school assignments that I need to catch up on. Plus, I'd really like to go running three -- or ideally, even four! -- times this week.....

And none of this is a bad thing, don't get me wrong!
But it is a tad bit...overwhelming...I'm feeling like every single second (literally) of my life for the next few weeks is completely scheduled away.


One thing I’ve struggled with for my entire life -- I know, I know, that sounds funny coming from a high schooler, but bare with me -- is “me” time. You know, taking time to think without overwhelming myself; to breathe without hyperventilating. It’s always been a concept that just completely eludes me -- I’m no good at relaxing. Never have been.

I took a class once, and one of the women in it told me her “story”. A middle age single mom working two jobs, raising two teenagers, taking care of an aging mother, etc, etc. Obviously, she was incredibly stressed out with everything she was dealing with. “It got to the point,” she told me, “that I was so miserable, so exhausted, that I didn’t want to get out of bed. People would ask me how I was and I didn’t know how to answer them. How was I? What was I feeling? I had no idea. I was losing myself to all those I held dear. It wasn’t that I didn’t love them, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to help them. I did -- I do -- more then anything. It was just that I couldn’t do it all. I couldn’t be everything to everyone forever.”
It took her years to come to this conclusion, she confessed, and once she finally realized it, she was able to come up with a solution. She decided that every Thursday night would be “her” time. Starting at 7pm, she’d turn off her phones, she wouldn’t check her email, she’d take time for her. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she admitted. “And there are days when it’s still incredibly tempting to schedule things on 'my' Thursday nights. But ultimately, I’ve learned that I NEED that time in order to function. If I don’t take a few hours to recharge, to unwind, to do things for me, then I can’t possibly do anything for anyone else.”
And it’s hard!! It was hard, she said, at first, to explain to family and friends what she was doing. It was so hard to stick to her guns and keep Thursday nights free.
“It’s a commitment I have to make every single week,” she said. “And it’s still a challenge. But it’s worth it.”

Wow. I so admire her resolve! I admire her courage!
Because it is an INCREDIBLY hard thing to do, to make time for yourself; to take a minute or an hour or *gasp* a whole day to not work. Whether you’re a junior in high school trying to figure out what the heck you want to do with your life or a mom with three kids trying to go in 56 directions at once or going through a midlife crisis or whatever…wherever you are in your life, it’s hard. It’ll never get easier!

But the fact is…God doesn’t want us to spend our lives trying to cram every extracurricular activity, every volunteer opportunity, every extra-credit assignment, every committee meeting, every commitment in to our lives. He doesn’t want us to be so busy that we’re miserable; so weary -- whether physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually (or all of the above) -- that we can’t function.

Think about it logically. I’ve found out that hard way that I can’t do schoolwork when I’ve had a week’s worth of only-three-hours-of-sleep nights. It just doesn’t happen. I can’t perform to the best of my ability, and I truly believe that performing to the best of my ability is a way that I can bring glory to God.
You follow me so far?

Likewise, I can’t be an effective teacher at preschool if I’m consumed by stress or worry, because I can’t focus on what I need to.
I can’t take time to pray when I’m too busy to think my thoughts.
I can’t think my thoughts unless I take time to do so.

My fabulous youth leader made a suggestion tonight. Start with one hour, she suggested. One hour a week that you schedule into your life -- same as you’d schedule a meeting or a date or a study session -- and let it be yours. After all -- a week is 168 hours long. Surely you can afford to make ONE of those hours yours?

“Ok,” you might be thinking now. “So maybe I can handle that…but…what about when I feel guilty?
”Well, I deal with this all the time, too. I feel incredibly guilty taking time for “me”. I feel selfish-- "who am I to say that I’m more important? I could be changing the world right now. I should focus on THAT, not silly old ME…and think of all the things I could be doing right now,” I always argue with myself. “I could be studying for that Chemistry test or reading next week’s chapter for AP Psych or writing a letter to so-and-so or volunteering here or doing this or that or…” and that’s where you’ve got to realize that you don’t have to feel guilty about it!

Whoa. Foreign concept, I know. NO guilt? Really? I might be…allowed… to take a break? *gasp* To read a book that’s not required for school, to watch a totally pointless movie that makes me laugh, to sit down and call a friend just to say hi, to write a silly story, to play with my dog or go for a walk or do *biggest gasp yet*……nothing?!?!

Yup. That's what I'm saying :)

“Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts…” (2 Thes. 2:16-17).

God longs to comfort us when we are weak; to give us strength and hope and to renew and refresh our souls…but we have to allow Him. We’ve got to give God that space to come into our hearts. We’ve got to give ourselves the time to just be still.

One of my all time favorite Bible verses is Psalm 42:10: “Be still and know that I am God.”

It reminds me that I don’t have to be constantly moving in a million directions at once; obsessively working to glorify God. Sometimes all he wants me to do is be still…still…and just acknowledge his presence and his majesty. It’s then that I will find the strength, the knowledge, the peace, the courage, whatever I need, to keeping working for him.

Give yourself an hour this week to be still.

Shades of Gray

When I was younger, I had this idea that there were three kinds of adults in the world: good adults, okay/average adults, and bad adults. The characteristics of each group were quite cut-and-dry:

--Good adults were people I looked up to. People who went to church, said please and thank you, had good values, smiled a lot, knew how to laugh, and didn't treat me like a baby.
--Okay/average adults were either adults that didn't strike me as obviously good or overtly bad, or adults I hadn't really been exposed to. I considered the majority of the world to be made up of "okay/average adults".
--Bad adults were, quite simply, crime committers. Thieves, abusers, murderers; the list went on...but Bad Adults, in my mind, made bad choices and that was that. I didn't want anything to do with Bad Adults.

My worldview also included the idea that all good adults -- all the people I looked up to, respected and admired -- liked each other. Since they were, after all, all "good", they would (for the most part) always agree with each other and feel the same way about most issues. I wasn't blind to the fact that there would be occasional disagreements, but always assumed that these people I admired so much would handle it in a civilized way and always reach a mutually pleasing compromise. Life was simple.

Looking back at my apparent naiveté makes a lot of people (including myself) laugh now. But it's true -- things were so simple back then. To me, the good people were all very good. I more or less believed that in every situation there was a good and a bad choice; the good people always made the good choice, the bad people made the bad ones.

These shades-of-gray opinions never existed when I was younger. My world was very clearly black and white; the shades of gray didn't start to develop until later. (And now, sometimes I feel like my world is entirely gray!)

And here's one thing that really stinks about growing up -- you find that black and white are totally gone, and in their place a million shades of gray. You find that people aren't who you expected them to be. They're not at all what you thought. You find that the people you most looked up to aren't the greatest role models after all. You find that nobody's perfect, superheroes don't exist, and your best friend is capable of breaking your heart.

And these are all hard things to deal with. Think about the time when you first came to a realization like this. The first time you were truly let down by someone you thought was perfect....it's hard to accept. It ruins your trust in that person and the whole world, even, because if you can't trust them...you really can't trust anyone.

Good people can make bad choices. Bad people can make good choices. So what are we left with? Well, there's really only one explanation for it all -- we're all sinners.

It's tempting to convince ourselves that "good" people and "bad" people exist, and that some people are "worse" then others, while some are just plain "better". We all do it -- we hear about murderers and decide, whether consciously or not, that our measly little sins -- say, spreading some rumors or going over the speed limit -- aren't nearly as bad.

In fact, in our minds, sin itself almost begins to take on various shades of gray -- we categorize our sins according to our own personal motives, values, and justifications. The darkest shades of gray are reserved for the worst crimes -- terrorists and child molesters and so forth. Then there's the lightest hues, like "white lies" or purposefully ignoring responsibilities, that don't seem nearly as bad.

But the fact is, while shades of gray might exist in our own minds, they don't exist with God. His views, unlike ours, are quite black-and-white. He can easily distinguish between right and wrong, and there is no middle ground.
With God, there is either sin (black) or there isn't (white). With God, you are either a sinner (us) or you're not (Jesus).

"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." -- James 2:10

This means that all sins are bad -- equally bad. Every sin out there, no matter how harmless it seems to us, is still a sin; and that sin still seperates us from our Holy, perfect God. That means that every sinner out there (every single person!) is equally bad, and equally seperated from God.

This becomes a scary thought for us, though! Suddenly our pride takes a hit....

What?? We're now in the same group as all those bad guys? All the terrible, guilty parties? We are like them??

Yes.

And God loves us?!?!

Yes.

And so...by the transitive property of God's love....well, just look: We know that the terrible people in the world are sinners. We know taht WE are sinners, just like them. We know that God loves us. So the only logical conclusion is that God loves the terrible people in the world, just like He loves us.

That's not to say that He approves of or is proud of bad choices, not at all! But He loves people who make bad choices regardless. There is not one person on earth who is "too far gone" for God. No matter what evil or heinous act you have committed, He still loves you and wants you to be His child. He is ready with grace and forgiveness; ready to welcome you back...but you've got to admit your sin and let God take control.

We are not perfect. We will ALL mess up!! We will make bad choices -- and God will love us anyway. He'll forgive us -- again -- and let us start over. He doesn't love us because we are "good" people -- He loves us because we are His people.

There's one fact of life I CAN accept -- no shades of gray involved :)