Tuesday, November 3, 2015

When My Care is Spread Thin

 


This semester, I am a good busy. I have so much to do, but it is all good.


 British Literature.

 Exploring graphic novels for the first time.

 An amazing and educational internship.

 An independent study designed to help me write my novel.

 A last Gen-Ed class.

 Wonderful roommates.

 The book of Jeremiah to read. 

 Prayers to be lifted to God.

 An apartment to keep clean.

 A kitchen waiting for culinary discoveries.

 An amazing church family.

 My sister living on campus.

 My parents back home.

 Friends at school.

 Friends at home.

 Friends spread out through various states and colleges.

 A thesis project to begin.

 Tutoring at the Writing Center.

 For some, this would be a quiet life. But for me it is insanely busy to the point where sometimes I want to give up and drop off the face of the earth.

 I do not handle busy well. It's just who I am. But the hardest part is that I would rather do five things to the best of my ability than ten things poorly.

 My care is being spread thin, and I hate it.

 I hate skimming through books I honestly want to read but have no time for.

 I hate turning in a paper that I know could have been better.

 I hate hardly ever using my kitchen.

 I fear that I am losing frienships from not having the time to connect.

 Instead of doing a few things well it feels like I am doing a lot of things terribly. I have so many classes and people to love and devote my time to. It feels like trying to completely cover a slice of bread with a very small pat of butter- hopeless, discouraging, and spread thin. 

 Wouldn't it be better to get a smaller peice of bread or wait until there is more butter? How can this busyness be good?

 Though it seems bad, this busyness is good. It comes from God. Maybe it is not the gift that I wanted, but it builds my character, molding me more into His likeness.

When my care is spread thin...

 1. It forces me to rely more on God.
    
     God has taught me a lot in college, but one reoccuring lesson is that I cannot do life on my own. Even though I have more to do than I ever have before, I have to stop and spend time with God. Without that, I cannot function. In fact because of the chaos around me, I come to Him more than I would if I wasn't busy. Busyness shatters the allusion that I can do life on my own without God.

2. It makes me find joy in the busyness. 

     There are things in my life that I am discontent with right now. There are things that I want to happen that aren't. I have big life decisions to make when I graduate. But being busy helps me not to worry about the future or dwell on what is wrong. It forces me to live in the now as I go to each new task.

3. It humbles me.

      I made the goal this past summer to get awesome grades my senior year so as to raise my GPA. It will be like my last hurrah as I am not planning to go to graduate school. But I may be seeing more B's than I had originally hoped, and that is something I need to live with.

4. It prepares me.

      Maybe in the future I will be blessed with children. Motherhood is perhaps the most busy and demanding job in the world, and maybe this busy season in my life is preparing me for that on a small level. Or maybe I will be blessed with a wonderful but taxing job. No matter what the future holds, I am sure to have other busy seasons in my life, and I am learning how handle them now.

4 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting this! I've been feeling similarly "spread thin" lately too and I needed to be reminded that it can be a refiner's fire to me even though it's a trial. :) Keep going! You will make it to the other side stronger and better and closer to God. :) Thanks again for sharing this.

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    1. Thanks, Anna. And it's nice to meet you. :)

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  2. Thanks for sharing Allison! I can sympathize with feeling spread thin so I really appreciated your reason why it can be good! May God give you strength to continue!

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    1. Glad you found it helpful. And yes, prayers are always appreciated.

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