It didn’t occur to me until she said it for me.
“I’m so glad for you that last semester is over!” Chels told
me emphatically one night as we scratched away at some stats homework.
“Why’s that?”
“Because, it was so stressful for you. You were so busy!”
I pondered this. Sixteen credit hours,
3 lab courses (including my nemesis, Organic Chem), my PA position, adding a
major, and starting a relationship that had been a long time in the making. I
had been too busy to realize how much I had heaped onto my metaphorical plate... and
I tried to take care of that heap all by myself. I don’t plan on trying that again…
but hopefully I have gleaned a few lessons from a rather trying semester.
Things I learned in Fall 2012
~ That I need help ~
My arms were tired as I pressed a
string of Christmas lights up against the ceiling. I tried to contort my hand
one more time so that I could simultaneously support the lights and tie them to
a nearby water pipe, a job that would have been ideal for a seven-foot tall
basketball player with three arms. I tied a few poorly-planned knots and stood
back to admire my work. Then suddenly, one of my previous ties snapped,
bringing down a section of the strand with such force that another tie broke.
As a large section of my beautiful icicle lights flopped helplessly onto the ground,
I realized I still had fifty feet of lights to go. So I did what any
hardworking, dedicated PA would do in that situation: I left them there for a
week.
For some
reason, I came into this leadership position under the assumption that leading
meant you take the initiative and do everything yourself. Even though I had
chosen other floor leaders to back me up in event planning, decoration, and the
like, I still took all of the responsibility onto my shoulders, which, when you
think about it, is an irresponsible thing to do. I realize now that it was a
pride thing: I needed to be recognized, and to be recognized, I needed to be
superwoman.
~That I can ask for it ~
After Thanksgiving break, I finally
decided to ask for help with the lights. I was amazed by how much quicker the
whole decking the halls thing went three hands were actually involved, not
improvised. The lights were up in half an hour. Now the suites… just the idea
overwhelmed me. But the girls took up the task, and with a cascade of last-minute
help, we finished just in time for a lovely Christmas open house.
~ That I am loved ~
God has
sustained me this semester through some really rough weeks here and there, but
not how I expected. I always assumed God would send down some sort of blessed
burst of energy as a means of support. But He chose to work through people
instead: friends who know how to reassure me without saying a word, a boyfriend
who shows he cares by remembering the little things, my parents’ consistent
love. So when I lift my eyes beyond the stacks of books to the people standing
by me, I know that my help comes from the Lord, Creator of heaven and earth.
Jesus in the Sink (or, Three-and-a-Half Months of Grace)
But the difficulties remained, and to
say that I put my relationship with God on the “backburner” would be an
understatement. By December, Jesus had been pushed from the stovetop and into the sink.
And as bad as that sounds, the real problem was that I thought this was close
enough for a Savior.
Don’t get
me wrong, I didn’t purposely put my faith aside, but it got pushed anyway.
There was always a class, a meeting, a test, and then some last-minute need on
the floor, and as a result I would go days without more than a few words of
prayer. I stayed up too late for the unnecessary and woke up too late for the
necessary. I forgot to eat or skipped food to save time. I pulled three
all-nighters and lost fifteen pounds. I felt like I was chasing my life with
the box it was supposed to fit in.
But what if I had put God first? Made time?
Pushed everything else back to make room for Him? If God provides for our
needs, maybe he would have provided the time and discipline I needed as well…
Christmas
break gave me a good opportunity to turn around and look at the rut I had dug
for myself. I realized that time with God had become a very VERY low priority,
but I justified it by what I was doing. After all, being PA is a ministry,
isn’t it? But what’s a ministry if I don’t spend time with the God I say that I
serve?
In the
meantime, Jordan and I started reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Every
chapter is painfully challenging because it reveals another way I’m failing at
loving a God who is so deserving of love. I was missing out by not spending
time with Him. I felt like the deer in Psalms that pants for streams of water,
but I knew lacked the discipline to follow through on a consistent Bible study.
So I asked. And wow, God has been so good.
I haven’t missed a day since I made
this resolution. And the days when I spend the most time with God? Those are
the days when everything makes the most sense. I can serve people best, the
girls on my floor especially, when I have reminded myself earlier that day that
God is my vision. My purpose. My reason.
I’m not perfect. Not at all, and
sometimes my time with God isn’t all it can be. I can have a hundred things on
my mind and become distracted in prayer or reading. But I have reached a point
where I am doing this not because I feel obliged to, or because I feel guilty
if I don’t, but because I have experienced so much blessing when I am
consistently seeking God that it is something I want to do. Like I said, prayer
and study reminds me of what God requires of me, which basically is the outline
for the best possible life a person can have: to act justly, to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with my God.
May this be our goal in 2013.
LoveJoyPeace in Christ,
Libby
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