Aaaah. It's been a while since I've written for the blog. I'm so thankful for my two friends' guest posts! They were so insightful and refreshing for me. But it sure feels nice to sit down and share my heart again. So here goes!
As most of you know (because you've probably heard me complaining), I started my senior year of college last Wednesday! I'm not complaining because I'm a senior. That part is extremely exciting to me. I'm just not thrilled about school in general. Let's just say I'm REALLY ready to be finished! I started the semester off extremely overwhelmed. I'm taking fewer credit hours than I normally do, but I have two practicums, and next month, I'll start a new job that will pretty much fill in my schedule (but I'm REALLY excited about it!). All summer, I was pretty anti-school and didn't let myself think about it or mentally prepare for it. Then August 29th, the first day of school, hit, and I had a minor freak-out. I realized I would be at school/practicum/work all day every day, and with the combination of my night classes and my husband's night class, we'll only have one night at home together.
Thankfully, my first reaction was to turn to God for help. I immediately started praying, "Lord, how in the world am I supposed to do this?! I can't be a good wife if I'm never home! When will I have time to vacuum or do the laundry? And when will I do my homework?" You know...I worried about all the important things (I'm kind of a vacuuming freak). But seriously, I felt like I was instantly swamped with life. I'd like to say that immediately after my prayer, I felt much better. But that's not true.
The next day, I went back to school only to find out that one of my classes has a tutoring requirement of two 30-minute sessions per week. My professor gave us a blank schedule for us to fill in so she could find an empty block of time and place us with a student to tutor. I thought, "Really? I don't have one more second in my week to hand out to anyone." (That's not entirely true, but I was in a dramatic state of mind. Ha!) So I got out of class extremely frustrated and drove home. Once again, I started telling God all about how overwhelmed I felt and how I didn't know how I was going to do it all. But THEN! I felt this crazy, amazing, pleasantly overwhelming sense of peace rush over me, and God reminded me of His promise that He will never give me more than I can handle WITH HIS HELP.
"...All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it." | 1 Corinthians 10:13 MSG
You see...to be honest, there's really nothing in life I can handle on my own. Except maybe a Target shopping spree or a lifetime supply of Dr. Pepper. I'm pretty sure I could handle those things. ;)
God's promise isn't that he won't give us more than we can handle alone. He promises that He will always be there to help us carry our load, to help us 'handle' life. One of my favorite things to tell kids when I'm teaching them what it means to ask Jesus into your heart is that after you ask Him in, you will NEVER be alone again. There won't be one millisecond in your lifetime that you are alone if you have a relationship with God. The beautiful thing about Him (one of them, anyway) is that He is omnipresent. He is everywhere you are, everywhere you're going. He's gone before you to prepare the way for you, AND He's still with you holding your hand the whole way there. There isn't one situation, one circumstance, one day, one problem you have face by yourself. God is there to help you, carry you, and even push you through it.
I got a totally new perspective when God revealed this promise to me on Thursday. I realized that instead of complaining and worrying and focusing on how difficult the semester might be, I could use this as an opportunity to lean heavier on God and allow him to carry me through.
What situation in your life is causing you to worry or feel overwhelmed? Allow yourself to lay it at the feet of Jesus and lean on Him for help. Let's be real... the ride is always much more smooth when we allow God to be in the driver seat.
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