Seasons

Needless to say there are some seasons that a person just can't wait for them to end. Like seasons when you are carrying 17 credits at school 14 of them language credits and working 30 hours a week. to top off that crazy busy season you decide you don't have enough going on so you throw in a move across town, because that is what every sane person does right?!!?!!! My social calendar is none existent to say the least.

I don't say all this to brag, I say this because I feel like you deserve an explanation of my seemingly flakiness when it comes to social events. Even if I am unable to come to the last 20 events please keep inviting me!! It's not that I don't want to come its more likely that I can't or that my sleep deficit is such that I need to get some sleep fast or everything is will suffer. Even if I say that I am coming and then at the last minute pull out, again sleep takes priority in that moment. Looking back at pictures from the last 10 months there is a definite progression in how tired I look. And I am legitimately that exhausted.

My mantra I feel like is "Oh don't worry!!! If I can make it through this week life will calm back down!" Don't believe me!!!! Don't let me believe me!!! This is my life for the next 3 years!!!! There are times when I have to remind myself that college is a choice. It's not mandatory. I don't have to go to college. Neither do you. But... after a lot of thinking and praying I have realized that there is no better place for me to be then here, in school, training to become an American Sign Language Interpreter. God has me here for a reason. I'm loving school. I'm loving Portland. I'm loving work. Heck I'm even dreaming in ASL now!!!!! That's a good sign. (No pun intended.)

That doesn't mean that I don't still dream of sleeping for 6 months straight, or need a break now and then. But yes I have found where God wants me to be and I can rest in the fact that He will most likely teach me many more lessons than what happens in the classroom. He has already taught me so much in the last year.

I am reminded often, every day in fact, that everything worth doing costs a lot of blood and sweat. Sometimes (more often then I care to admit) I just want to throw in the towel and quite, How can something so difficult be so good. If it makes me cry this much is it really worth it.


But then I remember my first Joni and Friends Family Retreat. I cried every night for a week. I felt like the worlds biggest failure. I was stretched way beyond what I thought was possible for myself. I learned so much of the beauty and wonder of my God. If God can teach me so much in one week, just think of how much He can teach me in 3-4 years!!!!!!!!! There are days when I only make it through them because He is with me. On those days I am in constant prayer because if I am not the day will go south faster than you can count to 1.

If it's so hard then why do I stick with it? you might ask. Because when you King says go you go!!! I may not remember very much due to sleep deprivation, but there will be much that I learn and that will stick with me for the rest of my life. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger right?!?!?

Please stick with me. As you can see I don't have much to give. But that's not for forever. It is hard for me to say no to things that I want to be a part of, but I literally have no more time to give. What little time I have I protect as if it were the most valuable thing that I possessed, because in this season it is. If I have a couple free hours, chances are I'm not going to share them, not because I don't want to but because if I don I will be even more drained then I was before.


I'm in this complex season of life. I literally cry every time I am in the car. I cry because I know how needy I sound, how giving I sound. I am a mixed bag of who knows what. It drives me crazy.


My family and I were talking about the phrase "Giving it the college try" this last weekend. A phrase was never truer then that. I have never tried harder at anything then I have in the last 2 years, especially the last year. It doesn't matter what I try to do, it takes so much more effort to do anything as a working college student then it has in any other season in my life. I have never just wanted to lie in a hammock for 30 minutes in my life!!!! I'd take 15 minutes if that was all I could take.

Since I was a kid I have loved stories of missionaries, hearing about the hard times that it took for them to be the heroes that they are today, and always thinking that I wanted to follow in their footsteps. Be careful what you pray for!!!! If you pray for patience, I will pray for you!! Well guess what?!!!?!?! I prayed that someday I would become a missionary. That has been my prayer since I was 6 years old. My heroes? Jim Elliot and his team. Brother Andrew. Hudson Taylor. Joni Eariskson Tada. You guys!!!!!! I would say that I set myself for failure, but the pattern is the same. This is my testing ground.

Pray that I pass this testing. So often I am so tired that responding correctly is something that I worry about greatly. Pray that I will be able to eat 3 good meals a day, to counteract my lack of sleep. Pray that I can get enough sleep. Pray that I can redirect everyone in my path to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Pray that I will get some time to just be, without any expectations, without any drains on my reserves emotionally and spiritually.


"Do not pity the dead Harry. Rather pity the living. And above all, those who live without love." ~ Dumboldore