Monday, March 29th - The Weight

Sometimes life seems so heavy... even blessings can be heavy sometimes.

I have had an abundance of blessings lately... successful graduation with my master's, recognition for my master's project, the opportunity to teach at two colleges when many are struggling to find work, my commute time to those colleges is about five minutes each, a new place to live that has beautiful views, and potentially a full-time job may be offered to me soon. All of this in the last 3 months.

The level of work, though, that has come along with all of this is tremendous. I pretty much work part of every day of the week. Because it is my first semester teaching, I am starting from scratch or using other people's lessons. I haven't sorted out a good rhythm for getting work done efficiently. The house is coming together, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

In addition to these good things that are happening in my life, there are also some very challenging things going on... the estate taxes are due soon for my mother's estate and I am somewhat at a loss at how to fill out these forms properly, the trustee for my father's estate just resigned and the beneficiaries of the estate are probably not going to be able to work together very well to pick a new trustee. Both situations are very problematic and the pressure from them seems crushing. I saw a movie when I was a kid and a character (it took place in the late 1600s) was killed by having a board placed on her and then the villagers took big rocks and put them on the board, one by one. It feels a little like that. One by one, big rocks are being placed on my chest.

The rational part of my self understands that there are seasons to life and that some seasons are more challenging than others. The emotional part of my self wants to run away and hide. It wants to watch TV and eat junk and leave the problems to someone else. It thinks that maybe, just maybe, if it can ignore all the yucky stuff, it might just go away.

I think we all know how successful that approach would be if I let the emotional part of myself take over.

Still, I have been frightened by all this... the good and the bad. It is all so much... much... muchness. I don't even know how to describe it. The Lord has provided rest areas along the way for me, though. These rest areas come in the form of a movie to watch that will make me cry, providing a little bit of an emotional release, or a well-timed conversation with a friend, or coinciding spring breaks at the two colleges I teach so that I can have a whole week to catch up on my work. The most important rest areas, though, have been scriptures that allow me to stop and breathe and remember just who is looking out for me. The most recent one was this one:

Do not fear, for I am with you,
do not be afraid, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.
Because you are precious in my sight,
and honored, and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
nations in exchange for your life.
Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you.

Isaiah 41:10; 43:1-5

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