"Chewing"

I haven't posted in a really long while. I feel like this is the lame way that I always start my posts, apologizing to invisible readers for my lack of appearance in their world. I don't know why I'm apologizing, but it seems suiting.

I won't even begin to try to sum up the past month in words. It was by far the busiest roller-coaster that life has thrown me thus far. And man am I glad that I'm on the down hill slope to get off this ride. If this semester lasted any longer, I don't know if I would have made it. I've never been so incredibly stressed, overwhelmed, overworked, under appreciated, or felt so lonely. Talk about sad- those adjectives are just depressing! My intentions for you all, in my writing this, is not to discourage you or to evoke a pity party. But, to merely explain how extremely strung out this semester has been for me.

I would love to say that I got through it on my own, wouldn't that be a fantastic ending to the sad story? I overcame it all by myself? I'm a big girl now? NOPE. It took a lot of people's pushing and pulling in order for me to be standing where I am today. And the biggest pusher of them all was God.

God placed me in exactly the right spot for this season of my life. He knew what he was doing, but doesn't He always? The constant message He was whispering into my ear on the uphill climb was "don't listen to the one's who say you can't do it. Listen to the ones who think you can. I've got you."

It changed my perspective on some things. I no longer felt like I had to go life alone, with my own problems in my own little box in the corner not allowed to bother other people. Yeah, that's unhealthy. And the people that tell you that's the way you should deal with things? Well, their crazy & you should not be friends with them. Seriously, they aren't right. In order to get through something, you have to work through it. You have to constantly battle with it & wrestle with the problem or issue. "Chew on it," if you will. It is this process of "chewing" that we discover what we want to make of the problem/thing in the end.

This process of chewing requires a few things, of which a big one is trust and the other is good company. The importance of surrounding myself with good people was especially emphasized this semester. Survival would not have been possible without the right encouragement, shoulders to cry on, and hands to hold. I am eternally grateful. Along with these things, I learned that some things are not as big of deals as they should be or as they appear on the surface. Only spend your time and precious energy focusing on the big deals and the big things. They are what you will remember in 50 years.