March 4, 2014
Today dawned cold and blue. Even with the apartment thermostat set to 75 it's chilly.
I feel like the cold has invaded me. Made it through yesterday and did well (I think) in staying focused on grad school research - though the process is stirring all kinds of anxiety and stress. It feels overwhelming just to think about it and I find myself battling the urge to tuck tail and flee before I even start.
I wonder to myself "Why am I doing this to myself? If this is how terrified I am of the research and admissions process - how much more terrifying is actually going to grad school going to be?" For someone who has always been pretty confident in my academic abilities - I find myself doubting them severely now. Grad school is not undergrad... and maybe I've gotten too lazy - maybe I've gotten stupidier... It certainly feels in many ways that I have! In the very least - less cocky and less sure of myself - which I feel like is half the battle with academics to start with.
Blegh - when did I become so defeated in life? I used to believe anything was possible - the sky was the limit - nothing held me back - now I find myself fighting to believe in the smallest possibilities and urging myself to move forward when the only current obstacle is my fear and confusion.
And right now my anxiety runs rampant. Give it an inch and it takes a mile. It doesn't help that hormones are going crazy and that Jason's work is going through a complete shuffle and the potential new job is up in the air. Uncertainty everywhere I turn..
Look up - Look up - I hear you say.
And though I know all these rumblings look like ant hill movements from on high - They have such a direct and immediate effect on our lives that it is hard to stand firm in the shakings -
Be still and trust to the point of knowing that I AM God.
My anxiety invades me - the fear grips me - and it's the same irrational terror that had me in it's grasp with the finances last year - thought I feel it's more subtle this time - like a slow poison rather than a death grip squeezing the life out of me.
I know it sounds melodramatic to say that - the fear is so great on things that really, truly, are so small - But that's just the thing... I recognize it's insignificance and yet it really feels like it's consuming and eating away at me.
I need your help to get out because I'm really not sure... It feels like defeatism within defeatism -
Start climbing, you say, and don't worry about how far you've come - just keep looking to where you're going. Let's go - let's go - no standing around delaying - let your hand hit the rock - your fingers find the crevice - your toes the foothold - and let's go. You cannot unravel the puzzle from the ground.
First step - first touch - read my Word... and from there we'll start climbing.
Psalm 102
You really have a gentle loving great sense of humor. I smiled reading the title:
"A prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complain before the Lord."
(v. 1) "Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry come to you!
(v. 2) Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress!
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call
(v. 17) The Lord builds up Zion
he appears in his glory,
he regards the prayer of the destitute
and does not despise their prayer.
(v.18) Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that people yet to be created may praise the Lord;
(v.19) That he looked down from his holy height;
from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
(v.20) To hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die."
Sometimes Father there is nothing better than to lay down and rest in You.
Thank You for that time today. Thank you for calming the anxiety and fear - for invading me with Your peace. Help me Father in my weakness...
And thank You father for my weakness that turns me always back to You.
Help me today to be quiet and still in my soul and to rest in You because I am weary from the burdens I should not have carried. At the same time - don't let me baby myself into uselessness and lethargy.
Amen.
