What was God thinking?

I ask myself this question on an almost daily basis. "What was God thinking when He sent me here?" As I think about my personality, the situations that I thrive in and the way that I envision my future path coming to pass, the intense stress that is the first semester of grad school doesn't quite fit. I don't thrive on competition or knowing I did something first. Being under intense deadline pressure doesn't produce my best work. I'm not satisfied with producing something and looking over it later with a shrug, thinking, "Well, it's not my best work, but I did the best I could with what I had." I can't manage stress through alcohol, cigarettes, food or sex. Even if I could, I don't have time for any of them. I'm not okay if I pull all-nighters or grab three hours of sleep just so I can meet a deadline. I can't skim a scholarly publication and fake my way through a literature review. I can't juggle. I'm even worse at multi-tasking. I don't know where I want to intern next summer, what classes I should take next semester, who my faculty advisor for my thesis/project should be or what I want to do when I graduate. I just got here, but supposedly I should have all of this figured out. I think part of the peace from my last entry had to do with the fact that I finally shut down from stress overload. I was in denial about what's due over the next month and the decisions I have to make in the next two weeks. I'm still not thinking about it. I'm on autopilot, living off of my lists. I still don't know the answer to my question at this point. I'm hoping that He lets me in on it sometime soon. At this juncture, I'm not even in a place where I think I'd hear Him if He did say anything about it. The ever-growing list of things I have to do that constantly rolls through my mind drowns everything else out these days.

Peace

There's this strange sense of peace that's settled over me in the last 24 hours. I'm not sure why now, when things are about to get incredibly (more) hectic, but it's there. I look at all of the things I have to accomplish over the next month and, for some reason, I know it will be okay. The list is pretty extensive. It's full of reading, papers, a massive lit review, meetings, multimedia projects, short-and-long-term decision making, non-stop grading, group projects ... the list goes on and on. Even as I type it, the peace is still there. I can tell people are praying for me. I know that there's only so much I can do in a 24 hour period. I trust that God has it all under control. There's no way I can plan what I'm doing next summer, next year or for my master's project. I can't even tell you where I'll be next week. And, God always has a better plan than the one I come up with. So, I think I'll continue to walk in this peace. It actually feels great. :o)

A few minutes for me

If I've talked to you recently, you know that this season of my life is pretty insane. I'm constantly amazed at how everything just gets done. In talking with a few other grad students, I realize that I'm taking three classes and have the equivalent of two part-time jobs. No wonder I'm always tired. This weekend, after spending three hours at a youth football game taking video footage for class, I was whining to my sister about this 700 word reflection paper I have due every Monday morning. I know what you're thinking - what's so bad about a 700 word paper? It's all about the content. You see, every week we get about 100 pages of journalism theory to read and analyze. In those 700 words I have to summarize key concepts of 3-4 articles, synthesize the material, then talk about what stood out to me. Oh, did I mention that there's a catch? In order to get an "A" on the paper, I have to apply my reflection to current news coverage and pull in outside material. In 700 words or less. Now do you feel my pain? I won't even mention the fact that before grad school I had little interest in news or politics (and still don't, to a large extent) and couldn't tell the difference between Fox News and MSNBC (and still can't, if you ask my sister). Yet in the midst of this, I'm seen as the student who has it all together, who consistently gets A's on her papers and assignments, and who was just recommended for a special project course under the supervision of a Pulitzer Prize winner. I stand amazed. If God is for me, who can be against me?