While I have a lot to say still on my trip abroad, I am not even close to finishing processing through everything, plus I have been crazy busy, so this is a pause from those posts to just reflect on where I am currently.

February is coming to a close, and while I realize it is the shortest month of the year, it truly felt like it flew this year. Likely due to the fact that 14 of the 28 days I was in a different world (no really, that’s what it felt like).

Do you ever stop and realize that your life is actually just difficult right now?

I feel like that is the realization that has hit me the last two months, but really gained words tonight. Where I am right now in my life is difficult. Not in a complaining way, not in a please have pity for me way, and not even in an attempt to change it… Just a factual, life is difficult. Not terrible or horrible, I would not change where I have been or what I have been doing at all, but I hit a wall the last two months, and I am spent. Not in the need for sleep or a vacation, but deep down where my drive is; it is tired. Ironically, the feeling did not click into words until talking to someone else who expressed that spent on all levels is where they were not long ago.

Interestingly, I am not even sure how to fix it in the deep down parts where I feel it the most. I have no clue what I can do to correct the seemingly easy action of adjust my schedule and making more time for other things.. I realize that some of the feelings I have, and have had over the last few months are simply due to the way I am made, my extrovertedness, my personality, my strengths, and certainly my weaknesses. My present situation is incredibly challenging for me, not in a good or bad way, just simply the truth of my situation. I am unsure where I need to pause, almost as if there are layers to my feelings, and each layer requires something different. How peculiar of a feeling to recognize the issue and all the levels it touches, but be more than slightly perplexed on how to fix it.

If I am being completely forthcoming, I am relieved to just have finally pinpointed my feelings. I have spent the last couple months unable to identify what and where I was struggling.

So, let me spell it out, merely stating the reality of my situation.
Working for a church, doing good things, and working in and for God, makes personal devotions, worship time, and listening to God without an agenda incredibly difficult. I have yet to figure out how to balance these desires with my pure exhaustion and genuine need to get things done at the end of the day. I mean, I came back from a two-week trip abroad, and I had to do laundry, get groceries, pay my bills, and catch up on sleep, homework, and normal life things… Which, reality is that it is more challenging as a single person because no one could do it for me… How do I balance these legitimate things and not let it mess with my needing to take my own time out to spend time with God?

While I am one of the most extroverted people you will ever meet, I do not feel energized or fulfilled when around the majority (by no means can I say everyone) of the people at work because simply, they are work, and work is not energizing like a purely social setting is for me. Work means I have problems to solve, issues to address, meetings to have, e-mails to send, calendar appointments to make, designing to do, writing to do, posting to do, people to connect, planning to do, catching up to get updated on things etc.. That is not energizing, that is simply my job.

I think now is a perfect time to stop and say, I. Love. My. Job. Truly truly. I would not choose to work anywhere else in the world right now because I love my job, my tasks, the people, and even on the bad days when I want to high-five some people in the face, I know down to my core I am where God has asked me to be, and that is fulfilling in a way that is different from anything else I have known.

However, that being said, I have not at all figured out work/life balance. Which means that if I am being honest, I do not really have a life outside of “work,” which also means that I am never “off” and always thinking/processing/problem solving/or addressing things that need attention. And, no amount of being called to or loving my job makes up for the incredible amount of disproportionate percentages in my life.

The state of my life right now is that I finally truly recognize that things need to change, but I am a little perplexed as to how to make that happen. Likely it will still take me a while before I figure it out, but at least I realize how much I need to feed the fun/adventurous/intellectual/active/spontaneous/joking/antic ridden sides of me and not constantly be trying to consider whether it is appropriate due to my job…

And, now would be a good time to mention that my bff told me all of this TWO MONTHS ago… I am a little slow sometimes.

Tonight I am incredibly thankful for God sorta intervening and reminding me that He did not create me for the sole purpose of working a job that He brought me to, but that He has created me for living for Him. And, if I am not loving Him and my time with Him, I will quickly run dryer than the desert sand.

I do not know how to fix where I am, and the lack of space I am creating for refreshing, but what I do know is that I need to start paying attention to that side of my life.

Oh Lord my God, help me.