overwhelmed

Confession time.

I didn't pick out a verse for this past week. I will be doing two this week because of this.

I do believe I have hit the overwhelmed phase of my grad school, and I'm afraid it won't get any better.

I feel as if my life has been nothing but school work lately. When I'm not doing school work, I am either walking Iz, a feeding bitty kitty goat's milk (I should probably post about that, eh? lol), mindlessly watching TV and being a bum, tutoring little kiddos at the YMCA and my school, working out with a friend, or doing things for church (especially now since VBS is only a couple weeks away).

And then there are those other life things that happen - like actually seeing my family here and there, babysitting when needed, cleaning my house that seems to be overwhelmingly dirty these days, and sleep would be nice as well.

Yeah. I'm pretty worn out. I went to bed around 10:30 or 11:00 last night, which isn't exactly early, but not really late either since I've been staying up late doing school work this week.

This morning... I woke up at 9:15. I'm supposed to be at church at 9:30 for Sunday school, so I was late. Obviously. I reckon I needed some extra sleep.

Classes also keep me from family gatherings, which is extremely hard.

I missed my mom and niece's family birthday gathering because of class. I also missed our family's Father's Day gathering. And then I'll miss my dad and nephew's birthday weekend as well because of class. I haven't looked beyond that yet though. :)

I don't feel like I have to be present for these events to be complete for my family. Rather, I desire to be present because I need that time with my family.

Living by myself, I've really come to value family time so much more. Yes, I've always enjoyed it. However, now, I sincerely need that time because it's just me. I sometimes go several days running around doing things without having a chance to talk with my family. Not out of a lack of desire, but simply a lack of time and energy. So when I miss those precious times with my family, it really hits me hard.

Okay, so this is not me trying to have a pity party or gain sympathy at all. It's just me venting. :)

Crazy to think that I'm so overwhelmed with all of this when I don't even have a husband or children, eh? Yeah. God knew what He was doing when He orchestrated me getting my master's now and not later in life. I don't know how the moms of young children are handling the program, but they're rock stars for sure!

And in the midst of this craziness, I've noticed my time with God suffering more and more. This definitely doesn't help with my outlook on things either.

So, I'm asking for a bit of help from my friends! Our Bible study group finished up our study on Esther awhile ago, which was amazingly great with keeping me focused and on track with my time with God. Not that I can't just read God's word without a guide, but it's good to have some direction in my studies.

With that said, does anyone have any suggestions for great devotional books that I can work through? A precious mom of one of my students gave me a daily devotional that has a passage with a small excerpt about it for each day, which has been great! I'd like to add something with a little more depth to it.

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EDIT after maybe 10 minutes of hitting post: So, I realized this post was pretty much all negative about my grad school experience so far. I want to make sure I intentionally say that the things that I have learned and the changes I am hoping to make in my classroom next year are totally worth these rough patches! I have met some amazing people, and I am completely excited about how God will use this program to reshape me as a teacher. So I'm whining tonight, but it's all totally worth it. And I realize that. :) But I'm allowed a post to vent, right? Sure!




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