On Higher Learning

I love learning. I really do. I even love writing papers and handing them in 2 weeks late and still getting an excellent mark. I love writing take-home finals that are instructed to be done as if I was writing a blog post. That is awesome.

What I don't like is how disorganized I am and how much of a disaster my emotional being becomes under the pressure of having to 'perform'. Last week, after I finished my huge paper, I said to myself, "Ah, that was really difficult and emotionally taxing, but I love it a lot and I'll do it again." That was before I realized that I did, in fact, have a take-home exam to write that equated to another 12 page paper. At that point I was saying, "Frick, why am I still doing this?!? I should seriously probably not come back to school next year!"

And now I'm done, I think, mostly...though I do have the sneaking suspicion that I am not done everything that needs to be done.

Is the satisfaction of finishing well, having done a good job with much enrichment of the mind and soul, sufficient to justify the agony that I put myself through? I freely admit that most of the frustration I experience is my own internal fault, but that doesn't realistically make things a whole lot easier in the moment.

My heart echoes the thoughts of my sister, "Do I have what it takes?"

For me, the answer is a firm "no". I'm okay with that. It's becoming more enjoyable to embrace my inadequacies and inabilities, though I still waft a scent of superiority at times. I know that I have skills and abilities that God has giving me and I also know that He's the one who knows how best to use them. I'll just mess things up if left on my own.

So I must learn to rest and trust, to let go of my failures and accept that it is God at work who sustains and enables me to be obedient to His call, despite the fact that I feel grossly unqualified to live out this calling.

It'll be a crazy ride,

as it has been already.