Maybe Possibly Kind Of A Lil' Stressed

As I've looked at graduate programs, I thought I had found the perfect one. I mean, a year-long program that would give me a masters degree and specifically prepare me for medical school? THE BEST! Except that it requires an MCAT score, not a GRE. I have yet to take the former.

I keep on stressing about it, and about the field experience journals that I've waited all semester to get a grade on. I just hope I don't fail it. I really hope I don't fail it. 'Cause then I'll have to do field experience next semester (with a considerably lowered GPA).

I'm beginning to stress, which is something I'm not allowed to do, because I don't own stress. It belongs to The Lord, and me stressing is me stealing it from Him. Unfortunately though, my reflexes with regard to spiritual upkeep aren't what they once were. I am not what I once were (intentionally bad grammar).

I keep just reading my books. I need to tone it down. Because really, it keeps me up late and my spare time occupied, so that I don't make time for much school nor for much reflection. Growth happens in reflection, and since I haven't done much reflecting this semester, I haven't grown much.

In fact, this semester, I became "productive", a term I hate people using to describe their days/weeks. Factories are productive. People aren't factories. But I kinda have been this semester, just churning out assignments and memorizing things, keeping myself emotionally stable only through working out, and hardly pausing to just be, which was once a favorite activity. As I said frequently when I visited home over Thanksgiving, I feel like the right side of my brain has shrunk due to lack of stimulation.

I haven't been intentional with relationships much at all. I've just convinced myself that I can make it without all that, whereas I used to always check myself and ask myself "If you can't make time for people, what's it all for?"

I'm not my favorite me. I feel like I have many years until I get to be so. On the mission field, I make sense. Apart from there. I'm like one of those puzzle pieces that you have to use a hammer to make fit.

Check Yoself

I'm realizing that when you don't stop to check yourself once in awhile, you can get lost meandering through life.

I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with myself next year. Top of my list is to go on a mission trip for an extended period of time and work under a ministry. Okay, that's not entirely true. I wanna go to Europe for a few weeks. But the desire to go on a mission trip is like the desire to read my Bible or work out or eat a balanced meal. I want to do it because I know that it will make me a better person than I am.

However, I am unlikely to travel to Europe, Africa, or Asia, at least not for long, because...umm...
As I was writing that, I realized that I don't have a real reason for why I don't think I'll be able to do those things. I guess I tend to assume that God won't let me go out and do what I want because He has kept me to this path for so long, and I used to resent it. Now I love it, though I don't know if its effect on me has exactly been the best. I just feel like my only hope of doing things right in life is to jump into something with the accountability towards selflessness required by work as a missionary. As it is, I fall into old habits too easily. When I'm on the mission field, all else is abandoned and I'm just whatever God has made me to be up to that date.

Europe is just beautiful and allows me to revel in my love for history and art, the former being the subject I would have majored in had God allowed it. Days of journaling and writing poetry in coffeeshops while people-watching are among the reasons why I have such a deep desire to be back there.

I don't know what God has for me in the future, but I do know that I need to listen to Him and ask Him about it, which is something I haven't been doing to the extent that I should.

It's That Time Again

...When I become convinced that life and I would get along infinitely more anywhere else doing most anything else.

Need Direction

I need direction. I have little idea of where to go for grad school. I'm postponing medical school for at least a year, possibly two, so I can show through grad school that I can keep my grades up higher. I just need to know where God wants me to go... He usually tells me stuff, so He's bound to speak up soon, right?

What Gets Me Up In The Morning

Sometimes, the only thing that gets me up in the morning is thinking about that guy in Uganda with the head trauma, or those children in needless pain in the hospitals there. If it wasn't for them, I don't know that I'd be able to make myself keep working on a day like today, but as it is, I must keep working, if only for their sakes.

Deeply Rooted Fears

Sometimes they're too deep for me to begin to want to unpack them.

Crushless

I have managed for a week and a half now to go without having any crushes. For the first time, I had the willpower to actually be as single as I am, and not live with a small fantasy in my head. It's strange when I want to write poetry, because I feel that I am lacking in a muse. All I have are my own thoughts reverberating in my head, clanging about until they manage to ricochet out and into a semblance of frustrated writing. And there it lies.

I don't know if it's smarter or easier this way, but I think it's better.

Upcoming

I've been recruited for an act in Mock Rock, and I am ever so excited about it. Mock Rock is John Brown University's lip-synching competition, and since I didn't get to be in an act last year, I've been craving it. I love performing, and this is such a fun way to do it.

I'm also kinda hoping to be selected to host the Talent Show in the spring, though I also kinda want to put a dance together to be a talent. For that, however, I'd have to learn to breakdance, and I still don't have that down at all. Either that, or I'd have to form a dance crew. Or maybe both.

All of my classes are left-brain oriented, and my creative side isn't really getting a chance to shine. I kinda miss it, though I can't afford to. Tragedy.

Stumbling Block

Lately, I've been thinking about what a bad influence I can be. The only thing that really scares me, that stops me in my tracks, that kinda haunts me, is the possibility of being a stumbling block, or of holding someone back. I've never dated. The primary reason is because God has never given the green light for it. In truth, I don't believe that I can do a relationship right to any real degree without God being an intimate part of it.

Unfortunately, that leads me to actually fear relationships. Not just with dating, but with any close friends. I'm too much of a people-pleaser to do things the way I should, so despite my intense love for God, I am afraid that I will lead people astray simply because I cannot say the difficult things that must be said. Or do the difficult things that must be done.

I don't think this for no reason. I have been a stumbling block before, and it weighed on me more heavily than most any other thing has. I want to be a force for good in the world, to shine the light of Christ, to become a doctor and bring healing to people, and to make people laugh. But when it gets personal, I am afraid of myself and my inability, my lack of will, to put God's commands before the people I become close to, even though those commands will only bring good in the long (and often the short) run.

These have been dark thoughts. I know that most of the influence I tend to have is good, but if I push anyone in the opposite direction, I cannot bear the weight of it.

Ran into this quote on Tumblr ('cause I do every social network, of course), and maybe it applies.

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

—

Carl Jung