My goodness, it has been quite awhile since I’ve
posted anything.
Life has been so busy, and it’s easy to let the weight of
everything cave in around you. School, work, illness, financial issues...all of
these things sound scarily like the grown-up world...a world I’m finding myself
drawn into more and more.
At first, it freaked me out to think I’m growing up.
With getting older comes responsibility, after all, and I’ve liked being a
goofy, little kid so far. Once the benefits of being a college student and a
working woman made themselves known, I became instead discontent with my
present state: all of a sudden, I wanted to grow up as fast as possible.
I say this in past tense as if it isn’t true now.
Honestly, discontentment is a present tense that seems to follow me wherever I
go. When I’m not wrestling with responsibility, I’m vying for more. When I’m
not frustrated with my “to-do” list, I’m adding additional items to make it
even longer. Obviously, I’ve got a problem, and that problem is that I’m trying
to do everything myself.
The good, Christian people at church always say “Trust
God with everything”, but then they also act as though succeeding academically
and socially are of almost equal importance. I’m not saying that getting good
grades and having lots of friends is a bad thing. On the contrary, I think both
of those things help you in life tremendously. However, they’re not the ends to
which our means lead. Our lives aren’t going to climax in a fantastic career or
an impressive network of friends. What matters is the fingerprints we leave.
What part of us is the next generation going to remember? Is it that A you made
in biology, or is it the time you helped that struggling single mom watch her
kids while she worked? Or is it the time you became friends with that one guy
everybody else had written off?
Think about it. What do you remember about other people?
To tell you the truth, I’m intimidated by people who are smart and successful.
I think, they couldn’t possibly need me. I’m nobody. I make good grades, but
that person is probably smarter than I am. I have great friends, but that
person probably has more. That’s not necessarily the right way to think (I’ve
been struggling with that my whole life),
but it is the way I think. One person’s kindness is enough to forever mark them
in my memory. Not long ago, I ran into a guy I had known back when I was in
middle school. He vaguely recognized me, although I remember him well. Why?
Because once, in a random act of civility, he said a friendly “hello” to me at
a conference. It was a small, infinitesimal act, but it left a fingerprint on
my heart. Maybe that meant nothing to him, but to me it showed that he thought
I was somebody worth talking to.
One thing that got me thinking about this was World
War II. So many rumors and conspiracies and worries are circulating right now.
Some even wonder if another catastrophe like the one in Germany eighty years
ago could recur. Although it sounds absurd, it got me thinking. What if? I’m
sure those Jewish girls back in 1939 didn’t worry about being slaughtered
before they were able to graduate. I’m sure they freaked out about papers and
deadlines. But what good did that do them? We remember those people like Anne
Frank and the ones who helped them stay hidden. We remember Corrie Ten Boom who
used to work in her father’s clock shop before the holocaust. Utterly average people who left marks more significant
than presidents, dictators, and kings.
In twenty years, we’re not going to look back on our
school years and think “Gee, I’m so glad I stressed out about all those papers.”
Instead, it will be the ways in which we touched other people and allowed them
to touch us (I mean emotionally, not physically...). If stress is clouding your
life, closing in around you, weighing you down so that you can barely breathe,
think about this. It’s not important. Doesn’t matter how much money you have at
stake or how many points off your GPA, it’s not important. The Lord looks at
the heart, and He judges you by your intent. What does your heart yearn for?
Good grades? Well, then it’s pointing in the wrong direction. Someone once said
that the Bible is a compass pointing your heart back to God every single day
because every single day it goes astray.
Don’t forget what’s really important.
