Oh, October

It's months like October that really wear me out. Now, if you've read back through any of my fairly recent posts such as No Life...Well, Not Exactly or A Little Braggin', you know full well that I love to work, and I love my job. I love that it is exactly what I've been created to do with my life right now, but, quite honestly, there are limits to what a person can do. And October pushes me to my very limits.

I really struggle with life balance (clearly), but I struggle with this because it is a real internal battle for me. My head and heart wrestle with wanting to work because I've been entrusted with the work and it is good to do or taking a break because rest is a normal and required thing for human beings but knowing that in that rest the work will suffer or remain undone. And frankly, I feel sort of bad either way. I feel bad if I work too much because I know I'm wearing myself out and making myself less useful in the future, but I feel just as bad if I don't work as hard as I can and programs suffer and fall through the cracks.

I put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that things are as good as I can possibly make them especially with the knowledge that some parts of campus culture are in rough shape right now. I know that if someone is going to fight for the lives and hearts of the students on this campus, it needs to be me. If I'm not, how can I convince anyone else to fight with me? How can I rally the forces if I'm lying on the couch?

But a part of me keeps thinking ahead. What will my life look like in a few years at this pace? Will I still be single or will I have found my love? Will I still work fourteen hour days, six day weeks or will there be help? Will I want something, some desire outside of this place or will my heart still lie squarely with the purpose I've been given today? I don't know. I don't know about any of it. But I do know that a normal family life someday will not be possible with the status quo.

It is at this point of the post that I have to inhale and exhale a deep sigh with the realization that I have not and probably will not resolve this internal battle tonight.

Despite all of this mind and heart wrestling that I find myself constantly in the midst of, I somehow still have a just a little peace. My peace lies in the fact that God is in control, whatever the situation may be, no matter how tired I get, how high the work piles. Does it make the month of October any easier? No. Frankly, I'm still pooped. But it makes it tolerable enough to fight through to keep on doing what I'm meant to do.