Stress.
So. Much. Stress.
Like most seniors, I’m stressing about next year. I’d be lying if I tried to claim I’m not nervous about packing up and traveling around the world for nine months. It’s daunting thinking about not seeing your parents for so long when you’ve never been away for more than 8 days. I’m stressing over what to pack for the race, how to pack, what to leave behind, how to fundraise, how to spend time with friends and family while I’m still in America while juggling school, work, and theatre, and everything in between. I can’t seem to escape my stress.
At this point, pretty much every aspect of my life points to stress, but it’s changing. God’s helping me get over this mountain, but it’s a long and difficult process. I’m holding on to control when I should be letting go and letting God. It’s a hard lesson to learn, friends, but God is molding my heart. Every day I see God bring beauty to the hard places when I simply let go. I’m a pretty stubborn person by nature, so it’s been a rather difficult lesson for me. I don’t want to change how I have always been-to give up the control I have always had. But I promise you that when you finally do give it up, something amazing happens.
I was freaking out over fundraising. The date was 3/9, which is now symbolic to everyone involved with this trip. Our team has a group chat and we were talking about the meaning of the date and I quickly became overwhelmed with how much money I need raise to be able to go on this trip. I don’t like asking people for money, and being dependent on friends and kind strangers to send me on this trip is nerve-racking. But when I was stressing about the finances, I began to pray and handed the reigns over to God. It was scary, but I know that if we ask anything in his name, he will do it (John 14:13-14). He laid it on my heart to make a facebook status about it; I did just that, and within mere minutes, people began donating.
I cried. When I let go of wanting to stay in control, the pieces began to fall into place. I am by no means anywhere close to being funded, but I feel more at peace with it. The power of prayer blows my mind, our God is pretty awesome. He created the universe, the stars and glaxies, the earth and all the creatures on it, and he still listens to us. There are over 7 billion people on this planet, and he knows us by name!!! He hears all us every single time we go to him!!! Doesn’t that make you want to just jump for joy and scream out praise?!?!
I get overwhelmed with how good our father is. How many times do people try to talk to you, and you just kind of tune them out? I do it more than I wish I did (especially in class, oops!) because I just begin to focus on other things. Thankfully, our God is not like that. Our God listens intently to everything we say to him, and he responds without fail. He might not respond the way we want, but he always answers our prayers. This fact blows my mind every time I think about it, and it never changes!! Isn’t that incredible?!?! God is so good. God is so faithful. I’m so in love with our God.
Blessings,
Sydknee
