Fear – Ranting and Worries :(

Well, I feel incredibly overwhelmed by my emotions at the moment. The current place I hold is one of deep uncertainties, and I’ll admit that I find my faith both lacking and strengthened at the same time.

Work – One aspect of my life which has overwhelmed me is my work. The volume of work to do, the rate at which to complete it and the myriad of ways it can be derailed is highly frustrating. I don’t think the work itself is hard – but the amount of follow-up and follow through over and over, again and again is extremely taxing. I pride myself in doing an excellent job and being detailed and extremely thorough, but the pace of my current work seems to make that difficult at best. Additionally, I am behind in my work, and feel incredibly overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to catch up when so much new stuff continues to fall in my lap. I fear getting further behind or having my failures affect the company or those I serve. I fear getting fired and losing my job and feeling like a failure. I fear never being able to work again and being prosecuted and not surviving and being taken to prison. Honestly, now that I’m writing this, I can admit that perhaps my fears – although real – are a bit fantastical and no oriented in reality.

School – This course has been hard – the work itself is not horrific, but the last two weeks of class have incredible amounts of work due. In addition, the last two weeks are when I have officially run out of steam, especially looking at the stress of my work. The 2nd to last week, I failed to pace myself and got caught in a very difficult set up. The last week of class I prepared prior to the week and still managed to do horribly – much in part due to the exhaustion from work. If I fail this course, it will be the second time failing it which could have extremely unfortunate results for my educational progression. I fear being kicked out of class and then failing to never get my bachelors. Again, looking at the situation now that it is written down, if the worst happened and I failed this class and am taken out of school, it does not mean my intelligence is lacking or I am unable to get a bachelors, it merely means I with my life circumstances I was unable to survive a class and getting my bachelors may take a few more months.

Home and Work 2.0 – Lately, work has really cracked down on overtime meaning I have been unable to get paid when working after hours. Although I have been notified I need to remain clocked in, should I get one more write up, I will be terminated. So my choice is being terminated for following the rules or not getting my work done and being terminated for my failure to do my job. Doing my job in only 40 hours feels utterly impossible, despite having 81% of the work load of previous a half year ago, I remain behind with what feels like few possibilities to honestly catch up. Due to this lovely set up, my take home pay has decreased by 80% which has created very unexpected and unwanted tight money issues. It appears the time of plenty has left – granted I live well, but paycheck to paycheck is not a fun way to survive. Prior to this, I had created a way of living where money wasn’t limitless, but I lived far enough below my income to easily set some aside for savings. That appears to have evaporated like rain on our summer roads.

Spirituality – Although I remain committed to pursuing ordination and working in ministry, I feel incredibly guilty as I often skip church to work on school work which again, my major is Christian Studies. Not sure if that is pure laziness or simple irony. I have been wondering about trying to look into getting extra time for school work via the disability office on account of my ADHD – but that feels like a cop out. The reality – it is obvious that I continue to have great difficult meeting these deadlines due to poor time management like caused by a mix of ADHD and being overworked and being playing lazy and exhausted. But church helps me! When I go to church I feel the love of God and it fills me with energy to get through the next week. Church helps me to see what is important – caring for God’s creation: people and the earth. Going to church helps my spirituality to remain stronger and more vibrant, as does daily prayer which I have remained very lax on. There are so many parts to this, if I’m honest, and I have neither the time nor the energy to really get into.

Alas, there is so much more do say, but I think I need to rest for the time being.

Thanks be to God – God lifts us up in unexpected ways (listened to a sermon that talked a great deal about the value and importance of love and marriage, including LGBT marriage today and just about started crying with gratitude and love and awe). I often feel great closeness to God during such trying times, may my heart be sensitive enough to listen to God’s voice and may my head be quiet enough for my heart to listen.

 

Amen & Blessing +