Just a quick update: Slack blogging due to overload of school work...yuck!! I have finished the semester and I am now in examination period for the next 3 weeks!!
End of semester really gets to me, and actually, it pretty much starts after mid semester break - I need to protest, it is the most horrid break ever!!! Just when I start to get my academic groove on - its holidays, I have the kids home and can't study!.....So my motivation is pretty much down hill from there. the last 5 weeks is when I start skipping a few classes and have to drag myself through my homework. The feelings of wanting to quit happen in the last 2 weeks and peaks now as the exam period begins.
I was having a terrible weekend, I have a writing assignment due Wednesday and it is pretty much a culmination of all the semesters weekly hand ins and is worth 100% of my grade - no pressure! So I was freaking out because I didn't know how to start it and I couldn't think of anything else.....translated, I was pretty much doing nothing, well I lie - I read two short novels to distract myself, because all I could think of was what I was not doing - my assignment. Hate that feeling! It all came to a head yesterday in church - I just didn't want to do it anymore....who needs university anyway?? I was on the verge of tears all morning and I couldn't think of anything else.
I dragged myself to church - but I wasn't really there. Even though I was not in the mood to sing the hymns the words still stood out to me.....the opening hymn "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" pierced my heart a little and helped me remember that the Saviour was my friend - he atoned for me and not just for my sin.....my sorrow, my pain, my stress, my anxiety.....for exactly what I was feeling at that moment. I don't know what the sacrament hymn was, but the word "burden" was highlighted for me. I looked it up in the Topical Guide and opened Jeremiah 17:21 in the old Testament:
21 Thus saith the Lord; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;
By feeling like this I wasn't keeping the Sabbath - the spirit couldn't reach me at all. Not to mention that I was so distract that I had forgotten to fast at a time when I needed to most. So what use was trying to keep the Sabbath holy by not doing any study when I couldn't think of anything else??
So I prayed.....
Over and over through sacrament as I listened to the testimonies of the congregation - that Jesus Christ, through his atonement, could take away the unnecessary burden that I had placed upon myself that prevented me from doing what I knew I was capable of doing and also from feeling the spirit of the Sabbath and getting the most out of my Sunday.
I went to teach my unprepared lesson to my Primary Class - as turns out I had an extra class as well because their teacher couldn't make it....don't you love that?? But...
It was good.
I don't how good the children thought it was - I tried to teach the principle the best I could by the scriptures in my unimaginative, unprepared way....but it was good because it helped me to forget my stress completely for those 50mins....and from then on my head was clear. I was able to enjoy my afternoon and see my upcoming task as achievable.
I am so incredibly grateful for the tender mercies of my Father in Heaven, and that He knows what I am dealing with and is willing to help me if I just put myself in a position to receive His help. I am so glad I made a good choice and went to church when I really really didn't want to.
PS This is also part of my practice of blogging of spiritual things - it feels extremely awkward, but it's not something that I want to confine only to Sundays at church.
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