After a busy week of language school, English Club and life I was really looking forward to this weekend. I always have this imagination that when the weekend comes, suddenly I will have tons of time to relax, catch up on rest, do the things I didn’t do all week, exercise and have tons of fun. Then somehow the weekend comes and I fill my days with things that somehow are never as relaxing as I imagined and I stress out about not doing other things, be them work or “fun,” that I had wanted to do. I am a doer by nature and a list maker and so I perpetually have a list of expectations for myself that I am never living up to. I also sometimes struggle to prioritize my time so at the end of the day I ask myself “Why did you spend 3 hours doing “x” this afternoon? Shouldn’t you have gotten “y” done instead?”
Another factor that always tugs on my heart is my desire to love people well. I know that different people feel loved in different ways and I want to make sure that I can love them in ways that speak to them. My natural state of love is acts of kindness and deep conversation. So I feel loved and express love by doing things like household chores, going places together and talking about life. This is not the same for other people however, and I worry that I am not giving people enough of my time and attention, or in general showing that I care. I think I often have some underlying doubt as to whether people honestly believe that I love them and care for them if I am not giving them so much of my time and energy. Last night after a Saturday of spending time with a friend and shopping for Christmas gifts, hanging out in the café and having a movie night with some Hungarian friends I was exhausted but knew that I needed to try to call a friend who’s birthday was Friday and I hadn’t been able to get ahold of yet. I was so torn because I felt rude for not spending more of my weekend with my roommates and yet rude because I hadn’t called my friend. Shorty after we had ushered the last guest from our apartment and as I prepared to run off to call her I made the comment, “Please don’t hate me but I am going to run off now and skype a friend.” My roommate in all of her loving wisdom said simply “Why would we hate you for that?” That little comment full of love and grace really struck me.
After staying up late last night talking and then buying plane tickets for the trip I am planning over Christmas I was still exhausted when my alarm went off this morning. I was slow getting ready for church and just missed the bus I needed to catch to make it there on time. Scrutinizing the bus schedule I realized that with the next bus I would be 10-15 minutes late for church. As I was inwardly criticizing myself for being slow and irresponsible I felt a little voice saying that today might be a good day to take a bit of a retreat and have quiet time at home. So I walked back to my apartment, had breakfast with my roommates and then tried to focus on a quiet time. I decided to read today’s devotion from My Utmost for His Highest (http://utmost.org/). The topic was about humility and what is true humility and what is not. The fist time I read it I felt like it wasn’t very applicable but after a couple more readings I realized that it was fit really well with some of the stuff I have been struggling with. You see, when I heap judgment on myself and consider myself such a failure for all the little things that I am not doing, or not doing good enough I am insulting my savior. I am in essence saying that God’s grace is not enough for me and that I need to try harder, or be better for God to really love me. What garbage! One of my best friend’s parents are pretty amazing and a long time ago her mom said to me “God never works by guilt, always grace.” You see guilt is not freedom. Guilt traps us, and makes us feel like we are never good enough, grace says you messed up, but Christ paid the price already so you don’t have to be stuck there, you can move on.
As I pondered all of this today I am still left wondering how I can love people better. I know I need to stop feeling so guilty about the things that I am not doing, but do also want to continue to grow and learn to love better. I think for me right now part of loving people better is making sure I am giving myself good time with the Father and time to rest and stress relieve so that I can enjoy the time I spend with others. I also need to really let go of trying to do everything so that I am not worrying about getting to the next event and can enjoy where I am in that moment!
So in closing I would love prayer for learning to not accept the guilt that the enemy uses to try to keep me from living in God’s grace, to learn how much I can and cannot do and to continue to learn to love people well. Thank you all so much for your love, prayers and support!
Liz