Overwhelmed, Overjoyed...

I'm starting to see this as a bit of a theme in my blogs...or at least a theme in the blogs that I start and never finish. I am sitting in bed, typing my report for the Elder's meeting this Thursday and I am overcome for the gazillionth time today with a complete sense of being overwhelmed. I just don't get how I can do it all...and maybe that's the thing...I can't do it all. The past few weeks have been chaotic, pouring into students, leading them in Bible studies, training seminars, and trying to have quality time with them. Then I have my adult Bible studies because people don't think I "care" about older people (ridiculous I might add) and that I don't spend enough time with them. I love the Bible studies...but lately I've been bending over backwards to make sure I make appearances at more meetings, and other activities so that I can "please" everyone. I'm trying to rally the leadership of our congregation around the idea that we are in some serious need of mission, vision, and planning...there's a building project on the way, our pastor is retiring, and those aren't the only changes on the horizon. I have my mission group that I meet with that is incredibly exciting, but then I think of all the potential for future ministry and feel so alone in the effort that I don't know what to do. I have youth trips to plan, outreach visions to coherently put into words, service projects for thrivent, evangelism meeting notes to make, and to top it all off I leave the country in 3 days and I haven't even begun to think about what I'm going to bring with me. That's just the "work" side of my life.

I'm trying to see my friends, and maintain relationships with a few people, exercise more, eat healthier, not bite my fingernails (which by the way I am an utter failure at lately), give my dog the attention she needs, keep my house clean, and the list goes on and on...

The only conclusion I can come to is that the people in this world who claim to have it "all together" are just lying to the rest of us.

Tomorrow is wednesday...it's Lent, so that means it will be a crazy filled day. I still have to pack for my mission trip...and then Thursday morning I have to be at the middle school at 7am (which I love doing but I may have to cancel this week) and then I'm supposed to be at a meeting at 7pm that evening get done at nine, pick up my dog, drive the 4 hours to STL, sleep for 3 hours and get to the aiport in time to catch my flight way stinking early the next morning. I guess it's my fault for planning so many things on top of each other...(although to be fair, I'd rather be chaotic than bored)...but seriously sometimes something has to give. I feel like bowing out of the meeting, but they're talking about serious stuff, and my ideas are all over the agenda...maybe I need to suck it up and tell them they don't need me for it, which in reality they don't...but my ego tells me that things would go "right" if I was there...but if I do that...ah...I guess it doesn't matter. I just needed to vent.

On the other side of things, I'm about to go to a place that I love dearly and see people that I have been missing for almost a year. Pray for me while I'm gone. I can't wait to see Haiti again.