The past week or so has been crazy and stressful. Just when I thought things might be getting better at work, I'm proved wrong. I was given a data entry project that was 172 pages long that had to be entered by the close-of-March and it has been kicking my butt. Not only has all my other work (you know, the work I'm actually paid to do) been getting behind while this project took priority, but the project took a lot more time than anyone anticipated. I was working on it last week, in the midst of all the craziness of finding out I was pregnant, and had taken the report home several evenings to work on it. A few nights I ended up working on it late into the night. BAD IDEA when you're pregnant. Thursday was my exhaustion breaking point and I was just honest with my boss about not being able to take on anything extra over the next nine months because I knew physically and emotionally I couldn't handle any extra stress. I knew I could have worked on things over this past weekend to get caught up and simply chose not to. I was able to sleep, rest, take a trip to the zoo with my family, and just enjoy my first weekend with the knowledge of being pregnant. Yesterday I finally finished the project after more than 8 straight business days of working on it. I must say that my husband has not only been incredibly supportive of me, but has also been an encouragement and a reminder to me to take care of myself and help me maintain healthy boundaries when it comes to work, especially now. You wouldn't think it, but I have been quite a pushover and am easily manipulated when it comes to work. I always feel like I could do better and should be able to handle everything given to me, even if logically I know it's impossible. To some degree, I know my boss depends on me and I hate to disappoint her by admitting I can't do something or even admit that I need more time.
I have come to realize that this is also true oftentimes in my relationship with God. I sometimes have a sense of needing to prove myself or show that I can do things on my own. I know this is so backwards from how God wants us to be - I can hardly get out of bed and face the day without His help - but something within me wants me to believe that eventually I should be able to handle things on my own. It's almost like I want to prove that I've learned everything I need to know from Him to go through life, but He just keeps showing me that I haven't learned it all. This can be pretty frustrating and humbling as I feel I want to please God by showing Him how well I've learned from Him and because it's hard for me to finally come to the point of admitting that I haven't learned it all or even when a lesson I thought I'd learned comes back for another round and I am shown another aspect of faith that I hadn't considered previously.
As I'm learning how to better communicate with my boss and be honest when I am overwhelmed, I am learning that God doesn't expect me to have my life all figured out and that I don't ever have to feel overwhelmed by life or like I've learned it all. I'm definitely not where I used to be in this area and that is encouraging to me. Every now and then, though, I can feel myself travelling back down this road or towards it. I'm so very glad that God always calls me back to the joy of Himself and away from the chains I could easily find myself locked up in again.
1 comment:
You put it so well. This is good for me to read.
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