May 10
14
:-)
Tamera is our guest blogger today. She’s a great friend, and offers great perspective on life today. Enjoy!
I am studying to become a special education teacher. I learn that all of my students will learn differently, and I think everyone learns differently anyway. So, if everyone learns differently why when we get a paper back do we say, “What did you get? What did you get?” You know you have been there before: when someone gets one point lower than you, and this person always gets a higher grade, but when you get that extra point you sort of smile inside and think “haha I win.” Yet, if we all learn differently, why are we comparing ourselves to each other?
I have done that my whole life. Stressed for success, I call it. This semester has been the worst. I have skipped church and Sabbath rest days (or rest times cause some of my friends cannot take a whole day so they take 1/7 out of everyday). I have pulled all nighters and skipped meals. Just to have the best grades, and to make sure I was the best. I would cry when I got and A- because it wasn’t perfect.
Then I read this… “Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else” (Galatians 6:4). Wow! What an amazing and powerful statement. Father wants me to pay attention to my own work, and try my best, and that is all he asks. He knows I am different from everyone else, and he knows what my honest best is, and he doesn’t care about the letter grade. I would never expect my students to be perfect all the time, so why do I hold myself to such a secular standard instead of God’s standard?
A few weeks ago I heard a talk about this woman who wanted to go medical school. She wrote to an to her friend and said, “Now I have time to go medical school but it will take forever, after all the field experience and the classes, it will take ten years, I will be forty.” Her friend replied, “You will be forty in ten years anyway.” This conversation really hit me. Why am I not living my life? Why am I so worried about a letter that by the time I am forty won’t matter?
So, I pulled out a post-it note (an orange one) and on that post-it note I wrote Sundays are for resting, spending time with God, and building upon relationships. I look at that post-it when I am stressing over homework or a test I have. I think to myself it doesn’t have to be perfect; just try your best, because that is all that Father asks, and Sundays are his time to grow in him and rest!
