March 25, 2007 @ 10:39 pm | Filed under: Uniquely Me

I took the towel off of my wet hair this morning and leaned my arms on the bathroom counter, staring at the dark circles and deep bags that ran half-moons beneath both my eyes. In my head all I could hear was my mother’s words of warning from a few days ago.

"Staci, I can tell from looking in your eyes. You’re pushing too hard. You need to slow down."

Even as I did my best to camoflauge the tiredness this morning, a few scenes from the past week revisited me.

Last Tuesday afternoon I walked into a new class on campus: American History II - Express. That means a whole semester in a mere eight weeks. It also means adding two and a half hours to both of my days on campus, taking my school days from four hours up to seven.

I don’t remember a lot about the first day, except my first impression of the professor. With wild hair and a wooly beard, he possessed a high energy that I was pretty sure was only heightened by the Starbucks cup he clutched as he strode briskly from one side of the room, to the other, to the other, to the other, to the other…

Promising to get us all "high on history," (obviously he’d not had someone as immune to history as me before!) he passed out pretests, the class syllabus, and then promptly dove right into Chapter One. While it’s all a bit cloudy right now, somewhere around Hour Two I distinctly remember thinking, "Dear God. WHAT HAVE I DONE?"

Could I not have left well enough alone and been content with twenty-four credit hours for my first year? But no, silly me. I want to begin next fall as a full-fledged sophomore, regardless of the fact that no one except me is keeping score.

About eleven-thirty the next night, having just returned home from a quick trip out of town, I sat at the computer and finally hit SEND, shooting a paper off to a professor with a scant 29 minutes to spare until the cut-off. Then I began to prepare for the next day’s classes: a Psychology test at 8:30, a roundtable debate in Government at 10, and a response paper for my Lit class. Not to mention the joys of getting high on history all over again at 1. Sometimes, the fun just never stops…

By Friday I was in full-on guilt mode that I’d not met my word count for this week. Again. While school is of the utmost importantance to me right now, I know that writing is my calling, and that it shouldn’t be neglected. So I spent Saturday close to my office and computer, trying to make up for time spent in other places, on other things.

I have to admit that by the time I arrived at church this morning I was ready to just take a seat, breathe deeply a few times, and relax. I will never complain, that much is for sure. Compared to my husband’s crazy schedule (he’s going from L.A. in the morning to Waco on Wednesday) and the schedules of some of our friends, mine is a complete cake walk. Believe me, I know this.

Still and all, I felt road-weary this morning and not at all sure that I was doing such a good job of keeping all my balls up in the air. Keeping priorities straight and making myself available as a mom and wife and friend while keeping up a certain GPA in school and attempting to write fiction that will inspire…

Well, let’s just say that not all my bases are covered each and every day. And that bothers me.

But as the first few strains of this song began this morning, something in me stirred. The weariness eased from my body and I felt my spirit respond.

"As I look back over my life
and I think things over.
I can truly say that I’ve been blessed,
I’ve got a testimony.

There was a time I couldn’t find my way.
The Lord, He brought me out, yeah.
Right now, I’m free
And I’ve got the Victory.
Now, I’ve got a testimony."

In those next few, sweet minutes the craziness of my life right now made absolute perfect sense to me.

You see, there was a time in my life when I would never have visualized the life I’m living today. While going to school and writing full-time are a delicate balancing act, they are THE evidence of a God who loves me.

He saw a girl with a desire to love and be loved, a passion for writing, and an untapped zest for life. This season in my life is all about cultivating both, that desire and that passion.

Do I need school to do that?

Well, maybe not. But it is the path that will lead me to the place I desire to be: instilling this same passion in the hearts and minds of the generation that is following along behind me.

Do I need to write?

Well, maybe not. But the only way to share the truths that God gives to me while writing is to pull it all out of me, one painful page at a time.

As tired as I may become certain weeks, that level of weariness doesn’t come close to the gratefulness I feel for this time in my life. This is my brief window of opportunity to reach out and grasp with both hands all that He has for me. I want to drink it in in great big gulps and wrap my arms around each and every day, squeezing it for all it is worth. I don’t want to squander the resources I’ve been given. This is the time to leave my own footprints on the world around me.

The story of my life is unfinished, but the Author of it promises to make the next chapters even more fulfilling than the previous. There are promises He has made to me that are coming up the road. While it is impossible for me to see how or when…still I trust.

So, as the heroine of His story, I will continue to act, and speak, and love, and learn - just as He asks me to. Even when I become tired. Even when dark circles ring my eyes. Even when my own mother sounds the maternal voice of warning. I will do as He asks.

Who am I to argue with that?

I know what it does to an author when a character acts up…