Remember Who You Are Juggling For

Life is busy. If you haven’t figured that out by now, you are probably in for a rude awakening. I am really starting to realize how impossible it is to fit everything in. It is especially hard as a young, single college student.  There is school. There is homework. There is work. There are church callings. There is scripture study and prayers. On top of all that, you want to try to have an ounce of a social life. It is hard! Sometimes life can be overwhelming.

Sometimes, I feel so split in all these different directions. I feel like it is impossible to get it all done. I wake up in the morning and I have to attend 4 hours of class. Then I need to go to work. Once I come home, it doesn’t stop there. I have homework to complete, projects to work on, emails to send, students to contact, and people to visit. I try to get all these things done quickly so I can get a couple of hours to chill with my boyfriend before going to bed at a decent hour and waking up to start it over again. The hardest realization is that they are all good things. It is important to do all of these tasks, but sometimes (a lot of times) there is literally not enough hours in the day. Granted- I have started eliminating some of the ‘time-wasters’ in my life these last two months (Hulu and Netflix watching). I have tried to make sure my life is balanced. I don’t want to have too much of one thing that then takes away time from something else. It just becomes a juggling act.

Being at BYU, I have a wonderful professor named Brad Wilcox who loves to relate spiritual insights into our everyday educator life. Of course because it was an education class, he read us this children’s book. It is called “The Clown of God.” At the end of the story, Brother Wilcox asked us who we were juggling for. He told us that some days you will not get it all done. It isn’t possible, especially as a teacher, to get everything that you want done in a single day. There is always more that can be done. But as you realize who you are juggling for, you will get done what you need to get done. You will see what the most important parts are in that moment. It can change from day to day. It will all work out how it is supposed to work out.

Honestly, I sometimes feel completely inadequate. Especially after my accident a couple of months, I felt completely weak. I felt like I couldn’t get everything done. I felt like I should be stronger physically and emotionally. The accident was a lot harder than I had expected both physically and emotionally. It took a really long time to feel like I was some what normal. In that moment though, I let a lot of my juggling balls drop. I dropped going to class for that Monday. I dropped having meetings for my calling. I dropped my exercise routine. I dropped some of my work responsibilities. I dropped a lot of my ‘free time’. Physically and emotionally I was not able to complete these things.

While I dropped a lot of these juggling balls, I kept the important ones in the air. I was still attending church and completing my scripture study. I was still doing my calling as much as I could. I was still having time to spend with my friends. I also picked up a couple juggling balls that same week. I picked up practicum and writing lesson plans. I picked up going to the chiropractor every day. I picked up my parents coming into town. I picked up balancing my new relationship in this new style of life.

Life needed to change. We can’t juggle all the balls all the time. It just isn’t possible. If we try to juggle too much at once, we end up dropping everything. In these moments when we feel like we are falling, when we feel like we are dropping everything, we can reach out like Peter and Christ will be there to lift us up.

As we work with juggling our lives, we need to draw ourselves closer to God. He is the one that we are juggling for. He is the one that helps us keep all the right balls in the air and to know which ones need to drop at certain times in our life. At the right times, He will also throw new things into the mix because He knows we can handle them.

He knows us. We need to know Him. Just remember who you are juggling for and always remember…

Come what may and love it.