21 weeks.

i am counting them carefully as they carry me slowly but certainly toward the end of this very exhausting, very frustrating, very important year. there is truth in saying that it's never good to wish your life away, but i don't really care. i don't want any more in-house call. i don't want my loans to keep snowballing in economic hardship deferment. i don't want to have to choose between having personal time and having friends, because i can't have them both. on top of all of this, i am tired of hearing myself complain about the same things over and over. argh. frustration.

it doesn't help that this weekend - my weekend "off" - i was away with campus life. i'm not the leader i want to be with these girls that i love. i'm just too sleep-focused when i'm not at the hospital, where i am spending too many sleepless nights lately.

so, of course, i was exhausted even before i got to the cabin, and then i had the opportunity to spend several hours with a search-and-rescue team that scoured the dark, twelve-degree night searching for three teenage girls that had gotten lost on a hike to a nearby creek. when they were finally found, i pretty much fell asleep on the spot. i imagined critical thoughts emanating from the other staff about how i am selfish, always focused on my own needs, not being sacrificial and blending into the background like the rest of them. and then, of course, the final conclusion of all these thoughts: i should quit. quit everything. i can't do it all.

but Christ, He can do this in me. when i am weak, then i am strong - that's what He tells me. so i suppose there is nothing to do but keep on going, to try to love the weakness i am forced into because it is there that He can find me best. in 21 weeks, maybe i'll be able to see how He used it - all of it - my sucking as a leader, my isolation from my friends, my lack of personal time - to make me more like Him. so i will keep one eye on the calendar, and one eye on Him, and keep on going.