Trailers With No Tail Lights

This morning I woke up and, while waiting for the windshield to de-ice so I could go home from babysitting, I thought, what, is this March??? March is acting like January. Hard frost? Ice? Where is the White Witch? More importantly, where is Aslan?

I guess Aslan, bless him, must have heard me, because by the time I stepped out of the car for my 9:00 class at Kilgore two hours later, the day had changed from frosty January to sweet, clear March with sun and an attempt at green. I love spring. I love it, I love it, I love it. Every fall my favorite season is fall and every spring my favorite season is spring. Not sure how that happens.

Today I was thinking about how much people matter. There's such a fine line between people mattering and people mattering too much.

Sometimes being in public feels like driving behind a trailer that has no tail lights. You're constantly forced to guess when to stop and start. It would be easier not to care what other people do and keep rolling along on your own, but that will most likely result in a wreck.

It's stressful to constantly be trying to read what others are thinking. It's stressful making judgments of yourself and for yourself based on unreliable cues from other people.

Grades worry me too. They feel like a very direct reward or punishment. Do good work, get a doggy treat. Do bad work, you get beat with a stick. Some instructors seem to be on the students' side, while others strike terror in the hearts.

But last week, I thought this out a lot, and I wondered, which would I rather have? A high approval rating with man that rises and falls, or a high approval rating with God that lasts forever? When I have twenty priorities, who is going to dictate what comes first? People, who want me to be and do ten worthy things at once, or God, who knows I am made of dust, and only expects me to obey the next step?

If people really matter, sometimes they take precedence over the most pressing deadlines. As in the case of one of my classmates, who skipped a day of classes to make time for a friend's birthday. Or like last night, when I opted out of unfinished homework to watch Roman Holiday and eat frozen pizza with Kaylee. Not that that was a chore...not that my brains were functioning at a high enough percentage to produce anything worthwhile...but I made a decision with the imagined gun of academic pressure to my head, and I was proud of myself for it.

So Kaylee and I watched Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck fall in love, and made sad faces as he walked down the loooong palace hall *sniff*, and I tried to get a piece of pizza with a maximum number of pepperonis. I could have done an equation for that but decided against it.

The human body is limited. It needs rest. It needs replenishment. I always had the idea that college students are superhuman because they can go nights without sleep and live on coffee. But we aren't! More importantly, the soul needs rest. I want to pursue my work with diligence, but sometimes a quick conversation with Mom over breakfast does more for my well being than cramming the undone worksheet. So I'm tuning my ears to the quiet voice of God's Spirit guiding me in the pattern of work and rest, work and rest.

He's directing traffic for me, and when my eyes are on Him, my inside ears tuned in, I don't care if the trailer in front of me has gimpy tail lights.