By Tracy Astle
This time of year is completely insane for me. I mean completely. I'll spare you all the gory details, but suffice it to say that I'm on the go from either 4:00 or 5:00 every morning until 9:00 or 10:00 every night during the week. Saturdays are filled with all the wife/mom things I don't get to during the week, you know, laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, those kinds of things. Sundays are for church and preparing a week's worth of seminary lessons.
Needless to say, by this far into tax season (I work for an accountant) I am feeling like nothing is getting the full attention it deserves. March and April are just-do-enough-to-get-by months in my life. If I'm not careful this can leave me feeling down on myself for things like not excersizing often enough or hard enough, for not making time to write, for not being the kind of wife/mom/visiting teacher, etc. I want to be. And forget the seemingly endless pursuit of my degree.
I know many of us find ourselves in similar situations, just plain overcommited.
BUT HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS - In Isaiah 9-10 and in 2 Nephi 20-21 there's a phrase which is repeated again and again that can bring us great comfort. "...but his hand is stretched out still." Now that's a nice enough thought on it's own, but when we look at what it follows, it gets even better. In these chapters God lists all manner of awful things His children can and will do: starting wars, being hypocrits and evildoers, people being horrible to each other and not even sparing their brother, just to name a few. Yet in spite of all of these things, "his hand is stretched out still."
Now, I'm sure none of us are doing things as bad as what Isaiah and Nephi outline and if God's hand is stretched out to those who do those things, then we can be supremely confident that His hand is stretched out to us as well. He loves us. Period.
So when we are feeling like we aren't compassionate enough, thoughtful enough, nice enough, whatever enough - or if we're feeling like we're just plain not enough - we can take comfort in the vision of His hand reaching out for us.
This I know, no matter what our weaknesses may be His hand is stretched out still.
I hope you can feel that, too.
Encouraging. Good luck with tax season.
ReplyDeleteNice, Tracy! I needed to read this today.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I needed this reminder right now.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Susan. The beauty of tax season is that it always has a definite ending, so I know exactly how long I have to hold on. Sometimes the hardest thing is not knowing how long a challenge will last.
ReplyDeleteKristin and Cindy, I'm glad this was helpful to you. Remembering we're not the only ones who sometimes feel this way goes a long way in helping us get past it.
Love your post, Tracy. Thank you for sharing your great insight! We all need to be reminded!
ReplyDeleteI always think of when Christ said so often How oft I would have gathered you but you would not. Or something like that. We do myself especially forget that He is there wanting to help.
ReplyDeleteBeing enough is one of my hardest hurdles. I think I'm doing better, and then I crash and burn all over again. This reminder is timely for me. Thanks, Tracy!
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