Discouragement, Big or Small

I should be working on math right now, and I know that usually makes me discouraged enough, but I've been doin so well this year at defeating that mind game of "I fear math". That's not to say that I've vastly improved on my performance, but there has been some here and there. Right now, though, I feel really mentally burned out and frustrated. I've had the classical music playing that I use when I really need to study, I took a warm shower, I've even been shouting out prayers so that my mind might be able to focus. I can't afford to miss this assignment. But here I am, still finding it difficult to focus. This being the case, I've decided to sleep early tonight and wake up early in the morning to work on it again. They say your mental processing is much sharper in the morning than at night. I don't know if I believe "them" but I'm willing to try anything out at this point.

I was enjoying nature today though. I find maple trees in fall to be almost as vividly enjoyable as fire, and it was a very nice day to walk around between classes and admire all of the maple trees scattered about the area. But as I was walking I got to thinking. Is this truly God's purpose for my life? To be here? Now? It is a conquering and sobering thought, asking questions of who really is making the decisions in my life. I'm so close though, and certainly there is much in my way before reaching the goals set before me, but it's all just a matter of time now. I want to be done so bad. I don't want to suffer these stresses anymore. I know I'll receive new ones when this is all through. That's to be expected and, in fact, I welcome them as long as they do in fact meet that one simple prerequisite of being new. I feel though as if I have grown two sizes too big for my cloths. I'm being held back from persuing my passions. I have come to judge my current endevors as wasted time spent on frivolous activities. All natural I suppose. I have to keep reminding myself that I am no anomaly.

I suppose I could find peace and motivation in all of this "busy" work if I knew that God had specifically placed me in those positions for that purpose, but so many of my prayers of discouragement go unanswered it seems. The silence is what has brought me into a state of questioning. It is a unique silence in that among every other facet of my life God seems to be providing me with plenty of spiritual guidance. But every time I open a text book (and I know this sounds rediculous, but it's true) I seem to feel no spiritual drive pertaining to what I'm studying at all. That's not to say that I don't feel inspiration, because I do. It's just that none of that inspiration falls within the subject of the task at hand.

Maybe it's because I don't expect God to tap me on the head tonight while I sleep and magically make me great at math. That is my raw and open spiritual concern that I lay before you right now. With all of the cries in this world from abused children, widowed wives, the murdered, the lost, the starving, and with all of the sacrafices made by the most righteous of people, where does my discouragement with school work lie? Knowing that God is limitless doesn't change the fact that I still can't justify my small, middle-class, white boy college student discouragement to God in the midst of all of the weight of the universe. Asking for such things makes me feel spoiled, but still, it doesn't stop me from asking, like tonight. I just don't seem to get any answers or peace when it comes to stuff like this, so I begin to sway back and forth, reconcidering how important my pleas seem.

Ah, who knows. Maybe God will tap me on the head tonight. Whatever be the results, I'm sleeping. Peace and love.