Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. Well right now many of us kind of feel like we’re drowning. We’ve been in school for only a week now and already many of us feel in over our heads. I’ve been wrestling over if I want to stay an English major or change to education. I’ve been trying to balance out work and school and friends and it all just seems like it’s too much. Many of us are already questioning how we’ll get through the semester. I was in a meeting with my adviser the other day for about an hour and for most of that time I stared blankly at a paper in front of me while fighting back tears instigated by stress. By the time I got home that afternoon I was extremely overwhelmed. All I could think about were the six clay pots I needed to make for art class and the grueling speech I needed to prepare for class the next day. How could I be feeling this much stress just days after beginning the new semester? I hadn’t felt this anxious since finals week and I had promised myself that this would be the year I would spend less time worrying.

Then I realized something: after all the time I had spent freaking out about tasks and assignments I had spent little time in the Word or even talking to God. I had forgotten about the most important thing of all: the reason and purpose in even being here. Jeremiah 29:11 is a verse most of us know, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” The Bible clearly explains how God has everything figured out and how worrying isn’t helpful…yet we still do it. We allow ourselves to become so consumed in living that we forget the purpose of why we are even living. So what needs to change? I think we need to remind ourselves of who is truly in control of our lives, spend fervent time in the Word and in prayer, and use our time wisely. Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in life. Spend your time here at Cairn being present in the now and not worried about the future.