--but the burden, whatever it may happen to be, will be there still, rubbing against the edges of your psyche whenever you turn your mind. No rhyme or reason to it - it's just there. It grows if you think about it, but it looms even when you ignore it - it won't go away.
This** was probably about the right time to read that passage of Matthew: none of us can grow so much as an inch by worrying about it, so there's not that much point in it, is there? Acknowledge the problem and move on. Try to fix it, pray for grace to deal with it, breathe - don't let your mind, paralyzed, roil in worry and stress on and on.
So, so, so much easier said than done. But, y' know, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," and then there's the some hundred or so points of "Do not fear/fear not," yeah... yeah. It's still a struggle to do that, to just do what you can and stop stressing about the problem. Maybe someday I'll actually manage it.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to keep better track of these things. I know what's going on, more or less: I need to get a student loan for something like $11 thousand before the next quarter starts. It's such a simple problem, and yet it bloody... looms, and the actual solution seems so complicated. Because even simple problems, you see, are compound, made up of all parts.
Not least is the part where I am still quite resistant to asking people for help. You'd think, after twenty-three years and change on this planet, I'd have learned that you can't actually do
So it all comes back, as usual, to my own issues, and how I need to work them through and really I can either stress about it uselessly, or acknowledge the problem, do what I can, and pray for the strength/trust/grace that I need to work through it. *sigh.*
It's kind of funny - so often, people understand about financial issues... and then you have the people who somehow know you well enough to understand that the problem is a compound of financial issues and "oh my God I have to ask someone for help." I'm quietly glad there are only a few of those around, and very glad that there are a few of them around, because it's far too easy to forget about the "I have to ask someone for help" part of it and stress about the part I can't do anything about, studiously and mostly-unconsciously ignoring the part that I can.
So, to wrap it up: I called my stepmother today, and after talking to her, I applied for a loan on my own, and was instantly denied - the last screen of the application was the "Sorry, no" screen. Rather than continue to bash my head against the problem, I took the dog outside, started writing this, and am going to go back to this whole thing tomorrow. And pray about it.
There's another post I'm working on, about Christmas music, but it may just boil down to a paragraph in a list of observations. We'll see. Goodnight, internet.
*And here I use 'funny' in the sense of 'utterly irritating and frustrating,' of course. **Between the two paragraphs, I stopped, did a few pushups, took the dog I'm dogsitting outside, and read the first few chapters of Matthew because I really do need to reread the New Testament (and the Old Testament***, but that one takes a little more of a running start and planning). ***...and the Apocrypha, come to think of it. Now that that's actually a thing that pops up in readings and sermons, I should probably have at least a passing familiarity. But for that, I'll have to go afield a bit, since the only Bible I currently have is an ancient, doodled-on, water-damaged, Old King James. Has my name on the front cover in my father's best cursive, and then again in my own crayon'd scrawl, as well as the words "Holy Bible" repeatedly, I guess in case I forgot what it was? I think I was still trying very hard to be pious and A Good Christian Girl, and writing the Right Words probably seemed apropos.
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