"Where you invest your love, you invest your life."

I have this white board. Technically it's my mom's. The homeschooling stand-by that sported our daily grammar lessons and math tricks charts  lived in our basement for a while, until I redirected it for my own personal use. (Kids do this with their parents' stuff. It's the worst.) So "my" white board that previously enshrined my summer to-do list has received a makeover as my autumn goals list. Though I whipped up the goals arbitrarily and on a whim, one particular goal has been a nagging addendum to each campus-related decision I make.

It says, "Be available."

I feel pulled in so many directions, my heart caught by the things I know I ought to invest in. There are seven days in a week, and twenty-four hours in a day, and the things set before me are all good and important. Why, then, do I find myself disquieted by the lack of space in my schedule? 

Part of me is bitter. I look at the students in my honors' class, how they're on the executive board for three clubs, and in Greek life, and they have internships, and campus jobs, and they still have time for Applebee's trivia night every week. How do they do all that? Why can't I pull that off?

Part of me is selfish. My time is my time, and I will spend it the way I want. The sense of obligation and responsibility I feel towards my commitments leaves me with an acidic taste in my mouth, something my head can rationalize but my heart revolts against. Why do I hoard my time so hungrily? Why do the things I love and choose to do so often feel like obligations?

Part of me is overwhelmed. I am just one person, and I am not enough to do all that needs to be done. I cannot possibly love all the people that need loving. I cannot even learn all there is for me to learn. I am too weak and too busy and too self-centered to be what I ought to be. How can I cut off the things that make me small and hold me back? And what if I can't?

Oh, here is the really mysterious part. That I have to teach my brain to skirt around it, so I can think about it better. (Like you see things more clearly out of the corner of your eye.) It's so simple that I struggle with the mechanics of it, but this is it: He is my enough. He owns my time. He fills my heart. He gives me strength. What does that mean? What does that look like? How do I let Him?