The above picture represents a stage in my life that I thought I would never get through. I had just finished final exams and was terrified of the outcome of my last semester as a Junior. I had experienced so many mental breakdowns and anxiety attacks from a series of events and low places that I found myself in throughout the semester, so much that my mom had to stay with me during final exams. I needed encouragement, and I needed it bad.
Kind of like right now, and I'm sure that some of you might find yourself in the same place.
While the start of a new semester looks shiny and promising, there is always that point when reality begins to settle in, and you realize that responsibilities are resurfacing just as fast as they left at the onset of Christmas break.
You show up to the first day of classes, all of your professors throw a syllabus at you, as well as your final exam date, and you begin to feel your forehead break out in sweat. We've all been there, and that is precisely the place that I found myself at while sitting in my first ever 8 AM of my college career.
Not only do we attend classes, but nightly meetings as well, all while attempting to retain a social life and keep up with our mental health.
It's A LOT. I know it. I've been there.
There have been days when I wanted to simply throw in the towel, and quit school altogether.
I have been at the point when I couldn't find even a sliver of motivation to get me through the meetings, the extra credit seminars, work, or even to church.
The feeling of defeat is nothing new to me, but what I have learned is something that will forever be a constant even though my motivation level is not always.
The Lord doesn't love you because you do everything right, or you attend every meeting and aren't a second late... The Lord loves you because of you are His, and that will never change.
See, regardless of our level of perfection in a certain class or at a meeting, he is always constant, always.
Regardless of our inability to give ourselves creditor to take time to breathe, his loves you fully, with no prerequisites.
That is what had gotten me through the majority of my sleepless night when a responsibility or test kept me awake at night with anxious thoughts.
Regardless of our performance, or how good we look to the people of this Earth, our worth is found in God, and we must not let performance or standards of society fog up our sight of that.