Study Blues

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“Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? Notice how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t wear themselves out with work, and they don’t spin cloth. But I say to you that even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn’t dressed like one of these. If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, won’t God do much more for you, you people of weak faith?”
Matthew 6:25-30


It's May! That means finals, stress, looking forward to summer, and an extra dose of stress about everything we still have to do before we can get to the freedom and excitement of summer. It can be overwhelming to handle everything we've committed ourselves to as each thing comes to an end for the school year. Sometimes, though we know it will end, it seems like there's no end in sight.

This passage from Matthew can seem unrealistic sometimes. Perhaps if it was written in our day it would say "Who among you by worrying about your math grade can add a single point to your final grade?" How can we possibly not worry? I'd love to be as carefree as a flower! However, I know that Jesus calls us to a radical life filled with radical love, radical grace, and radical trust over worry.

In these days when we're overwhelmed and worried about how things are going to work out, take a moment and breathe. Literally. Breathe for a minute and remember this verse. Remember that God's brought you through the chaos of May for years. Or perhaps if you have more time, go for a walk. Disconnect from your phone and perhaps breathe some fresh air for just a few minutes. Do whatever you need to do to remember that it's going to be okay. God can bring your through it just as you've walked through it before. These moments may not end the stress, but I hope they can provide for you a moment of clarity and perspective that it's going to be okay.

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