The Homework Adventures of Anna Groover

This was written a week and a day before the date it was posted.  Procrastination, yo.

And dinner has been eaten.

I'm frantically doing the homework for tomorrow that I was supposed to have spent the past week doing.

Haha!  Everything is fine.

I think it would help if I wrote a blog post WHILE doing homework.

That makes sense, right?

These are the messages I just sent my friend.  So you understand my frame of mind.  I’m not exactly rational, but I’ve got this nervous energy running through my veins.  I can’t stop shaking, and that makes some sort of sense considering the circumstances.

It is 8:19 on a Monday night, and I am doing homework.  “Ha!” you scoff.  “What’s so special about that?”

Nothing, actually.  Nothing a’tall.  It’s only that I have to leave for class tomorrow at 10:00, which isn’t that late, and I’ve been feeling odd and feverish much of today, and I have to read thirty pages of Anatomy, memorize approximately five thousand two hundred and forty-seven terms*, and I also have a cough.  Still.

*EDITOR’S NOTE:  This is not an exact number.  I’m not sure where she pulled this out of.

Can we talk about this cough?  I don’t even remember when I got it, but it’s been sticking with me for several weeks.  It’s probably getting time to name it.  It obviously really loves me, but to be totally honest, if cruel and heartless, I have no desire to keep it in my life.

“But still,” you say, “that doesn’t sound so bad.”

Well, no.  Not really.  For it to make sense to you, I’d have to lay out the whole emotional background to this panic running through all of me right now, but I’m doing homework right--

Who am I kidding?  That’s never stopped me before.

And that’s the problem right there.  I procrastinate, because I always view other things as more important than my school.  Last year I took Chemistry from the same teacher I’m taking Anatomy from this year.  I always ended up doing my homework last minute, which works for most subjects, but not for Chemistry.  I did not fail, but it was a near thing.  Near the end, I really got behind, and I never quite caught up.  I still have a panicky feeling when I think about it.

I’m afraid that I’m still tempted to make that mistake.  So making this mistake a week after the first class really, really scares me.  I don’t want this to be a habit pattern of mine.  

I will recover!  I will rise up and rebel against my own laziness!  I will do better next week!

But isn’t that what I always say?  It’s always next week.  It’s always, I’ll try harder.  But do I ever?

Heyyy!  There’s a song by the Dutch rock band Kensington called Do I Ever.  I love that song, but I didn’t realize until that last paragraph that some parts of it really apply to me, at least right now.  You should all listen to it (hello, my one reader!), but for all those who won’t, here is the chorus written out all neatly:

I let it throw me off my feet,

I let it put me on my knees,

What do I know?

I ought to grow,

But do I ever?

Seriously, though, listen to it.  Your life will be forever changed.

Now is the part of this blog post where I stop trying to impart my stress to you, and I start trying to impart the remedy.  Because the truth is, even though I’m tired and guilty and scared, God is sovereign.  And He sent His only Son to save me.

That’s pretty crazy.  I’m a sixteen-year-old girl, sitting here frazzled and fuzzy-brained, doing something I put off until the last minute, and the King of kings, Creator of the universe, died.  For me.

So really, all this is pretty small.  It’s true: it’s late.  I have a lot to do tonight.  I have a lot to do tomorrow, and the next day after that, and for the rest of my life, there will always be stuff I should be doing.

But God has always sustained me, and He has promised to always sustain me.  So I think I’ve actually got it pretty good.  Who I really feel sorry for are the people who don’t know God, and don’t think they need to.  Who think that everything in life is fine and okay, when really they have no legitimate hope.  I feel sorry for the unbelievers whom God has not blessed with discomfort, with the feeling that something is wrong and needs to be fixed.

So as much as I’ll pray for peace and time for myself, tonight and throughout the school year, my prayers will go out so much more for those lost souls feeling at home in a sinful world that will one day be destroyed.

And now I really must do my school.  But hey, thank the Lord that I even have opportunity to learn these things.

So long,

Anna