New Graces Ever Gaining

I feel incredibly refreshed after four days of decreased responsibility and relaxation. Despite my needing to read a book for one of my classes (of which only half is completed, but it isn't due until Wednesday so that's okay), I've had a lot of time this past weekend to sit and relax, to write, to sleep, or just do generally whatever I felt like doing. It's something I've been in need of for a good while now.

A lot of times, it seems like I try to go around being the Energizer Bunny, who keeps going and going and going even after Darth Vader himself has lost all his juice and stopped in his tracks. And I've learned this semester that I simply can't do that. God didn't make me (or anyone else) that way. I need to have time to stop and just relax, and I need to have time to enjoy friends instead of having all of my friendships revolve around school. The constant work this semester has made me moody and tart and generally not a good person to be around. I've found loving people to be far more difficult and several of my friendships have been extremely strained.

I'm really thankful for this semester--it's been radically different than the last three semesters and far more difficult and straining on me, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, but I'm thankful it occured, because I think I've learned a lot. And I'm also thankful that it's drawing to a close, because such a hard four months is going to require a solid week or two of rest for me to recover.

All this reminds me how much I look forward to reaching the rest that remains for the people of God (c.f. Hebrews 4).

"New graces ever gaining, on this our day of rest. We reach the rest remaining, true spirits of the blest. To Holy Ghost be praises, to Father and to Son. The Church her voice upraises, to Thee, blest Three in One" (Christopher Wordsworth)