I hope this kills all preconceived expectations of me. I never liked those anyway

I have this terrible confession that I really don't feel sorry for at all, although I'm sure someone will be able to find a reason to critique me.

Sometimes I wish my life wasn't so hard. 

I know, I know, there are people who stare death and hunger in the face every single day they get up. There's people who work 12-hour days and never get to feel the sun on their faces, and people who will strive and fight poverty their entire lives and, in the end, they will die in the same circumstance they were born in. I know there are children who have been adults their entire lives, and I know there are people paying for sins they didn't commit in ways that no one should ever have to pay any debt. 

I know. I know life is not fair. I won't ask for it to be. I know I complain out of excess and a place of great blessing. And I am sorry if this is self-centered and unjustified and spoiled. 

But I am tired. I am tired of averaging 1 meal a day, and averaging 5 hours of sleep every day of the week, and of weekends with 25 hours of homework in them, and skipping intramural games to do research in a lab by myself, and not getting to spend time with people that I love and want to invest in. I am tired of missing my little brother's soccer games, and going to school full time for 3 years straight, and no summer breaks, and being made to feel guilty for being so busy, and of working hard at subject most people can't even pronounce, and struggling so hard just to make terrible grades, and never getting to run anymore, and of money always being a concern, and of being so tired and frustrated and irritable all the time because I never have enough sleep, and not having time to read books anymore, and of feeling so alone, and of the uncertainty that all of this effort and work will still not be enough to get into medical school, and of school getting in the way of my learning. And so.much.more. 

And really, I am tired of this driving force within me that won't settle for anything less than perfection. I am tired of being compelled to live my life with self-discipline and integrity and intentionally. I am tired of always taking on more than anyone in their right mind would take on and going at it 150 miles an hour with no abandon. Sometimes, I envy people who do not think about their lives, and who live for only themselves and are content with mediocrity. I envy people whose aspirations are easy and have no opposition or resistance. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if all I wanted were things that I could easily attain with little effort, and all I expected of myself was to exist. 

And before I sat down to write this complaint, I thought "This is a bad idea, because this isn't really how someone should represent Christ. I should probably write something about how God is good despite my circumstance, or something with a spiritual twist that actually sounds like my life is ok, even when I just feel like it sucks. Because my life is supposed to be great. I think"

But the idea of writing something that so grossly misrepresents what I am really feeling turns my stomach. Because it's a lie. And this idea that I should react to every hardball life throws at me with a Jesus bat is ridiculous. And lame. And not possible. Because I represent Christ not by what I am, but by what I am not. If people could look at me and praise every way I handled things, they should start worshiping me along with Jesus. Christ is evident in me not because I am a success, but because I am constantly on the edge of failing at all the things the world says I should be competent at. I've never had someone interested in what drives me because my life looks perfect, but I have had some people who felt safe talking to me because they saw that I'm a broken person too. You can't see Jesus very well if you look at my wins column. But take a look at my losses and my failures, and you'll see that every single one has a measure of grace, a new level of understanding truth, and has taken me one step farther than I was before. 

And you don't have to look closely to see I'm loved, and it helps. To know that I am loved in the midst of my failure, and to realize that even if I never become good for much of anything by human standards, I'm looked at and loved the same. To know that I'm seen in my entirety, good, bad and ugly things, and told that I'm ok. I'm ok. 

I'm tired. And life is hard. And I can't lie and say that being in a relationship with a God that I don't really understand is not frustrating and difficult at times. It is, and sometimes I feel like I am going to quit.

But not today