Have Patience, Apply Pressure, Reflect, Repeat.

It was Rick Warren who said, "God changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls, and coal into diamonds using time and pressure. He's working on you, too."  This quote really touched me in a way I wasn't aware possible. As a newly college graduated young woman, I find myself feeling situations of pressure on almost a daily basis. Thoughts and questions tumble around within my head like fresh laundered whites in a worn out dryer: Should I already have a job since I've graduated? How long will it take me to find a job now that I've graduated? Am I going to be able to accomplish my writing goals? And the beat goes on . . .

I suppose it would be unfair to say all these questions and pressure-filled situations started just a mere two weeks ago upon my last drive to Wright State University - all these questions and pressure-filled situations have been whirling and swirling around my head and existence for far longer than my college career. I am a self-acknowledged and medically diagnosed person of a panic disorder, I am disordered with a great amount of panic. Yes, it is unfair to say college graduation led me to these ceaseless questions and immense amounts of pressure. It is safe to say I've been in a high compacted, pressure situation since I hit puberty.

In a recent conversation with a dear friend I was reminded that my concerns, my worries were not trivial, as I had deemed them, in comparison to larger personal and worldly issues with the people and space around me, but relative. What is trivial in my life is monumental in another, and vice versa. I am very quick to simultaneously talk down at myself for worrying about finding a good job, meeting the right man, and finding love before I'm thirty and tell someone off for not taking my concerns seriously. "God changes . . . using time and pressure. He's working on you, too" says Rick Warren - and I buy it, I do. I know that every situation I am put through that is not "easy" is because He is testing me, He is pushing me to become the best version of myself, but I also realize that these situations in which He is using pressure and time, I am not doing anyone any favors by putting even more pressure on myself.

As I walk around in my own pressure filled bubble questioning whether or not I am making a difference in people's lives I have to remind myself to step back from time to time and 'smell the roses,' if you will. I am a nanny to two beautiful children who look forward to seeing me every week, I am a friend, a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a granddaughter, and a niece to people who love and support me unconditionally, and although I don't work full time, I do have two jobs and money coming in every month. Not so bad, in reflection.

So I will continue to walk around in this bubble of mine, trying to alleviate the pressure I put on myself and wait patiently to grow those wings like a butterfly, become a lovely pearl, to shine like that faceted diamond. And I will take pleasure, not pain, in knowing that nothing of this sort of value comes to anyone without a little time and a little pressure.