Despair is a funny thing. She can disguise herself as worry and stress, or pretend to be idleness. Either way, she’s still despair. The opposite of hope. She always seems to bring that thought which says “you cannot do it”, “you will not do it”, “this is going to suck”, and my personal favorite, “you don’t have enough time”. Hah. What sacrifices aren’t I willing to make with my time? 


Besides the point. I have been freaking out about my giant maths assignment that’s due in three weeks. (And yes it is maths because I live in New Zealand). I really am not fond of maths. I am an English girl. My brain processes with visual, hands on materials and reflects on those with words. Not often with numbers. So I had a hard time in maths growing up (minus geometry) because often I wasn’t given the materials to understand the concepts. I lived in this shadow of “I’m bad at this”. Which was utterly untrue. 


I may not be able to solve problems quickly and in the most efficient way possible… but God did give me a brain. Which was given to steward my money and cook for others and all those areas that require maths. God is brilliant. He won’t leave me by myself. I have to stay strong in Him! If I run away from doing my assignment, how can I expect my students to stand strong in tough times?


Despair. I dare to say it’s all in our head. It was in mine, at least. Yes, my assignment is overwhelming. (Present tense!) But God got me. Convicted me. Kayla, you are not hoping. I had lost all hope. I saw no gain, I saw all pain, I figured I just sucked at maths and that was all I was going to realize with this assignment. Which was a form of procrastination. Despairing meant I didn’t have to do anything. “Oh, I can’t do this assignment.” COULD I BE EVEN MORE FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH?!


Hope is a funny thing. She can stand in your room for awhile, not drawing any attention to herself. Then when you realize she’s there– everything changes. No longer do you hear “you cannot do this”… instead, she softly whispers saying…”step by step, Kayla, step by step”. No longer do you feel like the world is ending. She smiles. Well, you still have to get over your selfishness. You can’t do everything you want. There’s sacrifices, but hey, there is HOPE. That Jesus and I will get through together, and he will teach me many beautiful lessons throughout the whole thing.


Don’t ever forget Jesus– he’s waiting to give you hope whatever you are going through at the moment. Thank you Lord!!! For without Him, there’s no way I could ever become a teacher. Thank you.