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Calling on God
As a university student, I often have challenging days. Sometimes I need to learn how to communicate respectfully with a roommate, or work through academic anxiety, or, in a larger sense, find my niche.
When I’m confronted with these situations, I sometimes feel utterly hopeless and stuck in the dark. Sometimes I’ve reacted fearfully and emotionally. I know it would be helpful to pray and acknowledge God as the source of happiness, but it can feel easy to ignore this urging and instead automatically pick up my cell phone and call my mom to vent. Don’t get me wrong! Moms are amazing at listening to and comforting their kids. But when I dial my mother’s number and simply complain to her, I feel worse than before.
A few months ago, I realized how dissatisfied I felt when I’d make these calls. Whenever I complained to my mom on the phone for an hour, it felt like I was dragging her down into the dark as well. She was trying to help me. But at the end of the phone call, when she was not giving me the perfect answers I was looking for, I wasn’t expressing gratitude. I was only repeating the same cycle of flustered nonsense in her ear.
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