Ummm.. That's Not What I Signed Up For!!!

For the past four days at work I have been entering in class request for all of 520+ students that are assigned to me. This is a pretty monotonous task. The average amount of classes entered in for each student is 10-12. Meaning I have approximately entered in 5200 request. During the boringness of each day I have had moments of laughter from the comments that were often written on the sheets to "clarify" what the individual ( actually the parents) wanted. Examples-"please notice the rigor of the classes requested and be sure to spread them out evenly between the semesters" ( side note- we are on the block system- each student takes 4 classes in the fall and 4 new ones in spring-much like college) "please do not change any class written down without calling me (the parent) and receiving permission," "I can get my kid through high school if you will place every class in the order that I tell you to."
Many times I honestly laughed because this system just does not work exactly like that, there are too many variables. Yes, we try to help but.. school is similar to life and just does not always work like planned. Conflicts: We have tons of classes listed that we do not currently have teachers for. Some classes are only offered once and interfere with another class, etc.
Driving home today I thought about how many times in my life that I wish I could, and probably do, ask or demand that God spreads out the "rigor" of my life... It would be great if the stress level could be balanced at a steady level that I could handle! I want to tell God, "If you will do things my way, I will be a successful Christian and not mess up." I also thought about the classes many of the students requested. Knowing my students decently well at this point, I saw some students that requested classes that going to cause huge struggles for them. They have no real concept of the difficulty level of the class the requested.I placed those students in the challenging classes because it will cause them to grow- even if they do not keep an "A" average while in the class. I asked myself driving home how many times does this happen in my life. I ask for something and then get in the middle of it and feel like I can barely keep my head above water. I have to remember that there is strength that comes through these challenging times. Being a counselor is one of these areas for me right now. It often is extremely stressful! I could do something that keeps a kid from graduating from high school. I am not counseling as much as I would like to. I probably counsel more parents than kids. which is odd because I often do not have the "right" answer that is going to solve problems that have usually been there for years and I have do children of my own- so I cannot truly understand how these parents feel.- as much as I want to understand. I keep reminding myself that i am growing as a counselor and personally through this. I also remind myself that this semester is easier than last semester and hopefully next year will be even better. I also try to remind myself that it could be alot worse!!!! Whenever things like this get be down I try to think of a situation that would make the circumstances even worse. Example- I could have 3 other counselor to work with that are all hateful towards me. ( I really work with 3 awesome co-workers that allow me to vent and ask 100 questions everyday.) Okay... so I have digressed into a blog about my job and frustrations that this sometimes holds for me. thanks for reading if you made it to the end. Please do keep me in your prayers. It is hard.