Being in school, I often feel pressed for time, and sometimes completely overwhelmed by the things going on in my life. When you add the frustrations of school with the other trials in life, and the goals and aspirations I want to achieve, it can feel like everything is whirling around me and that I am losing control of certain things in my life. In Acts 27, Paul and the men that are carrying him captive to Rome, are in what I perceive to be a similar situation. They are on a boat when the East wind starts to blow and they start to lose control of their steering. In verse 18, the men, "being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, . . . lightened the ship." They did this, by throwing out the excess and unneeded. It is interesting that I almost feel the opposite when my way gets rough. I start to try and do everything at once, and sometimes, I even add things to my list, thinking that it may help with the "must do's". President Uchtdorf gave a talk about this very concept in October 2010. He said

"When stress levels rise, when distress appears, when tragedy strikes, too often we attempt to keep up the same frantic pace or even accelerate, thinking somehow that the more rushed our pace, the better off we will be. . . .[However], there comes a point where milestones can become millstones and ambitions, albatrosses around our necks."

When I am going through my own tempest, I should remember the lesson of Paul and lighten my load. Struggles are not reasons to increase my load of work, they are reasons to let go of the unnecessary and excess. They are ques to return to the simple truths and the things that matter most. I believe that when we lighten our loads, we can more easily turn the steering of our boats, to our Father in Heaven. By doing so we will be blessed and we will feel the helplessness, and hopelessness of a storm out of our control pass by us without harm.