I’m going through some stuff right now. There has been a lot of stuff going on. I’ve just got STUFF! I feel like my heart is breaking, but I don’t really understand why. I’m trying to keep in mind that other people have stuff too, and they aren’t trying to avoid me, they just have stuff.
I just REALLY, REALLY want to make sure that my life and my decisions and led by God and not stuff.
Last night was my last night at Catalyst as a leader, at least for the summer. A couple of people knew and offered their encouragement, which was extremely nice. With everything that was going on last night, it spoke volumes that people would take the time to offer kind and supportive words to me.
During worship, we sang a song that Mark Thomas had written while him and his beautiful wife were going through a super tough time of loss. I don’t remember the name of the song but the chorus goes something like this (I don’t remember exactly, but Kimmie helped me to remember this much):
It’s your love that rescued me
It’s your love that set me free
It’s your love that made a way
And it’s your love I will proclaim
I was singing and doing a pretty good job of keeping my mind and heart focused on God. When we sang through the chorus the first time I felt how moving it was just to think about God’s amazing love He has for us and how He’s rescued us from an eternity in Hell. But the second time we sang through it, it brought me to tears. God showed me a picture of a time in my life when I was questioning everything including if I wanted to remain a Christian. I just couldn’t seem to shake off the temptations and the desires to sin and make bad choices. I felt completely lost and all alone. But God showed me that I was on a path that once I made it through that rough time it brought me closer to Him. (I’m tearing up as I write this, thinking about what a wonderful and loving God we serve.) He never left me and he made a way for me when all I wanted to do was deny Him. And even though I still struggle with thoughts of shame about that time, last night I felt that He truly wanted to set me free with His love.
So a lot has been going on and I have been greatly neglecting my blog. I can’t fill you in on everything, because 1) I don’t really have that much time and 2) I can’t quite talk about some of the stuff yet. First off, I’m not pregnant, so try not to jump to that conclusion. I know that I haven’t blogged for a little while but I am TOTALLY swamped at work which leaves very little time for blogging and also, I am trying to exemplify a good work ethic and hard work to my new assistant.
Here goes: Good things are happening at my work for me. We have been crazy busy and that is good for growth. Many of you know that back in January I was told by my boss that I would probably be getting a promotion later this year, possibly around October. Last month he informed me that the position that I would be moving into needs to be created within a couple of months. At the time I had a part-time assistant and so we offered her a full time position taking my place, but she had already retired and enjoyed working part time, so she turned it down. I was kinda relieved because she was a nice person and a good worker, but she had a couple of annoying habits and very different views that I have. I was also excited because I had an opportunity to pick my new assistant. I got to hire my good friend Kim. She’s been here for almost a month now and she is catching on pretty quick. During her first week I was really nervous because she doesn’t have a whole lot experience with Excel and my job pretty much revolves around Excel. But by the end of her first week I realized what a great thing that is because I feel like she is a blank canvas. I told her that in 2 months she will be my masterpiece! It’s going to be really good because I don’t have to un-teach her anything, she can learn everything the right way (a.k.a. my way). In the end, everything is going to turn out really good, it’s just really hard to deal with right now because I have new responsibilities, but I still have all of my old responsibilities, but when I take care of those I have to go slow so that I can walk Kim through everything so everything is getting really backed up and I have a mountain of work. But she is taking on more and more everyday and I can’t tell you how proud I am that she is really working out. Not mention that it presents her with a great opportunity. This industry is growing right now and it is a great way to get much needed office experience that will help her to grow with this company (for as long as she chooses to stay) or anywhere else that she might move on to.
As with several of the leaders in Catalyst Peter and I feel like we are in a transitional time in our lives. It makes me sad because of all of the changes (some not good, some great) that are going on in Catalyst right now that I wish I could be a part of, but for now, at least for the summer, Peter and I are stepping down from leadership at Catalyst. We feel like we’ve been giving out so much of ourselves that we’ve really been neglected receiving from God and the Pastors at ORCC. And to be brutally honest, we’ve noticed a difference in our relationship. So we are going to spend the summer finding a balance between giving out of ourselves and replenishing from our Source and spending time focusing on each other. Part of that is returning to the Young Professionals Married Group that meets a couple of Thursday nights out of the month. And let’s not fail to mention that we are hopefully going to save a fortune in gas by not going to church 4 to 5 times a week!
Working out is going great! I’m still really pumped and excited about going. I’m not going to lie, though. Last week I felt like giving it all up. But I made it through that rough patch and I feel like I am more dedicated than ever. Also, I’m more sore than ever. And while I haven’t lost as much weight as I had originally thought I would, I’m pretty sure that I’m losing inches in a few key places and I know that I’m building lots of muscle. In all, I’ve lost 8 pounds. I’m really stoked because I just bought a new pair of jeans yesterday and I actually went down a size!!!!
Peter’s father is still living with us. I’ve come to the conclusion that God may or may not have brought him here to help Joe get his life right and get back on his feet so much as to help Peter and/or me to learn something. I know that I have been really struggling with patience. I just don’t like people in my space touching my stuff. I mean, I can handle it when we have friends over but after a few hours, they leave, and I have my space back again. This is just different. And I know that Peter has been struggling with some of his own issues with his father living with us, which I won’t go into.
So I guess those are the four major areas of my life right now. Now that I am getting to have a little bit of down time at work again I’m looking forward to writing a little bit more consistently. We’ll see how that goes.
Did I read that sign right?
TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW
In a Laundromat:
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT
In a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS
In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN
In an office:
AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD
Outside a secondhand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING - BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?
Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS
Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR
Seen during a conference:
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN’T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR
Notice in a farmer’s field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.
Message on a leaflet:
IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS
On a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR - THE BELL DOESN’T WORK)
Last night at Catalyst was a great night! It was unfortunate that I had to leave so early (please see previous post) and I hardly got to talk to any of my friends. I was able to chat and connect with a couple of Jr. Highers that I don’t usually have the opportunity to talk to. I think that because it was a small group night it really opened up the verbal highway and helped me and the “kids” feel like we were on the same level.
Let me start at the beginning. When I got to church last night I was feeling more frazzled than usual. I had a basic outline of what I was going to talk about from the Company 320 (Catalyst leadership) meeting a couple of weeks ago. It was mostly about Earth Beat. I wanted to use that as an avenue to talk about giving. Since the main theme of our (Peter’s and my) small group, Complete, is about equipping the Jr. Highers to become complete adults and complete Christians. I think that I should note that this was my first time (with this small group) leading the discussion. I’ve lead small groups before, but usually with Complete I co-lead. Anyways, I had printed out 6 verses about not just giving money, but giving of your gifts, and the right attitudes to go along with giving. Mainly since most Jr. Highers don’t have jobs and don’t have a lot of access to cash. But, of course I had forgotten to bring the extra print out with the verses on it too church. I had to have the always helpful Hosh make a copy of mine, then I had to spend a few minutes remembering where I wanted the verses to go in the outline and cutting them up and numbering them. I completely missed pre-service prayer, which is where I gather my focus and energy (I hope that doesn’t sound too weird) for the evening. So, going into worship I was still feeling frazzled and focused on myself rather than God and the ones that He wanted me to reach out to that night.
As usual though, through the AMAZING Catalyst band, by the end of the second song, I felt like I could sense God’s presence, but I was still struggling to put away my thoughts about my stressful living arrangement (helping Peter’s dad get back on his feet by sharing our small apartment) and my crappy day at work. Then something AWESOME happened. Between the 2nd & 3rd songs, Peter got up on stage and told everyone why he worships God and encouraged others to fully enter into worship. He is Rad-Sauce! I had to make sure that the others that were standing around me knew that that one’s mine! I was so proud of him! Back to worship…The band struck up with, How He Loves Us. Best. Song. Ever. After the 1st verse, I was able to put away all of my “me” thoughts. Close to the song’s ending, Pastor Ben got up and prayed that God would come into our lives and distract us and pull us away from the things of this world, not only things of this world, but distract us from ourselves and our own selfishness. I was earnestly praying for that to become my own prayer when I felt God tell me that I would be doing a really selfless thing right now (by opening up our home to help some one in need) if I wasn’t being so selfish. Talk about my heart turning “violently inside of my chest”! He opened up my eyes about how if I would stop letting myself feel so uncomfortable and stop complaining about every annoying thing that Peter’s dad does I might allow me to step out of myself and be closer to God.
Then it was time for small groups. Until recently (last Wednesday night) there have been 2 separate Jr. High groups, but they’ve now been combined into 1 group. We had about 20 to 25 “kids” in our group last night. The icebreaker I opened up with was, name, grade, how long they’d been going to Catalyst, and their favorite thing about Catalyst. There was the one kid who said that there wasn’t anything he liked about Catalyst, but aside from him, I was surprised at how many of them said that small group was their favorite part of Catalyst! I didn’t even say my favorite part of Catalyst was small group AND I LEAD IT! Ha!
I think that most of them interacted well in the discussion, and once I felt like I had gotten off subject, but it was totally God because it brought a few more of them into the discussion. THEN! To close up the group, I had every single person say 1 prayer request. Once we got around the entire circle, I announced that everyone was going to say a prayer for the person on their right. Of course that was met with some groans, but I told them that all they had to do was say at least one sentence and they didn’t have to be nervous because they can keep in mind that they are just talking to God and He hears every word that comes out of their mouths anyway. I also told them that before we started they needed to take it seriously and to be respectful of God and respectful of the person praying, which meant no chit-chatting while we were praying. I cannot tell you how stoked I was by the time we finished! There was only one girl who had a fit of giggles while praying, but aside from that it went really great! I was happy with the entire night! God is SOOOO good!
I apologize for how long this post is. I always start off thinking that I have nothing to say and by the end I feel like I’ve written a novel!
So I finally did it. I signed Peter and me up for a gym membership at 24 Hour Fitness. I’m sure that we could have found someplace cheaper, but this will be super convenient, as it is just on the other side of Alameda. Last night we picked up our iPod Shuffles (mine in purple, Peter’s in silver) and some appropriate work-out gear. This morning I made it official and signed up on-line. I am so excited to get started! Here is my new work-out schedule:
Monday at 6:30 PM Step class “Movements performed on and off a step platform with or without risers. This class consists of medium level movement patterns. Intensity level determined by speed, travel, and execution of movements.”
Or if I get there later I can do a 7:30 Yoga class.
Tuesday I will probably be on my own for some cardio on the treadmill or stair thing or the bike, we’ll see. If I can get there by 5:30 PM I’d love to take a kick boxing class. But for that Peter and I would have to get lockers because we’d have to come straight from work so we would need to bring our workout clothes with us and change at the gym.
Wednesday is almost always the roughest day of the week for me. I think that I’ll let myself take a work-out break on Wednesday.
Thursday may also have to be a work-out break day. Unless I can get up at 5 am to haul my butt over there for a 45 minute workout.
Friday is usually a date night for Peter and me, but I’d like to change that to a “get-up-early-and-work-out-morning-type-date”. Same as Thursday, but without the staying out late of Wednesday night behind it.
Saturday at 9 AM - Step class. I just got off the phone with Peter and he said that he might be willing to do that with me! I’d be so stoked if that was something we did together!
Sunday there is a 5:30 PM Yoga class that I think I’ll try to go to, but might interfere with previous engagements. So I’ll see about that one. The amazing thing about 24 Hour Fitness is that they are open 24 hours. I know that that is a bit obvious, but my point is I can go before church without it affecting any of my plans. I am so excited! I can’t wait to get started!
The reason I am posting this on my blog is that it is my hope that some of my good friends will read this and help to keep me accountable. I’d welcome, with open arms, any encouragement that you can offer.
Last night, at the college small group, Aaron had us write down what we were thankful for and what God was teaching us. I think that was a great idea. I don’t think I’ll be able to keep track of the paper that I wrote everything down on, but I figured that I’ll probably have this blog up for a while and it will be a great way to be able to come back and read about what I was going through at this time in my life. So, here are a few things that I’m thankful for:
My husband and my great marriage. I had been thinking yesterday afternoon about how close I was to backing out of my wedding at the very last minute, and how grateful I was that I didn’t. I would be missing out on enjoying life with the most amazing man I’ve ever met. I had no way of comprehending what a great husband would be like at that time.
My job. I remember when I first started working for this company when I lived in Houston. Peter and I were at the end of our rope. We were planning on moving to San Antonio because we had nothing in Houston. A couple of friends that were far too busy to ever hang out with us, no church home, and crappy jobs that barely kept food on the table and a mildew-y roof over our heads. Then I got a call for a job interview. I had talked myself out of going because I was tired of the rejection that I had already faced at countless job interviews that I had put myself through, and we already had some of our stuff in storage down in San Antonio, and we were just waiting a couple of months until our lease ran up to put in our notice. But Peter said that I had the day off and that it wouldn’t hurt to go and see what they said. Yet another reason I’m so grateful that I married such a wonderful man of God. Because I stuck with this job, even though it was extremely difficult at first, Peter and I live here, in the most beautiful place that we’ve ever lived!
Catalyst. When Peter and I were approached and asked to be leaders in Catalyst, we had to think long and hard about it. We were at a good place in our lives, happy with our level of involvement going to a small group for young married couples, happy with how often we were attending church (once a week – twice if you count our small group twice a month), and happy keeping to ourselves. When we first moved up here, we had every intention of getting involved with the youth group but we got so caught up with the emotional and time demands of our jobs that we kinda just lost that vision. Even after we were asked to join the leadership, we didn’t know if we could handle the additional time demand in the middle of the work week. But we felt strongly that it was what God was calling us to do. So, we knew that it wouldn’t be easy, but we were going to be obedient. Since then, we’ve gotten to know a lot of kids, and we’ve been able to speak in the lives of people that we didn’t even set out to minister to. I can’t think of any other time in my life that I’ve been so convinced that I am exactly where God wants me to be.
What God is teaching me right now:
This is something that I felt very strongly about when we were making our decision to get involved in Catalyst. I thought that I had learned my lesson, but in my current circumstance, I guess I needed a refresher course. When God calls you to do something, it probably isn’t going to be easy. If it was easy it wouldn’t be a good sacrifice. I think about the time in the Old Testament, when King David had done something wrong, and God sent a plague through Israel. David caught up with where the plague was and asked God to be merciful and stop the plague. God, being the merciful God that He is, stopped the plague right there. David wanted to build an alter to God there and offered to purchase the land from the owner. The owner offered to give David the land for free. David told him that he wouldn’t give God something that had cost him nothing.
Also, I feel like God is calling me to a deeper relationship with Him that I’ve ever had before. Recently I’ve been noticing that I have been getting very strong impressions of stuff. It’s almost words of knowledge, but not in the way that I’ve always thought of them. But two of the strongest leadings that I’ve felt, I told God, “I don’t know if this is you or just something that I’ve come up with in my own imagination.” Both times that I told Him that, these leadings have been absolutely dead on. So, I think that I’m done testing God. I know that He wants to start moving in my life like He hasn’t done before. It’s up to me to start dedicating to spend time in His word and in His presence learning to separate out His voice from my own. Again, this isn’t going to be easy. I already get up every morning at 5:30, but I’m going to push myself to get up at 5. I’m going to pursue Him in a way that I haven’t before, and I know that He is going to move in me like never before.
Bissell has a new vacuum out that is made especially for houses that just have pets. The only vacuum that I want more is a Dyson, and that is out of my price range. As many of you know, Peter’s dad is moving in with us until he can get back on his feet. We are going through our apartment rearranging things and cleaning out our spare room, which until now has been our dog’s room. Needless to say, we haven’t been keeping it very clean and there has to be at least an inch of dog fur (Foley has very pretty LONG hair!) woven into the carpet by now. We are doing the cleaning and rearranging in stages, and taking the office furniture out of the spare room as we go and our plan has been to leave the vacuuming of the spare room for last. On Sunday, we decided to forgo swing dancing with our friends (HUGE bummer) and work on getting our apartment ready. We started with the living room by completely switching it around to make room for a small bookcase and our small computer desk. We were able to take everything out and vacuum the entire area. We finished that by 8 pm, just in time to relax for a while before bed. Monday night we tackled the dinning room. In order to move our big bookcase and our other little bookcase into a corner to free up some room for another computer desk we had to empty out both bookcases and dust everything as we went. As Peter was vacuuming (he does the majority of vacuuming – yes, I know that he’s amazing) the vacuum that we’ve had for 3 years pretty much died. Dead. Sad, sad day.
So Tuesday our plan was to return a few high priced items that we’ve been meaning to return to Wal-Mart anyway and purchase the said Bissell vacuum. An hour and 2 Wal-Marts later, it’s decided that they don’t even carry this vacuum! Ugh! So now, we have to wait until this weekend to go vacuum shopping along with the gazillion other things that we have on our Saturday “to-do” list which is twice its normal length due to the eminent arrival of Peter’s dad on the same day. Hopefully Peter will be able to kick this cold or whatever it is that he is coming down with before then.
I realize that this blog may be kinda rambley. Sorry ‘bout that. I guess I’m just trying to work out my thoughts. If you’ve made it this far, thanx!
Here was a brief description of my exhausting day on Thursday March 13, 2008:
On Wednesday March 12, 2008, I started to leave my house to go back to work after my lunch break, I was doing a 3-point turn on my street when I heard a muffled pop. I just thought that maybe I ran over something, since there didn’t seem to be any difference in how the car was running. But while I was sitting at a stop light I noticed that the amount of pressure I usually put on the brake pedal wasn’t working to keep the car from rolling. At first I just thought that maybe I was putting my foot on a different spot on the pedal so it was sliding off, or maybe it had something to do with the shoes I was wearing (typical girl response, right?). But on my way home to walk Foley (my dog) before I picked Peter up from work, the brake light came on. Soooooo, I called Peter and told him what was going on, and he thought that maybe it was just the brake fluid. When I got to Peter’s work, he looked under the hood and saw that, yeah, the brake fluid was really low. He works right next to a mechanic, so he walked over to grab some fluid and filled up the reservoir. On our way to church I noticed that the brake light was still on and it would still take more pressure than usual to keep the truck from rolling once stopped. I thought that maybe it was just working out the air bubbles in the brake lines….that’s a real thing, right?
But in the morning I was out running errands for work, and about a block away from work when I could just barely stop. I realized that that wasn’t good. After I parked, I popped the hood, to see the brake fluid reservoir almost empty! I went into the office and saw 2 of the guys talking. I asked if one of them, a coworker/friend, could take me up to an auto parts store to help me pick out some brake fluid. Out of concern they asked if mine was leaking, so I explained the situation. They both took a look at it and told me that it was more serious that a bottle of fluid. Peter and I had just had all of the brake pads and rotors changed back in October so I called the place that had done the work and asked if they could take a look at my truck. They said that I could just bring it by anytime, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stop if I didn’t get some brake fluid in there. So my friend took me to an auto parts store and when we got back to work, he even filled it up for me. Then he followed me over to the mechanics. Before I had left I talked to my boss and he said that I could use the work truck if I needed to. Fortunately for me the place is only about 2 miles from work so even though I had to use the E-brake when I was at stop lights, and I couldn’t get any closer than 2 car lengths to any vehicle in front of me, I made it!
So when I dropped the truck off, I had no idea what was causing the leak, how much it was going to cost to fix it, or even how long it would take. However, within 20 minutes of getting back to work, I got a call from the brake place. There was a crack in one of the hard lines (whatever that meant!). It was only going to cost about $10 for the part, about $45 for the labor, and $60 for them to bleed the brakes and flush the whole system. PLUS, it was going to be ready by 4! So total I ended up paying $120, and really it could have been much worse.
But God is so good! Here’s why: (1) I know I didn’t use the work truck, but it is pretty rare that it is even here, since we have been so busy at work lately the truck is usually gone on well-site, so the fact that it was available gave me a peace that Peter and I wouldn’t be completely stranded. (2) This happened one day before my payday. Not just any payday, but next month is Peter’s “magic month” so we will be getting an extra paycheck, which means that we have a little bit of extra spending money. (3) This happened on a beautiful spring-like day that had followed a week of spring-like weather. If all of this had happened on a day like today when it has been consistently snowing since last night and the roads are super slick, then I would not have been able to drive the truck over to the brake place. I would have had to have it towed, and that would have been tons of extra money. Even though the day was emotionally draining, I couldn’t help but praise God for being SOOO gracious to me!
I certainly don’t want to come across as rude, but I need to vent for a minute. Why is it that the minute that someone gets married the relationship has to revolve around the need to procreate? Oh, sure, there is the 6 month to 2 year newlywed time span that people (in general) will accept the laughed off response of, “Oh, we are just enjoying being married, right now!” But I just celebrated being married to an AMAZING man for 4 years. People are getting less and less accepting of that response. NOT that it is any of their business. For the most part people are polite, but what bothers me are the ones who feel that it is their duty or their mission in life to tell me what I am “missing.” So far, my favorite “reason” for having kids is the tax return! Ha! Don’t people realize that having kids changes EVERYTHING??? And this isn’t a temporary change…Kids are FOREVER!!! They change the relationship, the finances, not to mention all of the crazy ways that having kids totally jacks up the mother’s body! It is not a decision to be taken lightly. And to those of you that know us well know that Peter and I don’t make HUGE decisions quickly. When the time is right for us, it will be in God’s timing, not ours, and He will give us the peace and the grace that we need.
