Life in the storm: My Job Story

I have always believed that I was walking in line with the will of God. I always hoped my thoughts, plans, and dreams lined up with all God had for me. However, as a parent of a little girl who can be super stubborn, I find myself asking if all the frustration I feel toward Ady at times is actually a picture of how frustrating I can be to God. The answer here is YES! When Ady asks for chocolate pudding before dinner and I tell her she will have to wait until after she eats dinner to enjoy such a tasty treat, she typically loses it with crying and screaming. She just cannot grasp what waiting means. Waiting does not mean NO, it means WAIT. With this said, here goes the story of the last few months. Life has been hard. My faith has been tested. My patience, strength, and energy have been shot. Everything about the past few months has pushed me past myself, out of my own ability, and into the loving and patient arms of my Father who is the only one that could see me through the storm. Several months back, Michael and I made the decision for him to leave his job as it was a very abusive environment and was over working him at around 65 hours per week. At that time, Michael also started seminary so we decided that for a small season, Michael would stay with the girls during the day, do his studies, and attempt to start up a retreat ministry. While we had to be on a budget and watch every penny we spent, life was good. However, a few short months into this plan, Michael expressed to me his discontentment with not working. Around the same time, we found out that the apartment community we live at was going through a transition and we would have to be out of our home by October 31st. The reason why this matters so much is that we receive a nice a discount on rent that allowed for our current lifestyle. With the discounted rent gone, we really would not be able to make ends meet. Additionally, we really wanted to be in a house where the girls would have room to run and play and where Pixy could have a back yard (this part might sound silly, but our poor dog just keeps getting fatter and fatter from apartment life). So Michael began his job search once again. Job searching has been very rough on us over the past year. Since October 2012, Michael has sent out over 250 resumes to various jobs with about a third or more going to churches. It has been so difficult to see Michael rejected from church after church. The frustrating part is that churches seem to be looking for anyone with a seminary degree regardless of what their undergraduate degree. In other words, church search committees seem to be more interested in Bob who has a 4 year degree in Biology, but has a 2/3 year seminary degree. Michael has a 4 year undergraduate degree in Bible and has begun his seminary degree, yet no one really seems interested. The frustrating thing has been that we (both Michael and myself) have always believed that God's plan for our lives was to minister through a church or on the mission field. 5 years into marriage and the real world, but still no vocational ministering can be hard to grasp. The Lord HAS given us both peace in this direction and we both are pressing forward toward an end goal of Michael becoming a college professor of Bible (that means we have quite a few more years to finish up seminary and PH.D work). With all this said, Michael continued to send out resumes, but began a focus primarily on secular jobs. He started going on interview after interview starting in October; however each job ended up being some crazy sales and marketing scheme where you were paid on commission only and had to knock on front doors for those sales. Nothing about those jobs sounded rewarding or secure. So we kept pressing on. In the meantime, we were given the possibility of renting this BEAUTIFUL home in Flower Mound that was literally 1.3 miles from our church. The landlord was helping out her family and would be gone for a couple of years, but wanted to keep her home in Flower Mound. Therefore, she was only going to charge us the flat out mortgage costs for the home making it super affordable in a great neighborhood. We were stoked! However, our joy ended abruptly when I received a call that the home ended up leasing to a person who had expressed interest before our conversation with the landlord had started. I was devastated. It had felt like God had just handed us a home in the midst of crunch time. At that time, we were down to 3 weeks before we had to be out of our apartment and yet we had no place to go. Additionally, I started to notice certain signs that would indicate I was pregnant. We immediately took a pregnancy test and found out that I was for sure pregnant!! Ever since my second baby was born, I have said that I never wanted to be pregnant again. My body does crazy things when I have a healthy baby on board! I just did not want to go through that again and frankly, I really wanted to adopt. HOWEVER, God is who He is and makes NO mistakes. Once the result was final, I joyfully accepted that I was going to be a mommy again to a precious little baby. I began to day dream just like any other mother and desperately wanted to tell friends and family of the news. HOWEVER, we decided to wait on sharing our news until Michael had a job and I was out of the first trimester or super close to being out of it. The reason for this was that back before I became pregnant with Ainsly, I had a miscarriage that was devastating. I did not want to go through the process of telling everyone who knew I was pregnant that I had lost the baby again. So we kept it pretty quite. I was getting more and more excited every step of the way and started craving BEAN BURRITOS again (that has been my staple diet through each pregnancy). My only concern was the normal super crazy morning sickness (mine tends to last all day)never started. This concerned me, but I began to think it just meant I was having a boy (I am told boy and girl pregnancies are very different?). Well the truth of it was that the baby was not healthy and at 7 weeks, I lost the pregnancy. My heart was so devastated. I had truly felt as though God had shifted my entire mind set on the day we lost the house, but had gained a baby. I thought it all meant that God has his own plans and I need to fall in line with Him. I think it did mean those things, but so does the miscarriage. God re-shaped my entire world view through all of this. He took me past the point of myself and pressed me into His strength. God has always prepared me for big life changes in the past in some way or another. He did so again about 2 weeks before I miscarried. I was watching 19 Kids and Counting (you may think the Duggars are crazy for having so many babies, but that is all on God. They are faithful to Him and such an inspiration to me)and this particular episode was when Michelle (Mom) miscarried her child at 17 weeks. Her first response after realizing there was no heart beat was to say "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." For whatever reason, I held on to that verse over the next 2 weeks and it was a good thing that I had. So when the long process of miscarriage began, I was able to quote the same verse. It was very helpful to me. Additionally, I believe both of my babies are in Heaven with our Father. I think God creates the soul at conception and that some day I will see my sweet children face to face. So in the end, God did make a way for us. It took longer than I expected and really tested my faith. It turned out that the apartment community transition was pushed back and we now have until November 30th to be out. This ended up being perfect as Michael FINALLY got a full time job and will have worked 3 weeks by the time we have to be out of the apartment. We are currently house searching with my brother Zach (a GREAT realtor with Small World Realty if anyone is interested). Additionally, God finally spoke through the silence of the past few weeks and months this past Sunday at church. Matt (my pastor) was talking about how we grow in sanctification. We grow by pressing into God and by putting sin to death. God is the one who changes us, not ourselves. We cannot "white knuckle" our way through life in trying to abstain from sin. This doesn't please God, nor is it what we are called to. God wants us to be NEW people, fully transformed in light of the gospel of Christ. I want to overflow and be a light to others in everything. I want to open my mouth and share the amazing freedom and grace that has been bestowed upon me. Who knows what God's plans are? I sure don't, but I will walk boldly in the direction He leads. It is going to be an adventure!