It is now a week since I first began talks about going contract, which I now know will not work. This afternoon, I am supposed to have another talk with my boss, which I hope will end with some kind of resolution. I am still struggling to understand why all of this has been going on, but I am still fighting to trust…
Whelmed. September 24, 2008
I kind of don’t know what to write… but I just want to ask that you lift up a prayer for me if you read this. This has been an unimaginably terrible day, and I am stuck and lost and scared and trying not to cry at work.
I’m still trying to trust.
It is substantially more difficult today than yesterday.
Lord, I just need to be held…
Baking bread and Barracuda September 23, 2008
I am waiting on a couple of loaves of friendship bread to bake while my husband rocks out on Guitar Hero (that’s where “Barracuda” comes in). I officially asked if I could go from full-time to contract at work today. I was so nervous. The Lord helped me through the conversation… but I have to wait until tomorrow to find out the final outcome of it. I’m pretty nervous about that too. I’m ready to be ME again though. I’ve been so worn out and beaten down by my work that I am really grouchy a lot of the time… and that’s not me! I want to be back to my (mostly) cheerful self. Anyway, if you read this, lift up a prayer on my behalf as I try to straighten out what my work schedule will be like…
I was really struggling with my faith as I seek to understand why the Lord has not yet rescued me from this situation… and although I am still praying for deliverance, He was wonderful enough to very specifically answer a prayer and give me an Ebenezer moment. He reminded me of the ways He’s delivered me in the past, and it was a blessing to look back on my track record with God and remember all He’s done. Sometimes it takes something hard (like this season of life) to remind me of the other hard things I’ve been through.
Hopefully I will have a joyous update to post very shortly…
Wait for the Lord. Be strong, and take heart, and wait for the Lord…
His mercies are new every morning… September 16, 2008
Lord, you continually surprise me. Today, I am overwhelmed at your amazing faithfulness and thoughtfulness. I am stunned and delighted at the possibilities before me… and I am reminded again of your faithful love throughout my life. You have proven yourself faithful to me time and again… and I remember those times. Those times remind me that you will provide as you always have. Thank you for restoring my hope. I eagerly anticipate the revelation of your will for my life and apologize for the moments of doubt and tears. Yours is the glory…
Let’s talk about purity rings. Apparently that’s the cool thing to do right now. September 10, 2008
I have a lot of thoughts all helter-skelter in my head right now, and I am going to do my best to get them out in some semblance of an order.
Okay.
So the VMAs were Sunday night. I do not endorse (nor did I even watch) the VMAs, so let’s be clear about that. The major highlights from the VMAs included: Britney winning 3 awards (which made me happy for her since she’s had such a rough go of it for awhile), a ridic number of red-carpet pics of the “The Hills” folks (who really needs to see that many pics of Spencer Pratt?), some killer performances, some bizarre fashion, a sub-par host… and a HUGE debate over purity rings (stemming from the mocking comments of said sub-par host). Story in a tiny, tiny nutshell: sub-par host mocked the Jonas brothers for their purity rings and made several incredibly inappropriate comments into which I dare not delve. This story was featured on some website like MSN or Yahoo or something. Anyway, at the bottom, there was a link to view all comments that had been made on this story about the Jonas brothers (whose first names I just realized I don’t know…) and their purity rings. The comments positively floored me… and NOT in a good way. Most of the comments were people ridiculing the idea of staying pure until marriage. They were saying that it’s nearly impossible, citing the “animal instinct” to have sex once a teen’s body reaches maturity… that parents need to equip their children with the knowledge and the birth control to prevent STDs/pregnancy (as though THAT is the responsible thing to do…)… that considering virginity a gift to give one’s spouse reduces a person’s value to the condition of their reproductive organs… that purity rings are just a bauble to show off but that they don’t have any real meaning… HOLY COW! The more I read, the more angry I became!
Okay, back to that in a second.
I have been reading Every Young Woman’s Battle by Shannon Ethridge in preparation to begin the True Love Waits class in January. I’m a big Shannon Ethridge fan. We (Lance and I) met her at NCYM in Atlanta in January at lunch one day without realizing who she is. I went to her class later in the day and was really shocked that the speaker was the lady who sat with us at lunch. She’s written several books… several of which I’ve read. I thoroughly enjoyed Every Woman’s Marriage. Her main emphasis in her books (and in hearing her speak) is the way God created sex… the purpose for which he created it… the way in which he designed it to be used… the dangers of using it incorrectly… the importance of finding one’s self, security, confidence, value, sexuality in God instead of in the world or more specifically in the opposite sex. Reading this book has been really great and made me really excited about teaching the TLW class when it comes around again.
Okay, fast forward back to the rant regarding the VMAs.
I think it is utterly ridiculous that we as a society tell our teens/young adults/adults that they are incapable of anything higher than animal behavior. We tell them they are capable of changing the world, curing cancer, going to any college they desire, making a million dollars, playing professional sports, making their dreams come true, traveling the world, being the president, conquering their fears, making new friends, becoming a household name…. but they aren’t capable of making/standing by a decision to wait until their wedding day to give their body as a gift to someone else? Really? Does that make any sense? They’re capable of studying relentlessly and putting in the necessary hours to master a sport or art… but they aren’t capable of being strong and goal-oriented (read: marriage) in their romantic relationships?
I disagree.
It is absolutely, positively, 100%, without a doubt, totally, completely possible to save yourself for your wedding day.
And it is absolutely, positively, 100%, without a doubt, totally, completely worth it.
And I have a purity ring that I will treasure forever.
And it breaks my heart that there are so many people that believe that it’s impossible to wait, impossible to save. Yes, it can be difficult. Yes, it takes a commitment. But our kids can commit to a baseball team! Our kids can commit to a volleyball team! Our kids can commit to an instrument! Our kids can commit to schoolwork! And they are fully capable of committing to a life of purity – a life of striving to be what God created them to be. God created them to live joyful, peaceful, fruitful, earth-shaking lives of purity and closeness to their Father. He created them to long for relationship and love… but he also gave them every ability to discover that He IS love and find their fulfillment in Him.
Rock on, Jonas Brothers whose names I don’t know, with your purity rings! I hope that you truly are living lives of purity – purity in relationships… in speech… in every aspect.
Praise the Lord for creating us with a desire to connect with one another! Praise the Lord for creating a marriage relationship that allows to fully connect with another person in every way! Praise the Lord for the strength that he provides so that we can save ourselves until we find that relationship!
I’m so thankful that He has an incredible plan for His children.
I’m so thankful that I rocked a purity ring… and meant it.
And maybe someday I’ll cross paths with that sub-par host and get to share with him my utter disdain for his opinions.
Our Housey House House! September 8, 2008
I’m keeping my promise… Here are some pictures of our house!
Here is our living room… This shot faces toward our front door/entry hall area.
This faces toward our fireplace/TV… as though your back was to the shelves from the picture above. Buddy enjoyed this picture… and I captured Lance’s elbow as he sits in his favorite chair…
This is our dining room…
And this is our kitchen…
We’d just hosted a dinner at our house, so you’ll note the “Apples to Apples” game and the party cups on the counter. Oh well. You can tell pretty much what it looks like. Ha.
Okay, here is our bedroom…
A couple of our bathroom….
Aaaaaaaaand finally, here is one of our NEW and IMPROVED office! (I can say that because it is no longer sunshine yellow and painful to the retinas.) It is now white with my adorable green furniture. We have some finishing to do (as you can tell by the mounds of stuff on the desk), but I’m so excited about what it looks like now and what it WILL look like when we get all done.
So that’s most of our house in a nutshell. I like it. It’s home. 
4-Day Work Week = The Way It Should Be September 4, 2008
Gracious, life’s been busy lately! It’s been a good long while since I wrote anything at all. It’s almost hard to know where to start when it’s been like 2 weeks… I will start with green paint and mosquito bites. I have both of those things all over my arms and legs. So… I had this grand idea awhile ago that we should paint a desk green in our office. The green desk has been… well… green for awhile now, but now I’ve been working on painting some bookshelves green. (They simply have to match, after all.) This past Saturday, Lance and I went and ate at Snuffer’s up in Southlake and went to the Container Store, which was having a 25% off all Elfa storage this weekend. Well, we heart Elfa, so we were pretty excited, and I had promised Lance that he could get all the storage stuff necessary to get our garage all organized. By the time we got the BARE essentials for the Elfa stuff, even with the 25% discount, it was going to be well over $250. That’s a lot for like one shelf and a few hooks… so since we were there already, we got this nifty spifty little storage rack for the inside of our pantry door. Food = organized. Check! Okay so then we went to Lowe’s, and Lance bought all the stuff to make 3 shelves, the stuff for a pegboard, several hooky things that go in the wall… all kinds of stuff… for less than $200! While I’ve been laboring away on my green shelves, he’s been laboring away on his garage shelves. And – drumroll please – we’re pretty much done! Hooray! (Well, actually I think Lance IS done…) And all the while we’ve been working in garage… mosquitos. Awful waffle mosquitos. I look like I have the pox. The chicken pox. Anyway, we’ll get to move the green shelves back to the office tomorrow and move everything back onto them. Right now, the office AND the back bedroom look like an explosion because we moved all the papers and everything from the office into the back bedroom. Starting tomorrow…. ORGANIZATION! Yesssss! (Insert fist pump of victory here.) Ha – after we moved into our house at the beginning of last summer, we attacked the entire house at once… trying to make it look like what WE wanted it to look like instead of what 1987 wanted it to look like. We completely wore ourselves out and left like half our projects unfinished. We’re finally getting our second wind and wrapping up those projects. I am planning to finish some things up in the next day or so, and then – as I promised months ago – I will post some pictures of our house. It looks SO different now…. and I take that as a compliment! It’s amazing all that you can accomplish with that extra one day for the weekend! If we could split 3-day weekend/4-day work week all the time… wow! Speaking of work… it has still been really stressful, and I am still praying like crazy. If, perchance, the Lord has communicated to you what I should do with the rest of my life, please give me a call and let me know. I anxiously await his revelation. Church has also been really busy, but in a good way… We’ve had baptisms every Sunday for awhile now, and Lance got to baptize this precious girl named Kristen on Sunday. It was the first person he’s gotten to baptize at Legacy, and I know that it blessed him to be able to do it. He always makes me cry at church. In a good way. We are currently watching the Republican National Convention… I think I’m getting on board with McCain and Palin. He’s gotten me all choked up a couple of times. A lot of times actually. There’s a ridic amount of applause (and there was booing earlier!). A few other little things that have happened:
- I found Lance 2 button-down Polo shirts that were on sale for like 25% of original price. They are really nice, and I always get really excited about fantastic deals.
- I made a loaf of friendship bread. Well, “loaf” is misleading. The recipe required 2 loan pans, but I only had one, so I called my mom and asked what to do. (Yes, I still do that.) She suggested baking in a bundt pan instead. If I want to be totally truthful, I guess I should say, “I made a bundt of friendship bread.”
- I finally finished the curtains in our bathroom. (Again – pics coming soon.)
- I went shopping with my friend and bought more clothes than I’d bought in a long time, including 2 pairs of tennis shoes. That was super fun.
Okay, well… that’s about it… and it’s about bedtime… and they just dropped about a million balloons on the Republican folk. I really will try to do better about blogging. No promises though.
