God-things

God has things planned. Or maybe not "planned" because we do have a free will, and when you're working with people with a free will, how much can things be "planned", right? I'll start again...

God has things in mind. He's been speaking to Nathan and to myself in the past month and a half. He's been speaking ideas into our minds. He's been giving us joy and excitement. He's been giving me visions. He's been giving me peace. He's been giving me a new passion. He's been working in our lives like never before (since we've been married). He's been making himself known to us. He's been drawing us closer together and closer to himself. He's been caring for us. He's been leading us. He's been giving us new desires. He's been giving us new dreams. He's been affirming us. He's been teaching us. He's been growing us and stretching us. He's been cleaning us. He's been delighting in us. He's been guiding us. He's been providing for us. He's been comforting us. He's been protecting us. He's been sheilding us.

He's been...God. God with us. God in us. God for us. God.

What is it like?

Some days I am almost overcome with curiosity about pregnancy. There aren't too many days like that, but some days I just can't keep my mind from touching that hot stove. Kinda like a bug flying into the zapper..."I can't help it...it's just so beautiful...ZAP!" (Bug's Life)

I wonder...

Can you tell that you're pregnant, even before you take the test? Is morning sickness like having the flu, except for a long time, or does it feel different? What do your stomach muscles do when the baby grows and stretches them? Where do they go? And what about your skin? Does it feel like it's going to just split some days near the end? Does nine months go by like a regular nine months in terms of time, or does it fly/drag? What will I look like when I'm pregnant? Will I be extra huge, because I'm extra small now? How long will I be pregnant before I start to show? Will I be like normal people, or will people be able to tell after a week?

And my biggest question of all...the one that brings me to tears...

What does it feel like to have a baby moving inside of you? Will I ever experience that?

Where Nathan works (and two other posts from today...scroll down...)

For those of you who are interested in seeing what Nathan has been up to this month, I bring you "an hour in the life of Nathan." (captions below the pictures)

This is Nathan not looking at the road because he's either looking at his GPS or the paper on his lap...but it's ok if he goes off the road because he's in a truck.

This is the lady riding shotgun in Nathan's life these days...isn't she a 'beaut? (the big pole thing is a hydrolic sample-taker and the laptop is his GPS to tell him he's on the right field)

Nathan prefers to take the soil samples by hand, like a "real man." (it's faster)

As you can imagine, he feels like a "real man" when he hits a rock just below the surface while putting all his weight onto the sample-taker.

Once he's got his 18 inches of "sample" dirt, he puts the top 6 inches (topsoil) into the very technical Folgers coffee can. The bottom 12 inches (subsoil) goes into the white bucket. Once a field is done, he bags the two buckets separately, marks them, and throws them in a box. Each field requires 14 samples from different points in the field.

And this is what the end of Nathan's shift usually looks like...(and the beginning, for that matter) Alicia, feel free to take this picture for your photo wall...it's a genuine MB sunset taken from a genuine MB field.

Secrets:

My bold statement of the day: The enemy thrives in darkness and God is light.

I have seen God working out huge things through sharing secrets and struggles (through coming out of darkness) among friends, families, and even strangers. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: We are not created to deal with everything alone. We are truly "created for community". (Thanks, Gil.)

So here's my little plug for community. Fellowship is important, and not just the surface fellowship that we get at church on Sunday morning. Deep, soul connections are what Jesus had in mind. Sharpening each other. Encouraging each other. Sharing each others' joys, tears, and life! So share. Step out on a limb and share.

"But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light,

then we have fellowship with each other,

and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin."

1 John 1:7 (NLT)

Scrapbooking...

What: A Scrapbooking/Craft Weekend!!! This is a great opportunity to be with friends, meet new friends, get unique ideas from friends, and swap the supplies that you don't want for ones you do!

When: Friday, Oct 31 (6-late) and Saturday, Nov 1 (9-4) --you'll have to go home and sleep in your own bed though...there aren't any cots being set up...

Where: EMMC dining hall (basement)

Who: Women of all ages who like to be creative

I am helping plan this and am so excited about it! If anyone wants to come, please let me know by Wednesday (Oct 29) so we can let the caterer know how many to cook for! That's right...$10 for a catered craft retreat! Come on...you know you want to.

p.s-I realize that Friday night is Halloween and that many families do things together that night. If you can only make it for Saturday, that is just fine!

(don't you hate when you have all your spacing just how you want it in the "edit post" stage, and then you publish and everything gets squished together and it just doesn't look as good as you intended? Arg!)

Five stars for not thinking about the future...

If I had to rate how hard it is to not think about and plan for the future, I'd give it five out of five stars. (see image below)

A couple weeks ago, we were talking to someone, and he challenged Nathan and I to spend these next few months focusing solely on the healing process and not allowing anything to distract us. He was refering to our future plans. He said to just put the thoughts on hold for a few months. We agreed. Only now am I realizing just how hard that really is. Plus, I've found a couple other distractions that I'm trying to put on hold for a while.

Plans. I like to have plans. They make me feel in control. They make me feel put-together. Let's face it, they make me feel just plain powerful. So accepting the challenge to give up making plans for a few months has turned out to be harder than I thought possible. I'll get this idea in my head and, when I would normally run with it and imagine and dream and "plan", I'm forcing myself to write it down, and then put it out of my head. Put up your hand if you've ever done this. It is IMPOSSIBLE!!! I must dream! I must think about what could come! I cannot just sit and think about nothing, especially when in my nothing-ness, I'm trying NOT to think about SOMETHING!

As I'm working through this "not-being-distracted" thing, though, I'm realizing slowly that it may be more about not allowing ourselves to be distracted, rather than about not dreaming about the future. Nathan and I are dreamers. We like to sit and talk and think about what could come. Who knows, we could live on a desserted island one day with our 20 children and 5 dogs and be one big happy family...(except that I don't think we'd be happy, and our island would end up quite inbred). So my conclusion is: Allow myself to dream and think, but put off the actual making of concrete plans for a few months. Good. Moving on.

Second thing that I've been attempting to not be distracted by: finances. This one is working out quite well. In my attempt to allow God to provide and not worry or be distracted by finances, I've stopped budgeting. Now, before you all panic and start sending us cheques and gifts, let me explain. In my not budgeting, I've let Nathan know that we officially have "no money." That lets him (and me) know that there is absolutely no money for anything that could even maybe be considered extra. This allows me to forget about the budget, because I know that we will not overspend beyond what we need. And what we need, God will provide. That said, I am not taking a break from checking our account balance. If I see that we will be running short, we will pray and then let certain people know about our need.

Funny story relating to spending "nothing." Nathan and I were in Steinbach the other day as we had a meeting to attend at 5pm. Now, Steinbach is an hour's drive from home, and we left early so that we could do some things before the meeting. We didn't take a supper along, as we could have, but we have a better story because of it. We pulled up to Dairy Queen about 1/2 an hour before our meeting started, in hopes of stilling our hunger for less than $7. Well, Dairy Queen has this deal right now: 2 Cheesburgers for $3.33. Good deal. But one thing. I don't like cheeseburgers. My wonderful, frugal husband assures me that this is no biggie. He walks up to the counter and orders 2 cheesburgers...one with cheese and one without. He confused the poor high school employee for a couple seconds (you want a cheeseburger without cheese?), but when we both filled our stomachs for less than $7, all confusion was worth it!

Ok, so the third thing that I'm attempting to not be distracted by is pregnancy. No, no...people, I am NOT pregnant. Wouldn't that be a great way to tell you though? But I'm not. It's ok. I'll come up with something much better when the time comes (and parents, you won't have to find out here). ANYWAY...as those of you who have struggled to get pregnant know, it is a distraction by very definition of the word "trying." In an effort to not become more distracted by this than I already am, we have decided that there will be no greater efforts made than to simply...how shall I put this?...be married. No specific timing. No doctors. No medications. No special "herbs." At this time, it is 100% in God's hands...which is exactly where it's been for the past 26 months. Now's not a good time to take it away from Him.

So that's where we're at. Or should I say, that's where I'm at. Attempting to not be distracted and to not stress. Some days it works. Some days the attempt fails miserably. But there's always another day. Today's "trouble" is enough for today. Tomorrow will worry about itself. (Matt 6:34)

On foggy days like today

On foggy days like today...I find the fog when I wake up. Logical. But why is it that fog is the best in the mornings of damp, chilly days? It's hard enough to climb out of my warm, soft cocoon and face the world, never mind waking up to weather that beckons me to step outside my front door and capture it. I really didn't want to go outside. I tried to stay inside. I tried to convince myself that the fog wasn't THAT good, and that I wouldn't get any great pictures anyway... But it couldn't be done. I had to set foot outside. The fog made me.

This is what I came home with:

And while I'm putting picturs on here anyway, these are some that I got almost a week ago:

Thrown off (like a snowball)

Do days ever hit when you are having a great morning and life seems like it couldn't get any better (or not significantly better) and you feel at peace and joyful and everything good...and then something teeny-tiny happens. Something that souldn't be significant at all. Something that was not intended to throw off your day and should not throw off your day...but your day is thrown off. And once your day is thrown off, you just want to go home and cry. But you can't.

And then everything starts to rub you the wrong way and makes you want to cry more. Like the way your shirt is bunched in your sweater and how your sweater is then bunched in your jacket and how that is cutting off the circulation at the top of your arm and the whole bottom of your arm is getting cold and numb. Or how the wind is so cold as you walk to work that it takes your breath away and it's only October and you have the rest of winter to look forward to.

When your day gets thrown off, everything gets blown out of proportion. The things that really matter, matter a bit less in light of the small things that are huge, big deals today. And it's suddenly like a big, wet, sticky snowball that was tapped with one finger and is now barreling down a hill, growing and growing with each turn. It is out of control...but you're pretty sure that tears would stop it.

Yeah, if I could have a good cry, the snowball would stop, my priorities would line up, and my day would be good once again. Just a couple tears. Squeeze, eyes, squeeze. You've gotta have something. But wait, I can't escape this place I'm in. I don't have a corner to go cry in. So I stay, become more and more bothered by the little things, and wait until I'm home at the end of the day...when I don't feel like crying anymore.

And then it's ok because I'm home. I'm safe. I can forget about the outside world and wrap myself in a blanket which will become my cocoon for the night. Mmm...and then my bad day is good again. It's no longer thrown off. The little things no longer bother me. What's important is truly important again. The little things are just that: little.

No more snowballs...no more winter...no more bunched sleeves or cold arms.

A New Normal

When people ask me how I’m doing these days, I rarely know what to say. I could say good, because dealing with the church situation doesn’t consume our days anymore. We’ve found, what I call, a “new normal”. For a while, when asked, I said, “stressed and tired” (but good). But in the last couple days I haven’t even felt that stressed or tired. I feel like I’m back to normal, either having a good day or bad one. But when people ask me how I’m doing, they’re usually asking in relation to “that”. Is it ok that we don’t think about it all the time anymore? Is it ok that we’ve reached a “new normal” and are happy? I feel like we should still be struggling, or at least feel like that’s what people kinda expect. But really, we’ve been dealing with the core issue for years already and the main struggle had far more to do with confession and exposure than it did with the actual struggle that started it all.

For about a month, I felt like we were so broken and like there was a big gaping hole where our life used to be. I feel like we’ve come to solid ground again, like at least part of our life has been put back together. Sure, there’s still a lot of healing and work to be done, but the initial flesh wound (exposure) has pretty much healed. There will always be a scar, and perhaps there is some scarred tissue that we will continue to feel (maybe forever) but when I say we’re good, it’s because we’re actually doing good.

Some of you may be wondering about Nathan’s job. He’s working at Cargill here in Altona as a soil tester by dry day and construction super-hero by wet day. God really knew what He was doing in providing us with this job. (I shouldn’t be surprised anymore…) When Nathan applied for this job, we were both hesitant to take it because it meant long hours and that we would hardly see each other for a month – we thought. I felt almost right away that Nathan should take the job, but I couldn’t figure out where this thought was coming from and never even guessed that it would be from God. It just didn’t make sense to take it, so I was really confused at what I was feeling. Well, Nathan decided to take it and almost right away, the rain started. In the first two weeks of the job, Nathan had 3-4 days off because of rain/wetness and 3-4 shorter days (only 9-ish hours). Shorter days. Days off. Some days Nathan has been on the field for over 12 hours, like we expected, but he’s found that he loves the job! He is in a truck by himself all day (when he’s on the field) and enjoys his CBC radio and the great outdoors! It’s great time for processing and thinking and also just shutting the mind off and seeing something different for a while! God has been providing hours (to pay the bills), down time (for Nathan to rest), and a job that Nathan loves! Isn’t He amazing?!

Thank you so much for all your prayers…we have felt so much prayer and support in the past month (ish). I’m not writing this so that you will feel that you can stop praying for us. We still appreciate all your prayers as there is still much healing to be done. But I want to let you know that there is joy and hope in our lives and that is very much thanks to God and everyone praying. So thank you!

Things I'm Thankful for (one day late)...

(in no particular order)

• Trees
• Family
• Friends
• Nathan
• Lennox
• Our House
• the Sun
• the Son
• Phones/Internet/Means of Communication
• Jobs
• Clothes without holes
• Food
• Fancy waffle suppers (by candlelight) with friends for thanksgiving
• My bed
• Cameras
• Chocolate Chips - so you can have a little taste of chocolate, without buying a whole bar
• Our Car
• My Bike
• Canada (and that we can have a say in our government)
• Showers
• Sleep in days

Thinking...and thinking...and thinking...and thi...

I've been thinking alot lately.

I've been asking questions, and I've been thinking.

Two nights ago, I opened my Bible and read 1 Timothy. There's something about reading the New Testament just puts things into perspective for me. It speaks to me.

Suddenly this life isn't about me anymore.

It's not about how I'm feeling and how I'm doing and what I need to accomplish. My worries and frustrations and fears just melt away somehow. And I feel peace. I feel like I am re-focused on the goal.

That's it.

I'm re-focused.

Reading the New Testament re-focuses me on the goal. And it reminds me what the goal is not. The goal is not to have three kids by the time I'm 30. It's not to have a successful career. It's not to impress people. It's not to look good when you go to church. It's not even to survive.

The one, most important goal is Jesus.

To strive for Jesus...hmm...what does that mean? Well, to strive means to make a strenuous effort toward a goal. To make a strenuous effort toward Jesus? I believe this means that I need to make every effort to become more like Him, and to touch as many people along the way as I can. Hopefully this touching inspires others to think about their journey to Jesus and maybe even to turn and begin their journey.

So I've been thinking about re-focusing and reading the New Testament as a daily reminder of that goal and of what my priorities should be.

I've also been thinking about youth.

Or rather, not being involved in youth.

Truthfully, I was kinda excited that I wouldn't have to feel obligated to be involved in youth ministry this year. I was SO excited for my evenings and weekends. I was excited that I wouldn't feel any pressure to do anything other than go to work and come home. NO RESPONSIBILITIES!!!

And yesterday I realized that I miss it.

I miss it.

I miss the youth leaders. I miss knowing what's going on. I miss the youth. I miss going out in the evening. I hear snippets of what's happening in youth and I wish that I was in on it.

*sigh*

And as I was thinking about missing out, I realized that Nathan and I don't have much of a place in Altona, aside from youth ministry and being involved in our church. You take that away from our life and we're just a random couple with no reason for being in Altona over any other place in the world. It makes me feel kinda lost in this town. Yeah, we have friends and we both have jobs (now) aside from the church, but that was what our life was. It was church and youth. So now I'm wondering, do I actually miss being involved in youth, or do I miss our life?

I guess that's something I need to keep thinking about...

Questions...

Last night, many questions were swirling around my mind...

-Is life falling apart?
-What does our future look like?
-What is God calling us to?
-Where is God leading us?
-What is trust?
-What does it look like to have faith?
-What is faith?
-Can you have faith without experiencing peace?
-What is the balance between God providing and us thinking/planning ahead?

-How do we think ahead if we don't even know what tomorrow looks like?

And amidst all these swirling thoughts, there was stillness, and God said:

"There has been peace once. There will be peace again. Focus on the last clear word you heard from me until you hear another. Don't be distracted by the questions."

Is chewing your nails a disgusting habit?

The results are in.

According to 33% of voters, chewing your nails is "absolutely" a disgusting habit.
16% believe it is "definitely" disgusting.
22% say "yup, yup, yup."
And an astonishing 27% believe that it is, in fact, disgusting, but cannot help themselves from partaking in this convenient, yet detestable, method of keeping their nails in check.

I'm not sure how you chose between the first three options, but it was surprising to me that "absolutely" came out on top by a whopping 11% and that "definitely" was so low when they all, essentially, agree that nail-biting is gross. Oh well. The people have spoken.

Nail biting is absolutely, definitely disgusting, whether you're a nail-biter or not. Yup, yup, yup.

Update on...everything...

Life today is completely different from what it was just three weeks and two days ago. In the past 22 days:

- we have "come out" to the church about Nathan's internet stuff
- we have been given a 2 week suspension from ministry
- we have confessed to friends
- we have driven to Saskatchewan
- we have driven back
- we have been given a 5 month suspension from ministry
- we have "come out" about trying for a baby
- we have confessed to the youth and parents
- we have confessed to the congregation
- we have driven to Saskatchewan
- we have spent four and a half days with Nate's family
- we have driven back
- we have handed out resumes looking for a job for Nate
- Nate has had a job interview
- Nate has worked three days at Canadian Lumber


Now:

The dreaded exhaustion that I knew would be on it's way has hit. For the first two weeks, I was kept going by adrenaline/emotions/sheer willpower/prayer and now, I feel drained. I think Nathan feels the same way. We're tired. We feel like we're done fighting. I feel like giving up. Just throwing up my hands and saying, "fine, you've got us...can we please go back to our old life where we weren't the talk of the town?" I'm tired of going to work every day. I'm tired of wondering how involved I should be in church and/or youth. I'm tired of wondering what the next few months will hold. I'm tired of wondering what job Nathan should take or where he should apply. I'm tired of wondering if bringing a baby into this confusion that we call life right now is a good thing. I just want life to be normal again. I want us to know what tomorrow will look like. I want to be able to know where the next paycheque will come from. But despite all the unknowns, I KNOW that God is faithful. I KNOW that he will provide. I KNOW that we won't have to miss meals or freeze because he WILL provide. I KNOW that if a baby came right now, it WOULD be good. We have been praying for God's timing, and if this is it, ok. God obviously has a greater depth of field than I do. And I KNOW that Nathan and I will still be able to laugh together and cry together and just BE together, because that's what marriage is. No matter how tight things get, or how stressed and tired and done we are, there will still be love.







But, despite all the things I KNOW, sometimes I wish that I KNEW the details too...


UPDATE: At noon, today, Nathan accepted a job as a soil tester for Cargill here in town. He starts tomorrow morning at 8am with training. Please pray that this job works well. It means long hours, but sounds like a good job. It will only be until the end of the month, though, so job-hunting isn't completely out of our minds yet.