Follow-up

My own lack of faith amazes me sometimes.

After the financial disaster from a few weeks ago, we were devastated. It was going to put all our family-making plans on hold, as well as cause me to have to find a new or second job to make ends meet.

Yet here we are, only two short weeks later, and each and every bill is being met, one of them following a letter from the IRS informing us that they shorted us about $500 on our 2008 return (funny, that's exactly how much we need for the only bill we hadn't found a way to pay yet)

How great is my God? And where do I find the audacity to question what he is doing? He has proven, yet again, for the hundredth time in my life, that he is faithful, that he will provide, and that I never need to worry.

Also, on the day "The Crisis", I heard this song, and it reduced me to tears. It's an account of a real woman, poor in the worlds eyes, but provided for by the king.

All I Need - Caedmon's Call

Did not catch her name
Did not catch her tears
It hit me like a train
When her story hit my ears
Mother of eight sons
Father off to war
Got no home address
Just bricks on a dirt floor
Jesus is all I need

Tiny plot of land
Corn stored up in piles
Years it doesn't rain
They just stay hungry for a while
No fatted calf to kill
She made a feast of cuy and corn
She said, "Who else knew my name
Before the day that I was born?
Jesus is all I need
Jesus is all I need."

She bragged about her boys
How they're growin' into men
How they learned to praise the Lord
Old Style Ecuadorian
To buy the new guitar
They had to sell the swine
Said, "My boys go to school on a foreign angel's dime.
This world calls me poor
I bore my babies on this floor
He always provides
Sure as the sun will rise.
So I'll sing Him songs of praise
'Cause I know He'll keep me in His gaze."

Rain poured from the sky
We raced back to the van
There were tears in the eyes
Of this poor, forgetful man
Mother of eight sons
She knows the peace of God
Lord, help me learn to lean
On thy staff and thy rod
Jesus is all I need
Jesus is all I need

Birthday

This is my sister:

Isn't she beautiful?

We're very close.

See?

It's her birthday today. She's 19, and I love her so.

Happy Birthday, Rikka!

Application

I haven't filled out a job application as anything more than a formality in almost five years. My last actual "Can I have an application?" was when I applied at KFC, which, it has to be said, really didn't turn out well for anyone involved.

I was hired on the spot for every job since, and was actually offered my nannying position.

And yet, here I am, age 22, steady income, stopping in at the mall, Target and Barnes and Noble with the words "May I have an application?" I'm mildly terrified.

I am, however, keeping my fingers crossed for Barnes and Noble. If I can't work at the library, a bookstore is a close second.

Valley

The interesting thing about being a practicing Christian is that the phrase "Everything Happens for a Reason" takes on a whole new brand of meaning. Because we believe in an actual being who takes a definitive interest in our lives, patterns emerge that seem to have the holy thumbprint on them. Frustratingly, the reason for certain things happening doesn't often become clear until much later, which gives one cause to empathize with the children of Israel when God said "Yea, walk around the wall, then shout and blow your horns. The walls will fall down, I swear". For those that don't know the end of the story, the walls did fall down, and the day was won for the Israelites.

In a world without walls that need tumbling, we have other trials that seem to be just as daunting. Take Saturday, when Paul and I received three, count em', three bills we were not expecting, all of them 3 digits, and one of them edging in on four. We can't afford any of them.

I have no earthly idea why God is choosing right now to allow this to happen, or what he is trying to tell us. Perhaps we have gotten so proud of ourselves overcoming debt that we have forgotten who the praise really goes to, and He is now knocking us back, Gideon-style, to remind us that the battle, financial or otherwise, is his, not ours. In case you are unfamiliar with the story, when Gideon was readying himself to take the Hebrew army against the Mideonites, God told him to send all but 300 men home, so that it would be obvious that their victory was miraculous. Sometimes God send us into these situations with the knowledge that to overcome them would be a miracle.

Whatever the reason, we are being given, in this admittedly horrific situation, an opportunity. It hit me recently that God is not a passive entity. He is active in our lives, constantly molding and teaching and giving opportunity to grow. Maybe out of this will grow a testimony to his faithfulness, a newly remembered trust in his promises, or a humility in the knowledge that the battle is always the Lord's.

My prayer now is that we rejoice in the fire and in the valley, and that, though we are afraid(which we are) and discouraged (which we definitely are), we will remember that God has never failed us.

Measuring a Year

Four years ago, I saw this guy across the room in my new Chorale class. Isn't he phenomenal looking?

He was wearing a Jesus T-shirt and cussing up a storm. "Cute" I thought "Very cute. But nope". I don't often get prophetic on you, but right as I wrote him off, a tiny voice inside said "Look again. That's him". So I did. And I looked a little too long. I think he though I was a creeper. He started to draw close to God over that summer, and by the next October, we were dating. On May 1 of 2008, we were engaged, and on May 16th of 2009:

I love him more and more, deeper and different, every day.

Happy Anniversary, Paul!

Apology

It's very upsetting when you are angry at someone for very good reasons, and you have thought all day about what you will say to them when you next see them about how terrible they are and how long-suffering you have been, and then they show up at your work with the words "I'm sorry, I was being dumb. I love you so much"



Because then you're the jerk.



But really, how can you stay mad when you have something this darn attractive apologising:
Love you, my love. Forever and ever.

Sherlock

All I wanted was a copy of A Study in Scarlet by Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle. It's not a huge request. But, apparently, libraries only stock like, four copies of classics in a library system of six buildings.

My library does not stock A Study in Scarlet...by itself.

No, I went in for a Sherlock Holmes book and found myself exiting with a textbook-sized behemoth labeled "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, VOLUME 1!!!" It's 688 pages of maps, introductions, and annotated narrative, rather than just, you know, a book. Every time I open it, I feel like I should be taking notes for an analysis of Mr. Holmes's cocaine addiction (which he totally has, by the way. Homeboy uses cocaine, opium, constantly smokes. Why do we even like him? Oh, yes, because he's played by Robert Downy Jr. Yum).

Reading this version is really like watching a movie you've never seen before while being forced to listen to the audio commentary. You can probably pick up the general idea of what's going on, but you don't catch the better part of it, because you're too distracted by the director going on about how wonderful he is. Only in this case, it's lots of academics who just luuurve Sir A.C.D and would like to gush about him in the footnotes. Except they aren't footnotes, it is precisely half the page, divided vertically, so that I find myself accidentally skipping from narrative to notes midsentence. Furthermore, the notes assume that you have not only read, but are familiar with the entire adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and make little asides to things with nary so much as a spoiler alert. Thanks a ton, William S. Baring-Gould.

Also, I have a habit of accidentally filling my head with little anecdotes and then popping them off in everyday conversation, invariably lading to that head-bob everyone does when someone has effectively ended a conversation, causing the dreaded "awkward silence" It's terrible, and I, knowing myself, know that I will somehow have managed to make this happen with my new found Holmesian knowledge before the month is out.

In spite of all this, I love Sherlock Holmes. I do. He is such a fantastically ridiculous character, and I love him. I truly do.

I also checked out Crime and Punishment, written by a Russian man whose name I can't quite pronounce. Apparently I have gone on a Classics reading kick that I forgot to inform myself about.

Projects

I love projects. I love the idea of having an end goal, materials, and a set of directions to get you from start to finish. I think it's the Type A personality in me that I've squished and smothered under years of procrastination and forcing myself to be "artistic".
That said, I'm terrible at starting projects. I have lots of great ideas and plans, but very little a) time b)money c)get up and go. I'm just not motivated in a practical way. I love to think about things, mostly because, in my head, I can accomplish an entirely made-over house for free, and with no effort on my part. Sadly, when I open my eyes, I still have horrific carpet, cheap tile, and a generic Target TV console. It's enough to break your heart, really.
THAT said, I've decided to change. It's my May 6 resolution. I have a whole list of things I want accomplished before Paul and I add to our family (which won't be happening this month, by the way. Thanks a ton, mother nature. Also, I hate you).
Here's my list, in no particular order:

This Bed - I have a love affair with Pottery Barn. It's a secret. I'm not even sure Pottery Barn knows, although maybe it does, because every time I go in that store, all the associates can smell the poor on me and give me the stink-eye. This particular bed is a knock off of one I've been coveting at Pottery Barn for the past forever, but could never find for under about a million dollars. Well, here it is, for the low. low price of "Do it your own self". And $120. The Pottery Barn version sells for at least $1190.

These bookshelves - My current nightstand is a baritone case. With an actual baritone in it. As bohemian as that sounds, it's pretty low on the functionality scale and even lower on the "Wow, it totally looks like you put thought and care into your decor" scale. These bookshelves are small and low enough to be considered nightstands, and they have SHELVES. No drawers though. I have a tendency to make messes of drawers. It's a disease.

This Media Console - Another Pottery Barn item. I have wanted an apothecary table ever since that episode of Friends where Phoebe talks about how evil Pottery Barn is. And maybe it is. But this apothecary table is quite lovely.

There is also a changing table I want to build. Sadly, I have nothing to change on a changing table. Soon and very soon

All these plans are from Knock-OffWood.com. She's fantastic. You should check it out.