Aren't We Just the Cutest?

On Monday, I will be interviewing to work in the same company as my husband! Honestly, could it get better than that? Carpooling to work, getting paid on the same day, always having the same days off...I'm so excited! I really think I'll get the job. I'm not too worried about it - God has worked everything else out perfectly. But seriously - how cute are we?

We're MOVING!!!

It finally happened - they offered Husband the Job! I'm so relieved. Of course, this means a whole new slew of stressors...but I can handle this! These are happy things to be stressed about!

I interviewed for a job, and got the offer...I'm just not so sure. The hours are horrible (noon to 8:30, M-F with a few Saturdays thrown in every once in a while) and the pay is worse than what I make now. It would be a really awesome job (utilizing my education and job experience), but I would never see my husband and I wouldn't be able to be very involved with the church or community. I'm pretty sure I'm going to say 'thanks, but no thanks.'

We found a house! House...3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, huge living room, newly remodelled bathroom, laundry room, garage, fenced yard (puppy will LOVE that!), large covered porch...I love it! It was practically built for us. Half of the flooring is hardwood. We're so incredibly excited about it.

We even found a church there - already!

If you have any large boxes...please send them my way!

Waiting

Nevermind. They want a third interview on Monday. Seriously!?

I am just about stressed to my limit. Paul is supposed to find out today or tomorrow if he gets a HUGE promotion.

Promotion = moving back to the place where we fell in love.
Promotion = mo money.
Promotion = husband finally having a job he can be proud of.
Promotion = babies sooner.

All of this depends on one phone call, and that could come any time between now and 5:00 PM tomorrow. Every time my phone rings, I have a mild heart attack. Paul says his second interview went ridiculously well. All of the things I was most worried about in the interview process went perfectly. The guy even said that not having a degree was a non-issue. In all honesty, every single thing has gone unimaginably well. I even have a tentative interview scheduled for Saturday...just in case Paul gets the job. We have already visited (and like!) the church we would most likely attend after the move. God's hand has been all over this process.

So why am I so stinking nervous?

Paul acted funny yesterday when he came to pick me up after work. He texted me to say he was going to stay in the car instead of coming inside after he got to my parking lot. He never does that. I was so stressed after that text that I got sick. Who does that? When we got home, I cried myself to sleep (he fell asleep, too, and we were 30 minutes late to worship practice because of it). I am going crazy over this stuff. I KNOW God is in control. As far as I can tell, only good things would come out of him getting the job. We feel like _______ is where we need to be. We would be more financially stable. We could pay off debt. We could start the rest of our family. I see no down-side.

I guess I feel like I want too much. Like God couldn't possibly want this for me. I know, that sounds ridiculous - but I can't shake it.

So I'll go back to praying.

God is in control.
even when I can't see where He is leading me.
or why.
His ways are not my ways.
so please help me be okay with that.
And when I am afraid, I will trust in Him.
not because I have no where else to turn,
but because He is the only Place to turn.
My God,
please help me with my unbelief.

God IS in Control

My husband and I are going through a crazy-stressful time right now. I won't get in to the details (some people very close to us don't know about it, and I really don't think my blog is the best forum for telling them), but I hit my maximum-stress-level yesterday. On top of everything else, a grumpy old man came in to my office and exploded. He wanted me to do something, my computer system refused to do it unless he did X first, and he didn't want to do X. So he yelled at me and called me names and stormed out. He never treats my boss like that and I just knew that when I told her about it, she was going to wonder what I had done to provoke such a response from him. I called my dad on the way to pick up my husband after work and unloaded.

"I know God is in control. I know He can do whatever He wants. I'm just not convinced that what He wants is the same as what I want. What I want just sounds too good to be true."

We find out the answers to all of our questions next Friday. As I type that, I see how silly it seems - just 9 days? Anyone can handle 9 days, right? Not this girl. My whole life could change in 9 days. I can see God's hand in all of it - things are falling together entirely too smoothly to be coincidence. I am sure of it. But what if I am wrong? Does that mean I read too much in to everything? All of my church education tells me that if it doesn't work out, God has something better for us. But what on earth could be better than this?

This morning I read my daily list of blogs before I started working. Jon always has good stuff. Today, he pointed out Romans 8:26 - "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." No way do I know what to pray for! I have worked my way through all the scenarios (thanks, mom, for teaching me that one) ... and there is nothing left for me to do but wait. I am not good at waiting. I am, actually, quite horrible at waiting.

"Holy Spirit, please intervene on my behalf and say what I can't say. I'm at a loss for words, and you know how rarely that happens."

I would like to say that I feel a lot better about everything, but that would be a lie. The only real change is that now I feel like I can do something. I can groan. And why do I feel like it is working?

God gave me his promise in action today.

The grumpy old man came back. And apologized.

If He can make that old 'b-hole' (his words, clearly not mine) say he was sorry...He can do anything. Even ____ __ ____ _ ___. __ ___________.

Jon and the B-word (+8)

I just read Kelly's blog and felt the need to word vomit on my own site.

Don't hold it against me, but I actually watched the Jon & Kate season premiere last night (I feel a little less adult for having said that).

Holy crap that woman is horrible at marriage. If you are going to spend your entire marriage talking down to your husband and making him feel like less of a man for not doing things exactly the way you want...don't act surprised when your marriage crumbles. Don't play the victim - it really is your fault. Of course everyone is responsible for their own actions. I don't care if Jon did or didn't have a real affair or just wished he was with someone else (but who can blame him). That isn't the point. The point is that you are a horrible wife.

Please don't talk about your church. No one wants to hear about another naggy Christian wife. And please don't mention how you only let your kids eat free range chicken or organic lolly-pops - if you can't teach your little girls and boys how to respect their daddy, I don't want to hear about it. Shouldn't you be focusing more of your time teaching them how to love? I don't really care that you can throw a great birthday party (oh wait, your assistants and PRs did most of the work) or that your new house is 'green.' If you can't show real respect to your husband, the rest is worthless as far as I'm concerned.

As a Christian wife, your marriage needs to be your number one priority. Not your kids. The whole, 'I'm here for the kids' thing: absolutely pathetic. On both of you. You have enough assistants, family, and friends to take care of the kids for a weekend or every Thursday night while you go to intense therapy with your pastor. And America doesn't need to hear you talk about it. Let your marriage do the talking. Because your money, your show, your book tour - those aren't the most important things to your kids. Mommy and Daddy being there for them is. Sure, you can 'get along.' You can make it work. But how much more emotionally healthy will your kids be if you can FIX it? Focus on that for a change. Cancel the show. Ignore the book tour. Fix your marriage if you really care about your kids.

p.s. - No one buys all the 'poor, pitiful me' crap. It somehow carries a WHOLE lot less weight when you cry about the paparazzi and tabloids...on your reality show.

Grace

I'm sitting here, having a conversation (FB chat) with my aunt. She just drove a woman to the nursing home to see her husband. This woman can't drive herself because of eye problems. Just that much information made me sick to my stomach - I couldn't imagine not being able to see my husband every day. To not live with him? To know he was sick, in another place, and I couldn't care for him.

Then my aunt tells me that he is the woman's 5th husband.
Take that in. Makes you sick? You feel badly for her? Just wait.

Three of them died, one of them left her. The current husband was her pastor way back in the day (Wednesday? Nevermind...), and they recently re-met and married. 4 months after the wedding, he fell. He hasn't been the same since, and now he's in the nursing home. This woman has been left (one way or another) by men she loves at least 5 times in her 80 years. Five times. I don't know heart ache. I have never even tasted the heart ache this woman lives with on a daily basis.

And yet.
My aunt tells me this woman is 'that woman' in the church. The one who brightens the room when she walks in. When they were leaving the nursing home, a nurse stopped them because she 'needed a hug' from my aunt's friend. The nurse needed the hug!? How does that make sense? Has she buried 3 husbands? But that is who this woman is. She is the Jesus-figure in her community. I have had an enormously blessed life, and no one would say things anywhere near that great about me. I've been a bitter, jaded, gossipy woman most of my adult life. And for what? Because I've had a few tough-breaks? Puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

Marriage

Another dear friend just told me her marriage is falling apart. Days like this I wonder why mine is the only marriage that seems solid.

We didn't do anything by the book (not The Book - I'm talking about the Oral Tradition passed down from one generation of know-it-all Christians to the next). We didn't date two years, stay engaged for one, or get married in the summer. We dated 2.5 months before he proposed and got married 7.5 months later in the middle of the winter. He wasn't a student at my private Christian school; in fact, he went to a *gasp* State School! Our parents were on different sides of a very heated denominational split. In short, the OT dictated that we should fail as soon as the honeymoon wore off.

Nope. Two-and-a-half years later, I still respect him as the best man I've ever met, and he finds fabulous ways to show his love for me every day. God has blessed our marriage, and I have never been more happy in my life!

So why is it that my friends who actually did play by the rules are having so many problems?! One is finalizing a divorce, one hasn't spoken to her husband in two weeks, and another is in marital counceling. It absolutely blows my mind. It's not that we haven't worked our butts off making our marriage what it is today (and are working it today, and will work on it tomorrow). I just have a hard time seeing why there isn't any honest advice out there.

Maybe the problem is that people aren't real. No one is willing to sit down with an engaged couple (better yet, a new couple who is beginning to think that marriage might be the end result of their relationship) and say, 'Listen. My wife and I have had a hard time. We had a big blow-up on the way to meet with you tonight. Marriage isn't easy. It won't solve any of your problems.' How many sermons have you heard where the pastor admitted to yelling at his wife during the week? How many couples in your church have asked you for prayer because they had a rough week with eachother? No one I know asks for help from their church until it is too late.

I don't really have any answers. I'm just hurt and confused for my friends. Marriage isn't easy. Why does everyone like to pretend like it is?

No More BC For Me!

I am officially off of Birth Control. Which, I guess, makes me officially one of those crazy conspiracy theorists.

We quit chemical birth control and started using Naturally Family Planning (which my mom lovingly calls 'Being a Parent in 9 months flat') because I cannot convince myself that BC can't harm my pre-born children. If aspirin can hurt my baby, why couldn't an unnatural amount of hormones? I did a lot of research (at Biblically-based and NOT Biblically-based websites), and nothing I read convinced me that taking the Pill wouldn't hurt a fertilized egg...which is what I like to call 'a baby.'

A lot of research shows that BC won't stop the cell-division of a fertilized egg that has attached itself to the wall of the uterus. Okay, some research has shown that some BC isn't bad at that point. But I define life as a fertilized egg, regardless of where that human life is. I couldn't find much evidence for BC not affecting a not-yet attached (albeit tiny) baby. So, as a Christian someday-mother who loves her pre-born children and is physically sickened by the thought of any form of abortion, how could I take a pill that I cannot feel 100% convinced about?

I asked my doctor about this a few months ago. A woman at church had been talking about birth control not being good for babies, and it really upset me...since I took BC religiously at 9:00 PM. every. single. day. I sat my Dr. down and said, 'This is how I define life: a fertilized egg, regardless of where or how far along he/she is. Be brutally honest with me - is there any evidence that taking this pill could negatively affect that life?' She said 'no.' I repeated myself. She said 'no' again, and with a tone of voice that said, 'Oh gosh, one of those Pro Lifers again. They sure are annoying. Conspiracy Theorists are sooo crazy.' I figured, 'Hey, this woman has been in the medical profession since before I could tie my shoes. She probably knows more than me.' And I'm sure she does... but I will never again trust a word that comes out of her mouth, because she wasn't completely up-front with me. She didn't preface her statement with, 'Some people think...' She just conveyed that, by taking the medicine she was giving me, I could be completely relaxed in knowing that my future children would be the ONLY children God had ever created in me. Or at least that the Pill would have nothing to do with any miscarriages I had.

So here I am. I could be a mom right now and not even know it. I thought typing that would scare the crap out of me, but it didn't. We have completely put our trust in God. Well...and in Natural Family Planning. We aren't really in a position where trying for a baby would be a wise financial plan, but hey - my husband was created to be a daddy. Anyhow, I wanted to put this out there for anyone who still reads this thing. I'm not going to call you a horrible sinner for taking BC... all I want is for you to research it for yourself with an open mind and a prayerful heart.

Why I hate abortion.

I have been holding off on this topic for a long time, but I think it is time to go full-force: My husband could have (and, by some standards, should have) been aborted.

Christine was 17 when she found out she was pregnant. She went to a very strict Catholic school, and he was the eldest of 5 brothers. He was already heavily dependent on alcohol and he was probably a drug user by that point, too. Three strikes, already: she was too young to deal with the consequences of parenthood, he was a role model for his younger brothers, and the baby might be deformed from his dad's drug and alcohol usage. Not to mention that in the early 80's, no one was standing outside of Planned Parenthood and preaching about God's love for the unborn - there wasn't enough publicity about abortion yet. My own mom took a friend to an abortion clinic in the late 70's because she had no clue what it really was (they left as soon as they understood). It makes me sick to think that this is the exact circumstance that pro-choice activists would promote as the ideal situation for a woman to 'take control of her own body' and have an abortion. What sick-o conservative would want this poor teenage woman to have to deal with the consequences of one night of fun?
Me. I would. Chris and Paul Sr. married and had two more children. It didn't end up all rosy - Paul Sr. was a great daddy, but he still had to battle his addictions; and when they divorced a few years later Chris had to support the children on her own. The consequences of that 'one night of fun' still impact the family today, every day. Paul passed away a few years ago from complications of a lifetime of alcohol abuse. Chris still deals with side-affects from the daily stress of her 20's.
Paul II is the best thing that ever happened to me. My mother-in-law and I don't have the best relationship in the world, but I am daily indebted to her for choosing life. If you are considering abortion as a way to end your problems, please - don't just think about your life. Think about your growing child's life. Think about all the thousands of people he or she will touch as he or she grows up. Think about your child's children, and how happy you will be to see them sitting on their daddy's knee in 30 years.

Think about the people like me, and how radically different my life would be if that scared 17 year old girl hadn't chosen life in the spring of '82.

Does 'Illegal' Mean Anything to You?

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/09/16-illegals-sue-arizona-rancher/

This guy has a ranch on the Mexico/Arizona border. Arizona has the Castle Doctrine. When he finds illegal (read that again: illegal) aliens on his property, he doesn't shoot them; he rounds them up and turns them in to the authorities. Over 12,000 since 1998. The illegal aliens he hasn't gotten to in time have destroyed his fences and equipment, killed his cattled, and broken in to his home. They have left trails of trash [human feces, plastic bottles (some of the cattle have died from ingesting the bottles), used diapers, drug paraphanalia] up to 10 inches deep.

Now he is being sued by 16 illegal aliens for violating their civil rights. Not for killing anyone or physically harming them. For defending his American property from people who had no legal (or other) right to be there. Oh yeah, and 'emotional distress.' All to the tune of $32 million.

Your thoughts?

Less thank two weeks. Thanks, American Majority.

• President-elect Obama has said that his proposed stimulus legislation will create or save 3 million jobs. This means that this legislation will spend about $275,000 per job. The average household income in the U.S. is $42,000 a year.

• This bill provides enough spending to give every man, woman, and child in America $2,700.

• This bill will cost each and every household $6,700 in additional debt, paid for by our children and grandchildren.

Just some fun facts. Thank you, Glennbeck.com.

God, give me grace.

I'm really not excited about these next four years. Honestly, I wish our president the best. For the good of our nation, I hope he doesn't fall into his old, polar-liberal ways. I hope awesome things are accomplished. I don't foresee that actually happening, but a girl can hope.
I'm tired of pretending I'm okay with liberalism. I have great friends who currently (proudly) consider themselves to be liberal. I say currently because I have a feeling they're going to grow up eventually and realize that being an adult means taking responsibility for your actions, not relying so heavily on the government to bail you out (I'm not talking about on a corporate level), and sometimes it even means assisting other people in not relying on DC to meet all their needs/wants. You can tell a parent really loves her son when she boots his butt out of the house and makes him look for a job. 'It's time to grow up,' she'll tell him. 'Go get a job. I'm not going to be your enabler anymore. I love you enough to be tough on you right now.' It's not cruel to make someone stop receiving welfare checks after 10 (50?) years. It's giving that person the push to get out there and do something when they clearly didn't have the initiative to do it on their own.
I look forward to the day when these liberal friends of mine wake up and go, 'CRAP! I've really screwed myself over. I'm 35, and I'm paying so many taxes that I can't move up anymore! I'll be stuck right here for the rest of my life.' Isn't the American dream to be better off (financially, emotionally, spiritually, etc) than the previous generation? How on EARTH will that happen now? I guess it's okay to give up on the American dream when, suddenly, everything 'American' is considered bad? I don't want my friends to feel pain and bitterness when they realize they've ruined their children's chance at happiness, but I'm looking forward to having them cross back over to conservativism - even if that means waiting for it all to fall apart. When it falls apart, that's when people will re-evaluate where we are. Go back to their roots. Remember that the Truth really does matter.
I don't want conservativism to be a dirty word anymore. I don't even like the term 'compassionate conservativism,' because that implies that I, as a conservative, am not generally compassionate. Isn't that the ground-work of being morally based? Love for others? Not in the conservativism we've seen for the past few years. There has been nothing 'conservative' about the last few candidates the Republican party has paraded in front of us. Maybe they vote conservatively, but I want someone who lives conservatively. Guiliani? I would have voted for him just to feel safe at night. I'm a little afraid Biden was being a bit prophetic. But the guy didn't exactly carry his conservative over to his personal/romantic life. McCain? He didn't seem to care too much about abortion, either way. I'm a huge fan of Palin, but I don't mind waiting a few years to get to know her better. Am I being too picky? Perhaps. Or maybe we've just given in, little by little, to this liberal way of thought that 'You stay out of my life, I'll stay out of yours - just give the government all your money, and we'll be fine. Also, hand over your morals, 'cause you won't be needing those anymore.'
I'm kind of glad we have 4 years to regroup. McCain just wasn't going to cut it. I don't know who decided he could run on the Republican ticket - they should be kicked out. Maybe 3 years from now, we'll learn that the Republican party has either disolved or gone back to being the voice of conservatism. If one of those two things fails to happen, I'll never again tell anyone I'm voting R-MO.