Peanut Butter And Plans
I totally just made honey peanut butter. I took the rest of my honeycomb and mixed in peanut butter - so it's all crunchy with the wax and delicious with the honey+peanut butter. I'm pretty psyched about this.
So I don't think it's any secret that this winter has kind of sucked for us. Lucas is deep into the job search process and it's been a tough haul. Originally we thought our alma mater would be offering a job two years ago, and then it got pushed back a year, and got pushed back again, so that kind of broke up the "perfect opportunity" that we thought we had to move to our dream town and have him take his dream job. Now nothing's really coming up for us, and it's hard. Our lease runs out in June, and as Lucas said, right now, it's like our lives end in three or four months. We can't plan anything, we can't say anything for certain, we can't see the future after those months are over.
This uncertainty affects so many things in life, obviously. Where we're going to live, how often we can see our families, what he's going to be teaching, etc. It also affects things like work, for me. Summer Reading Club is just around the corner and typically I'm elbow deep in preparation and programs for it. I want to tell my managers not to depend on me for it this year, because I assume I'll be done at the library around the middle/end of May because of packing and moving and so forth...but I can't say for sure. So I haven't said anything to them yet, just in case. Of course, I've been constantly worrying that I'm either going to A) leave them with no one to do the jobs that they should have been moving people into by now and B) have to leave with little warning so I won't be able to get all the work ready for other people to take over, even if they have people to move into the jobs.
Plus there's the future. We know what we want from the future: in broad, basic strokes, we want to move somewhere nice, get a cat and have a baby. All of this - and I mean ALL of this - is on hold indefinitely, because of that thick, terrible cloud that starts three months out.
And there's the fact that, if we mistime things, or if things don't work out quite as they need to, we could be going several months without an income. We probably won't be, but there's the chance.
As a wife, this is terribly frustrating also because I can't do anything to help. He's frustrated and discouraged and I just want to call up those schools and give them a good scolding because they're making my husband sad and tell them what kind of idiots they are for passing up someone so freaking awesome as Lucas. Of course I can't do that, but I want to so bad. All I can do is hug him and tell him the same things I've been telling him for months...which I can't help but feel is completely inadequate.
Probably one of the most frustrating parts of all this is that, as Christians, we believe God has a plan. We believe that He's preparing a place for us to go and that, in His timing, the right door will open and the right position will be offered and we'll be set to go. And here we are, well into the process...and nothing's happening. No doors are opening. They're creaking a little bit and then slamming shut again. And we're waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
In church today (we were visiting his family's church) the pastor talked about how God has to prune hardest where we care the most. He has to take the places that we're naturally talented at and cut them back even further because we're much more reluctant to give up control of those areas. He has to take our dreams - those hopes for the future that are just so precious to us - and make sure that we've totally surrendered them to Him. I spent the whole service trying not to cry, partly because I'm just so stressed and tired and so full of worry for so many different things, but also partly because I thought we had done that already. We've been praying that we're led where He wants, that the right job will open so that His will can be served through us...so where are we going? What's happening? And what else do we have to do - what else CAN we do - but wait?
In order to take my mind off of it, here is a shark attacking a plane:
So I don't think it's any secret that this winter has kind of sucked for us. Lucas is deep into the job search process and it's been a tough haul. Originally we thought our alma mater would be offering a job two years ago, and then it got pushed back a year, and got pushed back again, so that kind of broke up the "perfect opportunity" that we thought we had to move to our dream town and have him take his dream job. Now nothing's really coming up for us, and it's hard. Our lease runs out in June, and as Lucas said, right now, it's like our lives end in three or four months. We can't plan anything, we can't say anything for certain, we can't see the future after those months are over.
This uncertainty affects so many things in life, obviously. Where we're going to live, how often we can see our families, what he's going to be teaching, etc. It also affects things like work, for me. Summer Reading Club is just around the corner and typically I'm elbow deep in preparation and programs for it. I want to tell my managers not to depend on me for it this year, because I assume I'll be done at the library around the middle/end of May because of packing and moving and so forth...but I can't say for sure. So I haven't said anything to them yet, just in case. Of course, I've been constantly worrying that I'm either going to A) leave them with no one to do the jobs that they should have been moving people into by now and B) have to leave with little warning so I won't be able to get all the work ready for other people to take over, even if they have people to move into the jobs.
Plus there's the future. We know what we want from the future: in broad, basic strokes, we want to move somewhere nice, get a cat and have a baby. All of this - and I mean ALL of this - is on hold indefinitely, because of that thick, terrible cloud that starts three months out.
And there's the fact that, if we mistime things, or if things don't work out quite as they need to, we could be going several months without an income. We probably won't be, but there's the chance.
As a wife, this is terribly frustrating also because I can't do anything to help. He's frustrated and discouraged and I just want to call up those schools and give them a good scolding because they're making my husband sad and tell them what kind of idiots they are for passing up someone so freaking awesome as Lucas. Of course I can't do that, but I want to so bad. All I can do is hug him and tell him the same things I've been telling him for months...which I can't help but feel is completely inadequate.
Probably one of the most frustrating parts of all this is that, as Christians, we believe God has a plan. We believe that He's preparing a place for us to go and that, in His timing, the right door will open and the right position will be offered and we'll be set to go. And here we are, well into the process...and nothing's happening. No doors are opening. They're creaking a little bit and then slamming shut again. And we're waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
In church today (we were visiting his family's church) the pastor talked about how God has to prune hardest where we care the most. He has to take the places that we're naturally talented at and cut them back even further because we're much more reluctant to give up control of those areas. He has to take our dreams - those hopes for the future that are just so precious to us - and make sure that we've totally surrendered them to Him. I spent the whole service trying not to cry, partly because I'm just so stressed and tired and so full of worry for so many different things, but also partly because I thought we had done that already. We've been praying that we're led where He wants, that the right job will open so that His will can be served through us...so where are we going? What's happening? And what else do we have to do - what else CAN we do - but wait?
In order to take my mind off of it, here is a shark attacking a plane:
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