Here I am, once again

(... standing before You with empty hands, feeling so unprotected from the things that hurt me most...  That's a song.  Betcha can't name it.)

I started this blog in 2006, because I love to write. I made a total of 9 entries, sporadic at best, and set it aside.  As much as I do love to write, things happen, and life gets in the way.

I re-started this blog in 2007 as a means to keep in touch with my friends and family back home as we began a new season of life in Colorado.  At times I wrote daily, sometimes more! - and during other times, not so much.  I obviously fell off (out of?) the blogosphere some time ago.

Even looking at the side bar of the other blogs that I used to love to read - many of them are quiet these days, too.

But I find myself here, in the middle of summer of 2015, with an overwhelming desire to blog again.  Much has happened this summer - during this summer where not much has really happened.  We didn't go any where, no trip to Cali... we haven't even taken a drive up the canyon to Estes in probably close to a year now.  But despite the quietness of this season, there are a lot of changes underway.  And those leave me thinking constantly... and that makes me want to write again.

I have stories to tell.

Perhaps I do not have an audience any more; that is okay.  But it changes nothing. 

Because still, I have stories to tell.

Getting used to it

We are all settling into the new "mom's working now" routine... learning to juggle the two vehicles amongst three drivers... feeling disappointed when mom can't come to an awards assembly... enjoying the exhale that a wee bit of extra money has provided... missing the freedom of my former schedule to hang with friends whenever I wanted... getting used to going through the pile of clean laundry every day to find clean  underwear...

It's crazy.  And just as we get it all figured out, tax season will be over.  In just 62 days, in fact, I will be unemployed again.

Then what do we do?

Sigh.

I don't know.  And I'm too busy to worry about it at the moment.

This new routine has been good in many ways.  It's stretching me, stretching the family.  It is expanding my boundaries and bringing me into relationship with new people.  It is making my brain work and it has been lazy for a long, long time.

So I'm trying to remain positive, focus on the blessings, and trust that God will meet our every need.

This work thing...

As I said on Facebook recently, this work thing kind of cramps my style.

It's been awhile since I've had to be somewhere at a certain time based on the direction of another person. 

I've gotten quite used to the freedom being a stay-at-home mom brings.

And while that is still my primary role, my kids are older and a little less needy, and staying at home isn't helping with the dream of us ever being out of debt.  It's kind of time to move that dream a little closer to reality.

(Actually being debt-free is still just a dream.  Right now we'd like to be caught up.)

So, hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go.

And while working has kind of cramped my style, I realized yesterday that it also makes me feel kind of like a grown-up.

"I'm sorry, I can't come at that time.  I have to work."

"Yes, I can pick up the milk on my way home from work."

"I need to go to bed now.  Some of us have to get up and go to work in the morning."

It's a mixed bag of good and bad, this job I've got.  Challenges and blessings.  But it's where God has me for now, so I need to bloom where I'm planted. <-- a="" font="" had="" i="" once.="" said="" t-shirt="" that="">



If you would like to pray for me:

• I don't believe I am working with any other believers.  Pray that if an opportunity to share the gospel comes my way, that I will recognize it and have the courage to act on it.  Pray that I would shine like the sun (as I read today in Matthew 13) among these people.
• Pray that I don't screw up anyone's taxes!
• Pray that I will earn enough money to make a significant debt in the taxes we owe.
• And today in BSF we talked about praying for miracles. God IS big enough to take care of our financial problems in the wink of His eye, and yes, He still performs miracles.  So... if you'd like, pray for a financial miracle.  I would love to be financially free so that we could pursue some ministry desires... but it would take a miracle (or a lot of years of patience, which is fine, too).

Eyes on Him,
Beth

Betcha thought I was gone forever

So I've been thinking about reentering the blogosphere for awhile now.  I've been thinking about some things I'd like to write about, thinking that no one probably will care or read it anymore, thinking that it doesn't matter because I write just because it gives me pleasure, thinking that I just miss the craft of writing.

And so over the past week, since my family went back home to Cali and as the routines of the new year have returned, I've been thinking about what to write.  I had intended to sit down today and write about the newly licensed driver in the family ~ how strange it is on my end to have a driving child; how freeing it is; how worrisome it is.  I was going to tell you about how cute it was that she offers to take her brother to the orthodontist and that she had to pick me up from work today (and got the experience of waiting on me in a brief taste of role reversal).

Then today happened and I thought about writing of my convoluted day ~ how nothing is simple and even having an extra driver gives cause for a new set of complications, seen most painfully today in the issue of our driver to vehicle ratio of 3:2, seen in how difficult it is to even communicate when we have cell phones and texting abilities at our fingertips, seen in client scenarios.  Nothing is simple.

My day made me want to yell like Brando for Stella, only not his wife, but the wonderful wine that was introduced to me, and I have to say I am looking forward to the end of this day and a sweet glass.

(Because the day is still far from over.)

And then I got home and thought I had a reprieve, only to see something that hurt my maternal feelings a little bit.  So I thought I'd write about that ~ about how my daughter ~ the driver ~ stuck up for Jesus in a way that I felt was eloquent and beautiful.  I was proud ~ more importantly, Jesus was even more pleased.  But her comment wasn't received well, unfortunately.

And yes, I know... I know that it doesn't matter, and that this is just an itsy bitsy taste of discomfort compared to the real persecution happening in other parts of the world.  I know that she absolutely was 110% correct and that the other person was not.  I know that she'll be fine; in fact she didn't seem particularly hurt by it.  But I'm her mama.  And it hurt my heart a little bit.

So now I'm not in the mood to write about any of that at all.  I'm actually in the mood ~ and this is better, by far, no offense ~ to go spend some time at the feet of Jesus.  My heart needs Him.