These thoughts are copyrighted.

I am slowly becoming obsessed with this book and all it consists of. It speaks to my spirit, that spirit of wanting to wander into the unknown, of picking up and leaving and going without knowing if I will come out on the other side successfully, or even alive. The living without reservations, dropping all that the comforts of life have to offer, and trading them in for adventures and discomfort and life experiences. It speaks to me in the same way that

Through Painted Deserts - Donald Miller
&
On the Road-Jack Kerouac

did. I am sure there are many more, but those are the ones I can think of at this point.

I can't get enough of this spirit of writing. I eat it up--literally consume it--and it becomes a part of me. It speaks to me, straight to the heart of me.





I am convinced that I grew up in the wrong era. I should have grown up in the late 60's/early 70's. I should have been a hippie. I should have grown up in a time when it was still fairly safe to hitchhike from place to place and sleep in different places every night. Or maybe the safety factor is the same, but we don't trust eachother as much as we used to.


I definitely could see myself on a commune (minus the public nakedity).

I could see myself on Haight Ashbury.

I see myself behind the wheel of a VW bus, potted cacti on the dashboard, mattress in the back,the wind combing my hair, open road before me. (this sounds good. I'm going to try to make a poem of it sometime)

***

We have to make a decision in the next three days whether God is leading us to make the trip. We were going to wait to write the letter to UPS and take UPS's answer as a sign, an open door, and a confirmation, but Dusty is challenging us, (basically telling us), not to do this, and instead decide based on what we feel in our spirit about the trip. I know how I feel, but it doesn't matter how I feel unless we are united as a couple. Pray that Wesley will get whatever answer is needed at this point, so that we can make a decision based on the Spirit leading us as a couple. That is why Dusty is challenging us. He believes we are basing our decision too much on other people and not on what God is personally telling us. He's right...but this is going to make it a bit more of a struggle to come to a decision. I don't know how well it's going to go.

***

I wrote the above blog entry as a draft two days ago and I'm not much closer to what we're going to do. If it were based on me as a single person, I would have already called up Dusty and told him "I'm in!" but when you are married, it adds so many more things to the ever stirring pot. And I go back and forth about conceiving. One day, I'm fine, and then the next day, I have a little meltdown or maybe just a tear, or anger, or frustration.

I am FRUSTRATED with the fact that I have had such a hard time.
I am ANGRY when I hear other women complain about their kids. This frustrates me close to the most.
I am FRUSTRATED that I have to see a doctor to find out what in the heck is wrong.
I am ANGRY that I do not already have a baby in my arms.
I am FRUSTRATED and ANGRY I may have to go through painful procedures in order to conceive.

But you've all heard this story before. No point in going on.

***

It's looking like our deadline for telling Dusty our decision is about up, and I have no idea what our decision is going to be. What if we're not ready for this? What if we are willing but we are not ready? I never thought of how couples must function completely differently from single missionaries. Can we function over there? Or are we putting too much confidence in ourselves? Or not enough confidence in God?

So many thoughts. So many questions. Just one answer that seems to slip through my fingers like a kite taking flight.







(Bless you if you got through this entire blog.
My mind is an insect trapped in spider's web.)

(That sounds good too. Hmm.)

What I want to be when (if) I grow up

None are in order of importance unless they are begun with a letter


For sures:
[that is, if it didn't require more schooling, which most of these do]

A. a mother
1. Travel agent
2. Preschool teacher
3. Children's Librarian
4. Tour guide


Maybes:
1. Travel writer
2. Photographer
3. Nanny


Dream jobs:

A. Professional traveler, like Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel
B. Vacation Tour Director (you get to take the trips with the people you plan them for to serve as a liason while on the trip. Ohmygoodness.)
1. Personal assistant to some great famous person
2. owner of a Children's bookstore
3. Disney princess
4. Voice over for cartoons/children's shows


Random facts about past future plans:

-When I was 5-9, I wanted to be a dolphin trainer

-When I was 14, after seeing 'Coyote Ugly', I wanted to be a bartender.

-When I was a Junior in college, me and a couple of friends wanted to rent a place in New Orleans for the summer and invite people to stay with us. We almost did it, had it not been for my mother

-The summer after Sophomore year, I almost didn't come back to Union. I had a dream to take a road trip across the U.S. by myself and write about my trip. I still have the papers from where I was printing off places to go. Again, my mom stopped me, and told me instead she would give the money to take the trip after I graduated from College. I never got the money, because I got married. I never took the trip.

- I have walked out of my job in my head countless times. I usually imagine myself getting in the car and driving off into the unknown. It thrills me.

-Until I visited Union, I strongly considered being a writer. And then I let my mind talk me into something "more reasonable", i.e. being a Social Worker. My mom had something to do with this as well.

-My Senior year of High School, I didn't want to go to college at a University. I wanted to go to the Honor Academy and train to be a missionary or something of that nature. I bet you can guess what's coming next. My mom stopped me.

***

You know what I have figured out after being at a job that doesn't thrill me and feeling stuck due to mounds and mounds of school loans?

Listening to what OTHER people think you should do with your life...you will miss out on too much. I wish I had figured that out sooner.



I am so ready for a change.

Confirmations. (?)

So, several things concerning this very big decision have been moving in my heart.

I have been worrying about not getting an audible "Yes, this is what I want you to do" from God. I know it sounds silly, but I guess I expected to receive something like that considering this will be a life-changing experience. And completely against the grain of what we were originally thinking. I mean, this is the complete opposite of our plans before. It's basically two extremes: settle down with a baby, or live without a home for a year.

Anyway, what I have been receiving is little things that I like to call confirmations. I texted my friends Dusty and Darlene basically explaining that God hadn't "spoken" to me and that we were both sort of confused at the moment. What they both said to us is that sometimes, when God isn't speaking, He is waiting for you to tell Him what you would like to do. Since I am not set in my theology of free will vs. predestination, and don't currently want to be since I don't think everything is so black and white, I can totally see that. And it worked in my instance. When they told me that, I thought, ok, so God is waiting for me to decide. I talked and prayed about it with Wesley, and we decided we would go with this, and if God closed doors, then He would close doors. Ever since I prayed to God and told Him "ok, we want to go on this trip" it's like His presence has been overflowing in my life. Now, I'm sure that has somewhat to do with the fact that I am reading more of my Bible than I have in a long time, but I also believe part of that is in agreement with what Dusty and Darlene were saying.

The second confirmation, which I wouldn't put as a formal title of "confirmation", but definitely is the style that I love to be spoken to in... I was driving to a visit on a workday and just praying and thinking about how completely crazy it is to think about all the money that would need to come in to provide for our trip. I had my ipod on shuffle. I was thinking to myself "God, this is going to have to be a complete miracle." Just then, the song "Are You Ready for a Miracle?" began playing on my ipod. God is funny, and He has a great sense of humor. I felt peace and love and just a rush of possibility and excitement, as I knew that the song was meant to answer my thoughts and prayers I had in my head.

Tonight, we had a night of Christmas praise and worship at my church. Pastor Ben preached an amazing section on Mary's point of view when she realized she was carrying a child. He described how she was engaged and ready to be married, making preparations in her own life toward her own plans. Then God made her the birth mother of Jesus Christ. He described how this truly did mean "a baby changes everything" and that Jesus turned Mary's world upside down. He talked about how she probably had different wills for her life, but instead, His will was so much better than her own. I think it's funny how our story is the opposite. We were desiring a baby with everything in us. We struggled with infertility, 10 months of it, and then God begins to confirm a different path. A path that will change EVERYTHING. This path, if we are to walk it, is like Mary birthing Jesus. Both are the will of God, and both change everything.

The one thing we have been struggling with in our decision (besides finding a place for our puppies) is that Wesley is pretty much set in his job. He will be there going on 6 years next fall, and his pay is very good right now for only being a part time worker. If we leave for a year and UPS doesn't have a leave of absence, then he will lose his seniority and his pay. Even if he was able to get hired on to UPS once we get back, he would lose his pay and have to work back up to his seniority (which I think is retarded, by the way). But, then one of the songs reflect on how Jesus was born in a manger, in a place meant only for animals. I started really thinking about what that means.

We throw around that phrase, but do we really think about it? I mean, Jesus could have been born anywhere. God sure had enough power to make whoever it was bow before Mary and provide a place to birth Jesus. However, I believe God was making several points when He chose a manger for Jesus. 1) He was emphasizing of course that Jesus came in the most humble and vulnerable form, a baby. Jesus' life was humble, if you think about it. Even though He was the son of God, He still went through teachings just like everyone else. He still had to be fed by his mother, and He still had to rely on his mother and father's protection.

But the more important thing that hit me is that God may have had Jesus birthed in a manger to prove the point that we should not store up our treasures on earth. Then I started thinking about how Jesus lived while He was on this earth. He had one shot at it, and He chose to not spend it comfortable, but constantly moving, constantly traveling, constantly sharing the good news with others. Jesus really never had a home. So what makes us think as Christians that our primary goal in life is to settle down and start a family and live comfortably?

Don't get me wrong; I do not believe it's a sin to settle down and start a family. If I had been able to at this point and time, I would have. But we also have to be careful that we are never comfortable on this earth. That comfort can lead to the death of your spirit. It can lead to you not hearing the Lord clearly. I know that is what has been manifested in my life. When I started considering a possibility that didn't make me feel comfortable, that is when God really began speaking to me.


So, that is what is going on in our life right now. We are still worried and checking into the leave of absence thing at UPS, but we are seriously leaning toward going on this trip! Please be in prayer that if we have somehow gotten His will wrong, that He will redirect us. And pray that if this is His will for us, that He will continue to reveal Himself and continue to give peace and confirmation to us.

this dream I had once

You know one of those moments when you're like, 30, and you realize your life is half over?

Well, this isn't one of those stories. I didn't have the luxury of a mid-life crisis.

How do you explain to someone what I've been through?

To describe it would define insanity. But maybe I'm ready to pick the flowers off of the wallpaper. Maybe I am crazy.

I don't really know.
Maybe one day, I'll wake up, and this will all make some sense.
I don't really know. All I do know is when it happened, I was probably as lost as you are.

******
"Are you ready?"
"For, what?"
She had camera in hand, posed and anxious. "Let's get a picture before things get too crazy." (Ah, a foreshadowing.)
She grabbed onto my shoulder, pulled me in close, and snapped away.

What was this picture, anyway? What possible meaning did it have? Would she put it in a sturdy frame, and stare at it every day? Not likely. With my luck, I'd wind up at the bottom of a moving box, tucked among broken seashells and dead bugs. That is, if she were the type to let bugs crawl into moving boxes. She's probably not.

"Can you believe we're graduating?!" she screeched, sounding like tires skidding. I shook my head "no."

What is it about special days that make people want to talk to others they've never said more than a couple of words to? I mean, what's the point? I don't expect us to sing songs together, holding hands and smiling. I get it. Perhaps since we've had classes together, she feels the need to acknowledge me. Or maybe it's because I'll be right behind her when she accepts her diploma, and she wants to be in good company with the one person who could possibly save her from an embarassing situation like tripping.

Realizing I'm not going to provide much conversation, she steps out of line to talk to her other friends. And then I realize: I was simply a filler in a moment of awkwardness. That pretty much sums up my life. I know that now her friends are here, she won't say anything else to me. That's ok. If the line moves forward, I won't tell her.
I sigh, knowing I will.

What I'm really doing in all of this is looking for *nameunknown*. He (not sure if it will be a he or a she yet, but right now, calling it a he) is basically one of the only good friends I made here. Sure, there are others--the ones you have intimate conversations with in the photo house. The problem is, these people don't remember you the next day. Maybe it's convienient amnesia, because seeing you exposed in the daylight makes those conversations hard to follow. There's something about developing film in the dark with strangers that makes any conversation acceptable, and, even the most quiet of people a bit chatty.

But no, *nameunknown* is a true friend. A best friend. He is the exact opposite of me. Creative, witty, brilliant. Those three come to mind, and I wasn't even searching for words.