Panic!!!!

Have you ever noticed that when you're panicking, and you tell yourself to stop, it only seems to get worse?  Maybe it's like having a fear of heights.  Jed and I visited the Rio Grande Bridge near Taos on our way home from our honeymoon.  Having a rather severe case of acrophobia myself, all I could think was, "Don't look down..."  But of course, I looked down.

Right now, life feels like a tight rope stretched over a 15 bazillion foot chasm.  It's not a very wide chasm, and I could probably get over it pretty quick, but there's this little voice that gets progressively louder every time I get closer to that rope.  I try to ignore it, but the more I try, the louder it gets until finally I feel like I have a mini drill sergeant in my head screaming his lungs out at me.

"OH MY GOSH!!! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?! PANIC! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! FIX IT!!! FIX IT NOW!!!!!"

You see, I have a rather hyper sense of responsibility.  I could probably even convince myself that hurricane Katrina was at least partly my fault.  

The chasm I'm trying to cross isn't really a result of anything I've done right or wrong; it's just life, and life is hard sometimes (well, most times).  

The truth that I'm really trying to grab hold of is that I'm not responsible for everything that happens in my life.  Now, before you go all crazy on me and think that I'm losing my grip and going to end up a homeless alcoholic for the rest of my life, I do understand that choices I make today will probably have consequences, good or bad, for the future.  For example, I chose to quit my job not too long ago, and that has had consequences, good and not so good.  However, I also feel like the decisions I've made, like getting married and quitting my job, were not made lightly and that God was directing me toward doing those things.  

So, in all actuality, God is responsible for what happens to me now.  Yesterday, when I was having one of those moments where I couldn't even think straight because of my mini drill sergeant, I had a cup of tea.  Now this wasn't just any cup of tea; my mom gave me a box of "Scripture Tea" for Christmas.  It's green chai tea, and on each little tab is printed a little verse.  I thought it was a little cheesy at the time (but sweet, of course), but each cup of tea that I've had has had a verse that was quite appropriate for what I was thinking about at the time.  Yesterday my verse was Psalm 31:24:

"Take courage if you are depending on the Lord."  

Okay. 

Easier said than done, but armed with this verse and others like Psalm 37:3-7 and Matthew 6:25-34, I can keep doing battle with the little lier that's found it's way into my mind.  

Patience

To teach is to learn twice over. ~Joseph Joubert

I’ve wanted to teach since my junior year of college, when it was too late to start working on a teaching license.  Getting a license in the state of New Mexico is quite a pain after you get out of college, and I’m afraid I don’t have very much patience sometimes.  However, as of today (well, as long as I pass a background check) I get to be a substitute teacher for a private Christian school here in Albuquerque!  

This is quite an answer to prayer.  After quitting my job at RAA, I really had no idea what to do.  I’ve been applying for part time assistant/receptionist jobs on Craigslist since the beginning of January, but I really don’t enjoy office jobs.  Jed and I started our own business offering web design and tech support (check it out here), but I don’t know very much about how to provide the services we offer, and we don’t need a lot of administration stuff just yet so I’ve been floundering a little.  (I do hope to learn all that stuff eventually, but it will take practice and time.) 

So, last week, my good friend Emmy texted me and told me how she was going to start subbing at this Christian school, and that they were still looking for subs.  She gave the name of the principal I could contact, so I e-mailed him my resume and a cover letter telling him how much I wanted to teach.  I thought nothing would come of it really, especially after I’d sent out so many resumes with so few results, but yesterday, I got a call, today I had an interview, and today I got the job (pending background check).  What was even neater was that they were really excited to have me since I have a math background, and they assured me I’d probably get called in to sub quite a bit with that experience.  (I guess math degrees do come in handy after all.) 

That’s what I’ll be up to this year.  It always amazes me how things can fall neatly into place if one waits patiently enough. 

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.” Psalm 37:7

A new year always brings a lot of talk about change. Resolutions are made with great resolve (thus they’re called resolutions) and everyone is determined that this year will be better than the last year which was full of procrastination and drudgery.

As I reflect on my past year, my mind reels with all the changes it brought. It’s still a little hard to comprehend, and I can't really imagine what this year's going to bring after this last one. Here’s a sum-up.

January: The place at which I was temping hired me permanently. I also corresponded with some missionaries on the field to which I was planning to go through World Team.

February: Jed and I started dating officially. The day after we made this decision, he left to go to Holbrook for a week to help fix up his grandpa’s old place. That was quite sad for me. But I went to Vegas with my dad

and visited Jed along the way. This was also my first Valentine’s day to actually be dating someone. But we’d only been dating for a week by the time that holiday rolled around, and all he got was an e-card and all I got was nothing.

March: Jed and I went on a double date to Chaco Canyon which was a lot of fun.

Right around this time, I also finished my application to the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

April: The family that I had been praying about going on the mission field with changed their minds about what organization they were going to go through. I was left in a bit of a muddle as I’d already joined World Team with whom they were originally planning on going. My relationship with Jed was a little funky at this time as we still hadn’t really figured out how to talk to each other about goals (or anything… We were quite awkward), so I briefly considered joining the Air Force (something I’d considered doing on and off since I graduated from college).

I mentioned this idea to Jed, and he objected quite a bit, so I decided that wasn’t the best idea after all. That got us started on talking about our future together and what we each thought about it.

May: (I think) Jed wrote me a letter telling me he loved me and explained what he’d been feeling since we started dating. To hear his feelings made me feel so much better about sharing mine and somehow, that created a much stronger bond between us than we’d previously experienced. Shortly after he’d written the above letter, he wrote another one explaining what he meant when he said he loved me. And boy, was it a heavy letter. But very good. However, the things he said in the letter and the level of commitment he demonstrated by saying those things made me feel uncomfortable progressing in our relationship on just a dating level. So I said so. About 10 or 20 minutes after I said so, as we were sitting in a lovely park near my house, he asked me to marry him.

June: I left for North Dakota. Jed drove me up, and, geniuses that we are, we drove straight from Albuquerque, NM to Grand Forks, ND. It took us 27 hours. And we had some funky car trouble on the way up and almost hit a herd of cows in Nebraska. SIL wasn’t anything like I expected it to be. But it was a lot of fun and I met a ton of awesome people there.

July: I was still in North Dakota, constantly drenched because of the humidity

and working my way through mid-terms. Somewhere in there, I dropped one of my classes because trying to take 10 credit hours, 4 of which were graduate level, and maintain a long distance relationship was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Jed and I talked a lot, but we got into quite a few very intense discussions. They were rather exhausting, and we got a lot of things out on the table which were quite helpful to know later in our relationship. He also came and visited me about halfway through the month, which was quite nice.

I ordered and received my wedding dress. $160 on eBay!

Jed found out that the job he had wasn’t going to be able to afford to keep him on any longer. Major bummer.

August: SIL ended and Jed flew up to drive me back. We brought along a passenger to drop off in Denver, and we stopped in Laramie to visit Jed’s brother and stay the night. We definitely weren’t going to try to drive straight through again. I started trying to find a job when I got back, but I also spent a little time just trying to recover from the summer and enjoy the nice dry air. Wedding planning, which started in June, continued full force as we tried to hunt down the perfect venue.

September: I found a job back with my old employer but in a different department and, great fun, had to work the night and swing shifts for 2 weeks without being given any warning. Wedding planning was on hold for me, but fortunately, Jed had taken a great interest in planning the perfect wedding. He however, was still looking for steady work, with contract work keeping him busy in the meantime. We sort of decided on a venue for our wedding.

October: We finally decided on our actual venue. Decoration buying and cupcake baking started full force.

I worked the night shift for the first bit of the month, but that was over with soon enough. I had my bridal shower, which was lovely, and my birthday, which was also lovely, within a couple of days of each other. And the wedding was only a month away!

November:
Wedding and honeymoon!

The wedding turned out lovely, even if it was a little crowded. And the honeymoon, thanks to my lovely aunt and uncle was wonderful. We went to Pagosa Springs and had a big condo all to ourselves. After the honeymoon, I moved in with Jed in his parents’ home (since he didn’t have steady work and I hadn’t worked very long yet). Jed continued to have a lot of odd jobs programming and helping people with computer stuff.

December: I had to work the night shift yet again for 2 weeks and began to feel like I was losing my mind being at work all day or all night with nothing (quite literally) to do.

My attitude got quite bad really, and I’m a little ashamed to admit that. However, that fact, along with some logistical things having to do with my health insurance (it’s rather involved), caused Jed and me to feel like maybe quitting might be the best option. So, I did. And then, as Jed was still having trouble finding a job, we decided to start our own business! Exciting, right? And a little crazy? Maybe.

So that’s where you find us at the beginning of this year.

For this year's plans, tune in next time!