Will Encourage Me to Dream

This is one of the things on my list: Will encourage me to dream.

Tonight I had dinner with a family that is dear to my heart, and one of the purposes of our get-together was to look at my resume and talk about how to network. First of all, I learned that the rules in my head about resumes are now longer applicable, due to my personal life experience as well as technology changes.

Then came the hard question: what do you want to do? Those of you who know me well know the answer to this question. I want to be a wife, to care for my husband and our home. Of course, in order for the caring for my husband to happen, I have to have a husband. Not my current status, so moving on...

We spent quite a bit of time looking at how to rework my resume, and I have my work cut out for me. This will be a fruitful process, but it's certainly work. However, when we got to the question above, I could list off the things I've had experience with, things that I enjoy: nanny work, administrative assistant work, possibly ministry. The the question came of what, if any, other areas have I thought of.

I think I surprised myself more than I surprised my friend. I talked about computer stuff, things like monkeying with the BIOS on my own computer to make it do what I wanted, programing Excel to randomize the alphabet so I could generate coded messages, taking apart my old NES to make it work properly and then putting it back together. The result of this conversation was that I should look into this line of work (computer programming, etc.) to see if it's something I would enjoy as a job. Options were highlighted and tools given for searching out how to make that happen.

I was given so many tools tonight, and I need some sleep before I can use them, but as I was driving home, I realized that this couple really was encouraging me to dream. And at the end of it all, they looked up at me and said "You never know, you might work a job that you think is a very unlikely fit and find your husband." These friends get me! They understand what my heart longs for, and that whatever I do until then can or might be a part of getting to the fulfillment of that longing.

What I learned about being encouraged to dream tonight is that sometimes such encouragement comes in the form of a kick in the pants, but it is always well-meaning, and comes from those who know me well enough to not only encourage the dreams I know I have, but also to encourage me to dream outside the box. They know me well enough to validate the dreams I have by not calling other dreaming 'better' or 'higher,' or my longing for a husband 'not enough.' The more is not what matters.

This encouragement to dream also comes with a kick in the pants telling me that some of the jobs I've applied for are not at all what I should be looking at. Now I will say that part of some of those have been driven by a need to find work and pay bills, and it's so hard to wait and not be content with something that isn't the right work for me. But I know that I have to trust that God will provide, and I will find the right job. Tonight was a place of being given tools to search for this right job, and a blessing of being told not to give up.

As with each part of my 'list,' tasting a little experience of this fills my heart with even more longing. If I can find good friends who can do this in my life, I know that God can put this into the character of my husband. I will continue to dream!!!

So, what happens when Mildred works nursery on a Tuesday morning? Three voicemails, two of which require responses. A few texts requiring responses. Lots of contact today!

Update: Did not get the job for which I applied last week, but not too sad. Praying about it this week, I realized it would probably not be the best fit, and God knows what he's doing.

I have a potential sewing student (in Denver?) who is willing to pay me well, a few care.com contacts with whom I'm in discussion regarding childcare for their family, a lady who approached me this morning at VBS about childcare for her grandchildren, and two friends who have asked me about childcare, etc., for themselves or friends who are looking.

So, God is on the move, and I look forward to seeing which of these is/are the open door(s) that God has for me to walk through. Exciting day!!! And the excitement of this week continues to grow as God fills my schedule with blessed reunions, fellowship time, and networking. I'm just about to spent the afternoon with someone I've not seen in far too long. I am blessed!!!

Singular Focus

So, this morning I have been thinking about my desire to be married. There are reasons that, at 32, I am still single. It's fascinating how God will get us to process certain things...

Anyway, in a conversation with a friend, I was encouraged to do some study of James 4 and in particular the warning not to be double-minded. As I thought about it, what God brought to my mind is that I want to draw close to Him, and that my desire and purpose is to be singularly-focused.

For the past 16+ years, I have been following Christ. I could have lived my life with that desire to be married driving, and I could be married now if I had really been driven to make that happen. In fact, I had a love-letter of sorts in my 'other' box on facebook this morning. Don't know the person, won't follow up, message deleted, but still...

The point is this: I follow Christ. Period. My desire to be married must be in submission to that of drawing near to God and seeking to honor Him no matter what. There's a reason I am still single at 32: God has had other plans for me during this time, and has not yet said it's time to be married.

I still long for that day, and I enjoy being a homemaker when I can (like now, while job-searching), and these are things I'm passionate about, but my heart's singular focus is to glorify God, not to find a husband and make my will be done. His will, not mine!

Those are my thoughts this morning.

Summer, and Other Ramblings in My Stream of Consciousness Post

Yup, it's June. Temps predicted for the next couple days to be in the 80s (too warm for me!) and then upper 70s and some 80s over the next week or so. It's been nice to not have the A/C on this past week, but I'm getting the feeling I'll need it again soon. Here we go summer!

Meanwhile, today has been a nice day wherein I did some pet care, found a small plant stand for my mini roses at a garage sale for $2, and rested. Today was a break from the work rhythm. Tomorrow, though full time-wise, will also be a break from intended work. There may be a few things that get done, and of course paid pet care will continue through Monday, but these will be minimal. Monday will be butt-kicking day as I get a number of things in order. I interview for some more consistent work on Tuesday, and will hopefully be making a more steady income soon. This also means less time/energy for homemakery, so I'll do what I can before then.

Also, I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible for me to keep flowers alive. I have one plant that was given to me last summer that is still alive, but I've not been able to get it to flower again, and I'm not sure how much longer it will live. I instantaneously killed a beautiful flowering plant that was given to me a month ago, and purchased a couple small daffodils which lasted not long at all. Only two of my bulbs from last fall came up, and are still only a couple inches tall.

So, I have a mini rose and a geranium. I purchased the rose 'bush' because I wanted flowers (on the way home from a going away party and needing to console myself, better than chocolate? We'll see...), and thought that live ones that would (hopefully) last longer would be nicer than ones that would die right away. The geranium I saw was only $1.50, and I don't know if I anyone can kill a geranium. Let's hope that at least one, if not both of these flowering plants will outlive my deadening influence on flowers. (Note: The plant stand is for the roses because they are in a small pot and next to a tomato plant that is a couple feet tall already. I wanted to see the roses more easily.)

This brings me back to my desire to one day have a house and a garden, and space to plant what I'd like. I miss the house my roommate and I used to rent partially because of the roses in various places, and partly because the owner let me put in a garden. Someday my dream is to have a house where I can plant a garden, and have rose bushes. I will do what I can with containers for now, but I can only do so much. Oh, and this year the tomatoes are flowering like crazy. Maybe I'll have more than a handful of tomatoes this year? Maybe? I hope so!!!

Also, originally this was going to be a facebook post (and I will post the link anyway), but I realized I hadn't blogged in a few days, and it was getting long enough to work for a blog entry, so here we are.