When Baby Makes the Schedule

Let me tell you there are times when it is very hard to work for a church, one of those times are when you are pregnant and the baby has not been born on the exact day the doctors say you are due. Now suddenly everyone looks at you mystified and demands. "Where's the baby." Like I somehow have a say in the matter and I am intentionally delaying the baby. As if we somehow stepped into some twilight zone where all babies are born exactly when they are due and I am somehow messing with the system. I am so glad that everyone is excited for baby, I am excited too, but baby will come when she wants, and I am just fine with that.

February Brings New Life

It has been an exceedingly long time since I last wrote and it has not been for lack of material, or lack of time but probably for lack of commitment. It is just so much easier to check in on all of my friends and see how life is going for them, then it is to take the few minutes required to write what is new with me.

Quite a bit is new. Like working with a new pastor who I hate, then because of the new pastor doing a job which I love has become a struggle. I find that working with/or for (as I have been so informed) someone who is fake, cruel, manipulative, controling and underhanded can be a little exhausting. I have also found that it manage to seep the joy out of other things which should be ever so joyous. Like the fact that my husband and I are pregnant and very soon to be expecting. Very soon as in next month. Pregnancy can be a roller coaster in the best of situations. These past 8 and a half months have taken lots of deep breathing exercises to let go of the pain, frustration and disappointment with work and to remember that there is a little miracle soon to enter our lives.

Night Prayer

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In the times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and forever, Amen

--found in A New Zealand Prayer Book

A season of perfection

This fall in the Idaho Panhandle has been spectacular. Sunny days that are golden, a crispness to the air, a kaleidoscope of falling leaves, and the scent of wood smoke.

Sunday morning when I was driving into church there was still a layer of frost on the ground, the leaves were falling thick like snow flakes and the smoke from the chimneys swirled in the air and wrapped the houses until they looked like they were draped in a fine gauzy mist. It was amazing. I think autumn is the only season where the light is golden.

I know that soon we will have the rain that also always comes in fall, but even that carries with it it's own special enchantment.

Ahhh, I love the fall.

Gun Jumper

Serves me right for complaining so early in the day. I just got a card and a birthday wish from the folks at the church, and I just got a birthday call from my sister. Granted I also just took a short nap in the sunshine (up at 6:30am to get the pets out of the house for the furnace guys.) So that was kind of like starting the day over right?

Birthday Blues

It is my 31st birthday! That should be a happy thing right?

This time of year is often busy for me, but this week has been unusually busy. So we are getting a new heating/cooling system put into our house (our old furnace broke on the first day of snow last year). With all the work going on at our home our cats and dog and rat have been at the church with me during the day. I have also just recently started a second job at a yarn shop, which fills in many of my hours.

So today, my birthday, is also the weeknight that we have all of our kid's programs at the church. So I will be working for my birthday. That is not enough to make me sad though, because typically I love the nights that I am with the high schoolers. I think a part of it is that no one at the church ever remembers that it is my birthday, even when year after year I tell them. So far today the only one to tell me happy birthday is my husband (good man!) Even having my birthday forgotten is not enough to make me sad. I think what it is was that I just found out today that my friend (the new mother with the husband who had a tumor found in his brain), her husband died yesterday. That makes me sad, to lose someone so young. To expect a life time together, creating and caring for your family, and to have it all come to an end so fast. That makes me sad, and I suppose that the rest is just a bit of self-pity, and a generous helping of exhaustion.

Prayer Needed

I have a dear friend who is a new mom and a fellow youth ministry worker, who just had her husband diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. They are currently down in Texas trying to find out their options. I ask that you please keep them in your prayers. My friend is Kirstin, her husband is Ben, and they have a young baby son. Thanks!