The Light at the End of the Tunnel

There's nothing quite like seeing a light at the end of a dark tunnel to cheer you up.

I received a letter in the mail yesterday. It was a denial notice for the application for certification. Kind of funny that a denial notice would cheer me up, isn't it?

You see...I have spent over a year trying to get someone to look at my transcripts and tell me what classes I need to take to finish my certification process. I know that I need to finish my student teaching (which I am doing by teaching for two years in a charter school), I know I need to pass the AEPA, what I didn't know was how many more units I needed and could find nobody who could tell me. So I submitted my application, knowing they would turn me down, but in doing so would have to tell me WHY, and therefore how many units I was missing!

I thought I would have to take about 20. Turns out I only have to take 8!! That's only THREE MORE CLASSES!!!!

Do you want to hear something funny? I'm actually excited. I'm excited about my career (did I just say that, it still sounds so wierd!) and what my future holds. I have no idea what that is exactly, but I do know WHO holds my future and I will be content with that!

So there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Within a year and a half I will have my credential. Then who knows?

God's timing it amazing. Before last week I probably wouldn't have really cared that I'm almost done with this process. Now I see it as an amazing step into my future.

Turning Mourning into Dancing

I had an amazing "God Moment" this weekend.

It actually all began on Thursday night at a group study I am attending called "Healing the Wounded Person."

I joined this group because I felt like my life, and more specifically, my marriage were falling apart. I felt like everything around me was tumbling and I was spinning with it, unable, or unwilling, to stop it.

This group has been much more about me and my issues (and Tim and his issues) than it has been about my marriage. And in the process I see our marriage getting stronger a little bit each day.

This past Thursday night was about loss.

I've dealt with a fair amount of loss in my life. Loss of my grandparents, loss of Tim's grandmothers (whom I was closer to than my own), loss of an unborn baby. I have grieved and said, "until we meet again in Heaven," to all of these loved ones. I've mustered through and carried on and found hope again.

Thursday night I discovered a loss in my heart of a different kind. One that is harder to grieve.

It is the loss of a dream.

When I was little God told me I would someday be a pastor's wife, he told me I would have four children, he told me I would homeschool Bethany. I am as certain today that it was the Lord who spoke these things into my heart as I was when I heard them as a child. I walked in that belief since the moment God spoke it. But then I started drawing the picture in my head. My husband is a pastor, he's been to seminary, worked in full time ministry for seven years, and now he is a high school teacher. That part wasn't in my picture. God did tell me that I would homeschool Bethany. But my picture included homeschooling her until graduation and all of my other children as well. My picture showed me as a stay at home mom, not a full time fourth grade teacher. And my picture NEVER included putting any of my children in full time daycare!

But, my picture was not God's picture. God's picture is still true. I am married to a pastor. I homeschooled Bethany through third grade which is exactly what God told me I was doing, I just assumed the years beyond. And I have four beautiful children. Several of whom have special needs I never bargained for.

I built up a dream for myself of what my life was supposed to be, what it was supposed to look like. And it hasn't worked out that way. Everything that I put my identity in has been stripped away, because our God is a jealous God and desires for my identity to be in Him and Him alone.

It hurts.

I had the blessing of being invited to go away to a cabin overnight with a very dear friend and a friend of hers that I barely know. I think she probably got more than she bargained for. It was planned weeks ahead of time but the timing couldn't have been more perfect. This gal has a beautiful gift of faith that astounds me. More than that she is an amazing worship leader and she pulled out her guitar and we began to sing, three ladies and a baby, alone in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, we began to worship God. And I began my journey of grief.

The life I thought was mine is not and right now I don't have a picture to replace it. I go on one day at a time, making tear soup, not sure when my time for making tear soup will end. My friends this weekend ate some of it with me, as they sang and I cried. Often, I partake in it alone. I am trying to figure out how to grieve a dream, so that someday, hopefully in the near future, I can build a new dream. The one that God has for me.

I don't know what that is right now.

I'm just holding on trying to keep my head above water until God reveals it to me. I'm seeking him out like an impatient child, and what He tells me is "be still, know that I am God, and that is enough."

That is enough.

The tears still flow.

That is enough.

My heart still aches.

That is enough.

I long to KNOW.

That is enough.

The pain is unbearable at times.

God is God, and THAT is enough.