Saturday, July 01, 2006

The whole enchilada

For all of you (untold thousands, I'm sure) who don't know what the Big Thing in my life is, I'll try to blog it succinctly. However, this is a long story so you might want to go potty and get a fresh Diet Coke before you begin.

Last July, as I was winding up my M.Ed. in Counseling from UNT (lots of pretty initials!), my husband's Expo (along with many others, though not all) got word that it was closing. This lovely store was only 2.5 miles from our house and had been easily accessible by the Vespa scooter I had won from Target just the year before. So he needed to transfer to the Galleria store (more than 20 miles away and not accessible by Vespa) or change jobs. Now I must tell you my husband DOES NOT LIKE CHANGE! Apparently one of God's little jokes was that Doug married me.

Doug was driving the Vespa because MONEY is our perennial Big Thing and we could not afford another car. So, we sold the sweet Vespa and bought a VW Harlequin Golf from my niece and nephew. Now this car comes originally with 4 colors, at once, and invites lots of comments. Not really a problem because we all love attention at our house. I mean we are absolute (I can't use that word here) for attention. Competition is an accompanying factor.

At any rate, I began to feel change was in the air and started praying about it. Pretty quickly I felt like God was saying that we would finally get to move to Tulsa and enter a new phase in our lives. My husband concurred and we began to get confirmations from various sources who knew nothing of our plans. Even all 3 kids were in favor of the move. This, in and of itself, is a miracle because they are all teenagers who can never come to an agreement about anything, except camping for Thanksgiving (YAY!). So we began to make plans, pack our eleventy-hundred books, apply for jobs, and Doug temporarily transferred to the Galleria store.

Fast forward to last week. No jobs yet. I've had two in-person and one phone interview, all for different jobs, in the last year. Doug has had no interviews. We have resubmitted the dream to the Lord, many times, and still heard, "Yes, you're going." O.K. Then Doug makes 3 contacts in Tulsa, schedules an interview, and finally gets approved to take the promotion test for Expo. In one week. We approach the aforementioned niece and nephew about buying our house immediately so we can pull out some equity to afford the upcoming move. They agree. Life is good.

This week. The test and the interview are next week and we have a trip planned to make it so. Then we get a call saying the niece and nephew, whom we love dearly, have changed their minds. Hence "revolting development" of previous post. So...back to the Lord. You see the financial Big Thing is ever looming and the move and my anticipated employment, as opposed to my previous educational financial drain, might just put us in the not sweating every week category of earning.

Here's where ya'll come in. Pray. Please. That all my hair does not fall out from the entirety of my follicles slamming shut from stress. That SOMETHING will develop on the house situation that will allow us to buy Diet Coke so that the previous hair situation can be held off. That Doug will interview well and be offered a position that actually pays instead of eakes. That I can get a stinkin' interview for something that even remotely involves this degree that I worked so hard to earn. That I don't kill everyone in my house: 2 daughters with PMS, a sister going through "the change" who picks fights with the kids, and a son who responds to stress by trying to control everyone in the house by arguing. I LOVE MY DOG!

Thanks for hanging on to the end. God is faithful. "He didn't bring us this far, to leave us. He didn't teach us to swim, to let us drown. He didn't build His home in us, to move away. He didn't lift us up, to let us down."

5 comments:

Sarah said...

Oh, wow. I'm so sorry, L.! Life just stinks sometimes. That's my whole philosophy on life right now. Sometimes, it just stinks. I'm sorry it stinks for you. And I hope that, just as quickly as you had a revolting development, you have a cheery development. You're due one, I'm sure.

And the diet Coke? I'll buy you some, to protect your hair, if you're desperate. :)

Brenda said...

Love that song. Dallas Holm, right? I'll be praying for you.

Girl Raised in the South said...

You are so R.E.A.L. I loved reading and reading, then came to the end - diet coke, PMS, sister with the change. My gosh, if you cant get a counseling job have you considered - only kidding a little here - standup comedy. You are hysterical. Sorry your life has to be a mess to be my daily entertainment. Maybe you could give me a table number and I could send you my admission by mail. I really might do that. In the meantime, til you start charging me to read of your ever-present trials, the least I can do is pray for free. Will do.

Barb said...

Money is our perennial big thing, too, and it takes lots of it, plus every single other thing falling into place, to accomplish a big move like this. I know because we just did it and it took two years to get it together. You keep working on the details in the background and all of us out here will pray in the foreground. Don't get discouraged - it will happen.

Diane@Diane's Place said...

It may not help at all, but something I read on a church sign has really stuck with me and I've seen it several times lately: "If God brings you to it, He'll bring you through it." Of course, it may be that God is preparing me for something rather than you, but maybe it will mean something to you. :-)

Don't you hate to wait on God sometimes? You do have a way of using humor to deal with it, though. I'm with Bev, the PMS thing and the sister going through the change is hilarious...Especially since I'M not having to deal with it, LOL. ;-)

I'll pray as soon as I get this posted, and I expect to hear that God is opening doors for you soon. :-)