Looking for that Silver Lining.

Finding the mythical "silver lining" is usually an easy thing for me to do.

Last night Sid and I were talking and I told him that I was an eternal optimist and a hopeless romantic.   He laughed at me.  He'll easily concede the optimist point, but the romantic... not so much.  But I think that he's just confused.  Romantic as defined by dictionary.com  "imbued with or dominated by idealism, a desire for adventure, chivalry, etc."  granted it's definition number 3. But that doesn't make it less valid.   But that's not really what this post is about.  It's about the difference between finding the silver lining and appreciating the silver lining.

Right now, I see the silver lining.  Sid's job sucks.  I mean really sucks.  It's hard physically and emotionally.  It is best described as soul crushing.  I can't wait until he finds a new job.  So what can the silver lining of having a crappy job, surrounded by crude people, and no hope of the situation improving possibly be?  Well, I'm glad you asked.

It's this.  It has reinforced a conviction in both us that Sid belongs in full time ministry.  It has solidified The Call.  It has made us realize that we want to be in ministry.  Sid was told by his pastor growing up "if you can do anything else (non-ministry, that is) and be happy... do that."  Or something along those lines.  Well.

Sid will only be truly happy when he is serving God in a full time vocational way.  I'm glad.  We're sending out more resume's.  I'm glad.  We've expanded the area we're willing to search in.  I'm glad.  We're communicating more clearly on where, and why and what-about-part-time? I'm glad.

So what is the silver lining?  It's being closer to my husband.  It's seeing his passion for ministry renewed.  But... I wish it would have been accomplished without the crappy job, thankyouverymuch.

Thoughts

To start, a warning.  I will not be re-reading or editing this post.  It is very much a post for me.  It's really to help me gather my thoughts, hopefully coherently.  Ok, consider yourself warned.

Today, church was hard.  Why?  I'm not really sure.

Maybe because today marked the 1 year point for us of attending Trinity.  Don't get me wrong, I love it there.  I have enjoyed being a part of the fellowship of believers there.  I have enjoyed getting to know people there.  It's starting to feel like home.  I guess that's the problem.  It also makes the one year mark of Sid and I having no ministry.  And I feel like none, at all.  And that's hard.  I haven't sung in a choir, served in the nursery, or worked with a teenager, worked, HA, I don't think I even know more than a handful of names of teens there let alone anything about them!

I guess part of it too, is that I just figured we would never be there for a year.  I thought for sure that God would have moved us to a new church where Sid would be working.  So maybe it's hard because I was so sure we'd only be there 6 months. I keep holding on to the hope that He will, someday.  But I have stopped putting a time frame on it.  The other part of that is that I haven't allowed myself to make real friendships.  I want to, but why put myself through the pain of having to tear myself away if we're just gonna be here for a little while.  But now it's been a whole year.  And I have and am friends, and more and more I am allowing myself to make the deeper connections that I want, and need, and I think that God wants us to have with other believers.  I mean, how can we lift each other up, if we aren't close enough to reach each other, right? 

I hate being or feeling like I'm in limbo.  And yet, here I am, a year of it.  I don't know why.  I keep asking myself, and God, what haven't I learned yet?  Why are we still here?  What comes next?  When will Sid have a regular, full time job?  This cobbling together hours from 2 or 3 places is slowly killing me.  And him.

The other thing I was thinking about this morning, was why do I feel like I've been shunned?  Not by Trinity, by any means?  But the last one?  I have seen, with the exception of a retreat in March that none of them knew I would be at, 2 of my friends.  And one of them it was only once.  Is that just out of sight, out of mind?  And I know that a telephone works both ways, but really? I was so hurt when we left, and this house is mine, but only kinda-sorta.  It's hard to invite people over.  It's getting easier to do that, but it's taken almost a year.

I guess I'm still sorting everything out, and typing it all out helps.

Sweet Gifts

Last night Sid had a Youth Devo Night. They do this once a month, and instead of attending church the teens go to someones house and hang out for the evening, and have a devo. It's pretty fun and the teens really enjoy it. Sid was struggling a little bit with going, but, he had to go. It turned out to be wonderful.

The teens turned it into a little party for him. They had ice cream sundaes, nothing too unusual there. Then when Sid sat down with his, the girls approached him with a large duct tape covered binder. They had made him a scrapbook. They each did at least one page, and many of them wrote him notes about how much they would miss him, and how much he had taught them.


Then he said he realized the guys were missing. They returned with a large blanket covered item. Under the blanket was a three foot tall Chic-fil-A Cow. With two plastic swords, a mace, a ninja mask and a hot pink skirt. It was also covered in memories written with a sharpie. And the names of the boys who gave it to him in glitter puffy paint. I love it. It makes me laugh. They also gave him a card and a HUGE bag of Skittles.


There was also a framed 8 x10 photo of the teens and sponsors that was taken last week during Sunday School. It was a really good night for Sid, and that is a really good thing.

Ready to go

That's about how I'm feeling right now. In several ways. I'm ready to go with this baby. The sooner he comes now the better as far as I'm concerned! I'm 38 weeks and I think that it's plenty of time. I'm hot, and I'm tired. And I'm stressed.

Also I'm ready to go with church. Last week Sid made the official announcement to the church on Sunday morning, and the week before on Wednesday night to the teens, that we'll be leaving this summer. And it's not by our choice. There are all kinds of emotions that go into this, and I'm not really gonna go there, but the Elders asked him to, so he resigned. All that to say: I'm ready to go. It's time now to move on.

It was really hard to go to church this morning. I wasn't quite expecting that. I figured that last week was going to be the hardest, but I think it's going to be the showing up every week, and the keep on smiling thing that is gonna be the hardest.

It wasn't even the getting up and ready, or the walking in. It was the actual, practicing for choir and sitting in the choir loft looking at the congregation that was really hard. I just wanted to sit down and cry all day. It was Sid's first Sunday not on the platform, and maybe that had something to do with it, and maybe it was just the hormones on top of everything else. I was glad that I was in the nursery, because I don't think I could have made it through the whole service.

Anyway, I'm also ready to go in the figuring out what's next part. Ready to "get this show on the road." I want to get packed and go to wherever it is we're going. I guess I am really going to have to learn to wait on the Lord. I know that He is good, and that this did not surprise Him. I know that He loves us and is doing this ultimately for our good. But it doesn't mean it isn't hard.

On a totally unrelated note, I really want a sewing project to work on, but I don't know what. I am thinking something small so when the baby comes I'm not in the middle of some huge project that we'll just have to move in it's incomplete state. I just need something to keep me occupied.