Let's get started.
No for real.
No more self-indulgent rants.
Or at least I will try. I do have about six posts starting in 2005 I have saved you from.  So it's a start.
Time to get serious.
Bare all.
Be honest!


I was reading in  "The Word Among Us" from October (Thanks Mom!) about intercessory prayer.  The month was dedicated to keep kneeling before the throne of our Lord and make our requests.  It hit home like my mom knew it would.

For over two years we have been praying and looking and praying and begging and looking and praying that my husband find a full-time job.  My faith has gone up and done like our lives.

In '05 we both prayerfully decided it was time the husband got his graduate degree since his undergrad in music was going no where.  When we met, he said this was a goal of his, so figured better get it done before starting a family!  He started applying to schools and I'm sure you guess what we heard next!  We were going to have a baby in July.  Ah, God, you are so funny.  We thought we had it all figured out, but how do babies and grad school work?

Well, the offers we got the following Spring from schools weren't the best.  So, we decided to move to Nashville and he could go part-time to a music school down there.  He was packing up to leave the next day to look for work before the move when he got the call.  Some how the offer for a graduate assistant-ship went to his parent's house in Texas.  This offer came from a school in Arizona.  And just as I heard the news, I simultaneously thought, "I don't want to go" and heard in my heart "this is where we need to go."   The husband got the same message.

So, we had our baby and left for Arizona six weeks later.

After four days in the car with a screaming baby (don't get me started on colic) and a week at the in-laws, we arrived at our new home.  It was family housing that looked more like a prison.  They were grey and instead of bushes or grass, there was dirt.  Dirt contained by cinder blocks in the form of a quad.  The big lady that didn't smile handed us the keys and said "Welcome to the hood".  I held my breathe the whole way to our apartment.  Up the stairs.  Open the wooden screen door, unlocking the metal one.  I couldn't speak.  The carpet was an original shag in brown and white.  Old, with things in it to prove it.  The tile was worse then an old school cafeteria.  The part where I lost it was the bedrooms.  They were small.  Small.  Wondering if our queen bed would fit in it small.  But the worst was the windows.  They painted white cinder block walls went almost fully up to the ceiling apart from a very small window I would have to stand on my tip-toes to get a full glimpse outside.  It was a little prison window to go along with the dire landscape.  I felt bad, but I cried.  I wanted to make the move for my husband.  I wanted to be a supportive wife.  But this?  This was going to be where my child was going to start his life?  This five hundred something sq foot cell?  I cried.  My husband comforted me while I held our new baby.

So, you might be thinking "wah".  I thought "wah" too.  That's why I was trying to hold it in.  But, ugh.  I hated it.  In the next two years while Andy studied, worked, and taught, we lived in the cell and tried to grin and bare it.  There was a lot of alone time with just me and the babe.  There was alot of fighting with me and the husband.  There was alot of "wahs" for everyone.

After the babes colic and the first semester ended, things did get better.  We told ourselves their would be a fat job waiting for him upon graduation because ahem God totally told us to go here.  I'm so totally sure he will reward us with earthly riches! Ahem.

I don't have to tell you that there was no job offer at the end of school.
I don't have to tell you there was no job offer a month after living with his parents on air mattress in my teenage brothers-in-laws room.
I don't have to tell you that we had to point to a place on the map that looked like a good decision and move there.
I don't have to tell you, but I will.

How will you be able to understand that two years after the blind move, we are are still here.
There is no full-time job with earthly riches or without.
There is no fabulous house to let the boy run around in.
There are no generous presents to wow each other with on celebratory occasions.
There was no money to spare when the student loan came knocking.
There was no money to pay the bills when we had our second kid.

But, yes, we had another kid.
No, it wasn't planned.
Yes, it is awesome.
Not earthly riches, better.
Our two kids are so much better.
My husband and I's relationship, so much better.
We appreciate everything we have.  And yes, at times, I think, "OK, we learned our lesson.  We enjoy life and all that you have given us.  We know it could be worse.  Can we have a job NOW?"

But we wait.  And pray.  And wait.  And pray.  Wanna join us?  Because, I know life has it's ups and downs, and I would sure love to help you say "Amen" at the ups and "Amen" at the downs.  Let's intercede before the throne of our Lord together.  Come on, let's get started!

Oh, and my unfortunate picture of the day for this first Friday in Lent...

Yes, I still have lights up form Christmas.  But my cousins said if they are white, they can be considered "twinkle" lights for any celebration.  So there.  And did you check out the modern art my kid and I did?  Having a kid is like living with Pollock!