When Upon Life's Billows

When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed, 
When you are discouraged thinking all is lost,
Count your blessings name them one by one
And it will surprise what the Lord has done

I made it. I made it through the week and went to bed @ 8pm Friday night and slept peacefully til 9 this  morning. Perhaps too peacefully, in fact. Apparently maintenance came in whilst I was sleeping and added insulation to the wall around the bathtub in the room next door to mine. 

I'm home alone this weekend and thus I'm slightly disconcerted that people are able to enter my home and do constructiony things and slip out without me noticing. I needed the rest, though, and am quite blessed to have received it. 

Yesterday I got the final update from my mechanic on my poor van. The transmission is indeed shot and the cost of fixing it would be anywhere from $2000-$4500. Ha.. the van is not worth that much, nor did I work as many hours as I did this summer only to see it down the drain in an instant. 

It can, however, still drive. No faster than 35mph, but it can get from point A to point B. I'll have to settle for that, I suppose. Most of my existing is in town anyways and as long as I never wish to leave Iowa City, I'll survive. It was quite the disappointing news, though, which may or may not have caused a tear or two. Oh the helplessness of independence. Some days I hate life. 

In the meantime, I have THEE coolest sister in the world who happens to drive a motorcycle. She has kindly let me borrow her car whilst mine was in the shop and has been using her bike to travel to work and such. I am too blessed. 

As I mentioned previously, last week with the family was absolutely delightful! We are a close sort of family. Here are some pictures to show it. 

 This is normal. We're a cuddly sort of family. The more the merrier. As long as no one is suffocating, we are quite content to be piled and stacked as many as possible. I'm pretty sure this couch has to be one of the best ever made as we have been people stacking on it for lots of years. 

 If only it wasn't blurry. This is just showing how absolutely wonderful family is. I helped play the keyboard for our family worship sessions in the mornings and was privileged to look out at a room full brothers and sisters in Christ that double as cousins and aunts and uncles. 

There's not many things better than sitting your whole family around lots of tables and talking about Jesus and praying and encouraging. I hope we do this in heaven.

We take turns leading sessions and sharing what the Lord has been teaching us. One of the sessions was lead by my cousin, Sherlin, who has much more wisdom and knowledge than her 20 years of life would normally have. She led a session on church history with wonderful explanations and facts. 

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And just like that the weekend is gone. I've learned that I'm rather trained on no more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night so "catching up" on sleep isn't always possible.

Back to Monday again. One of the kids just walked by fully clad in winter attire, boots and snow pants included, as they "need protection" on account they've chased a poor chipmunk up the rain gutter and they're afraid that their poking it with sticks and banging on the pipe will cause it to want to bite them when it finally comes out. They've been at it for an hour now. At some point I'll intervene. I already stopped the dismantling of the pipe. 

One more week. 

I dearly love this job. I've learned more than I could have possibly imagined that I needed and I've been grown and stretched in so many ways. I'm exhausted though. 

This may sound funny, but I've learned a lot about being satisfied with singleness as a result. 

I think when my desires to be settled and to be a wife and mother stir up disatisfaction within my heart, it's mostly a result of failing to be thankful for all that I have been blessed with currently. As it is, I've quite learned that I am no where near spiritually mature enough to be a good parent. I'm not selfless enough to make my whole life revolve around children. 
In the same way, I'm now incredibly thankful that I can spur of the moment take off with friends, stay out til crazy hours of the morning and not come home at all on some nights if I don't wish it. I'm thankful that I have the freedom to just have people over for dinner and host game nights and fun times with only a few hours notice. I'm thankful I don't always have to be the referee and jump in the middle of physical fights or arguments.
I'm thankful that I don't always have to be around people who question everything I say or make me feel bad for trying to do what's best.

I'm thankful for the grace that abounds. More than anything, I'm thankful for grace. I'm probably the farthest thing from perfect and it seems I find out another way my life shows that everyday.

I've learned about pure power of scripture. The promise that the Word never returns void is what I've learned to cling to as nothing I say will really ever amount to anything or be understood or even have an impact unless it's soaked in scripture and is truth in the rawest form. 

I've learned a lot about myself outside of work too. More of my imperfections and more of my faults and short-comings. Being around friends brings a lot of that to light. I hate that, but I guess iron sharpens iron.
Or at least it's supposed to. Only if you're doing it right and not just jousting with each other, railing on each other in the name of honesty. That accomplishes nothing more than damage and discouragement.