realization

ok, i got a little sidetracked with various tasks and forgot i was supposed to be posting more often. so here's another thought that i had from over a month ago in relation to my trip to Colorado.

realization: if you allow yourself the freedom to stay in the broken place your heart is in, you will continue to stay there far longer than actually necessary.

this is a tricky thought to actually explain .... .... .... basically what i'm getting at is that, while it's not ok to stuff your feelings, emotions, pain, etc., ignoring that they exist so you don't feel ANYthing, it's also not ok to allow yourself the freedom to wallow. i've done both and have found, at least for myself, that it's ok to be in that place for a period of time. but if you stay in that broken, sad, hurting place, with the excuses your head continually comes up with, you don't allow yourself to heal and move on. i think this is true of grief. divorce. psychological problems. so many different things. whatever has you in the negative place. if you continue to tell yourself that it's ok to be where you are because of the circumstance, you'll continue to stay there.

the fact is, it's FAR easier to stay in the broken place than to heal. it's comfortable. it's safe. it's usually not fun, but it's known and therefore not scary. to allow healing and growth is scary because it's unknown. where are you going to end up afterward? who are you going to be? will you have the same things, the same people around, the same thoughts and feelings about stuff? only God knows. and that's scary. that's what keeps you frozen in the place that you actually don't want to be in.

so what's the answer? well, that's different for everyone i guess. but i think the first step is to tell yourself that it really IS ok to emotionally heal and move on. if you start telling yourself that, it'll be easier to accept the changes that will start occurring. if you start telling yourself that it's ok to grow and change, i think your heart will start listening and WANT to change.

i understand everyone is different. and i understand this could be a touchy subject for some. please remember that these are my thoughts and realizations about my life. i share it all not as judgement to others, but rather with the hope that the pains in my life can bring someone else blessing and encouragement.

blessing #2

warning ... this turned out to be more "preachy" than i had intended.

BLESSING #2: church

since moving back to Brenham, i've been going to a new church. at first it was just during the week for Bible study, but soon after i changed to Sundays as well. isn't it interesting how God moves you around to show you the importance of certain things for that moment in your life?

i was raised in the Baptist church. i went for social reasons, basically, most of my attendance being while i was a teenager. but after graduation, church quickly became a non-essential. when you go to church to see your friends, and then your friends are gone, why go to church? so when i moved to Colorado, i began a search for a new church, but for different reasons. all of a sudden i NEEDED God! and now i wanted a church where i could be with God, but i also wanted to fit in with a group of friends. after many years of church-hopping, growth, and realizations, i finally found a place where i felt like i was being fed. the Bible was actually taught and the music touched my heart. and there i attended twice a week, served in the bookstore, and felt like i was growing up a bit.

i returned to Brenham with no church direction and started my search once again. and not long after i began to search, i found. now i go to Country Bible Church (CBC). it's a small place, but has big teaching. the music doesn't give me an emotional experience, but that's not why i'm going to church. i'm going to learn the Word of God and more about Him, and i'm learning that. so much so that now my way of thinking has completely changed. when i see or hear something in relation to God, my brain filters it through what i've been learning and determines if it's truth or not. if it's not, or if it's only partially true, i turn it off, leave, or tune it out, and often times i am disappointed.

for example, when i was in Colorado to visit my friends, i went to my old church on Sunday morning and walked out feeling disappointed, yet thankful. the music, the same music i used to thoroughly enjoy, bored me this time. 30 minutes of the same theme, the same words sung over and over, and the leader trying to reach out ONLY to the hurting, lost, and broken ... well, it got old. AND, it made me feel as though i should be feeling hurt, lost, and broken in order to be there.

the teaching was ok. i didn't learn anything new, but was reminded about some things. but then it was all over and i left feeling empty. disappointed. like i'd just wasted an hour+ of my life. i don't think God's intention for church was for people to leave feeling that way. granted, i didn't feel that way when i was going there all the time. but that's where i was at the time, in my heart. and i guess it was good for the time, but i feel very thankful that i've grown beyond that. thankful that God has been working in me and changing me. through His grace He's brought me to new levels of learning about Him.

i don't say this to imply that every church, including my former church, is "bad." no, instead i challenge and urge you to look closely at your church's teaching, and determine if you're being fed with the Word of God, the truth, as it is in the actual scriptures. you can be fed in positive, negative, or truthful ways. not all church experiences should be positive (in that you're always feeling super wonderful about life), and not all should be negative (in that you're always feeling beat up). you should, however, feel convicted, taught, and encouraged through the Word, no matter where you are in the scriptures or where you are in your personal life.

God is so awesome ... He has given us EVERYTHING we need to live. if we have a question or a problem, we should be able to look in the Bible and find an answer. we should find our life map in there. and if you're not being shown that through your pastor, i encourage you to seek out a different church. if you're going each week but leave feeling empty, change churches. if you love the music where you're going, but the teaching isn't doing anything for you, you need to move on! that's what was happening to me ... the one church provided great music, but the pastor wasn't teaching me anything. so i prayed about going to CBC, went there in faith, and God has completely taken my supposed music need, in church, away. i've realized teaching is so much more important than just music.

church is not meant to provide an emotional experience. it's nice to have sometimes, like when you finally understand something, or when you're convicted of something. but it's not necessary in order to learn about God. and too often anymore i feel churches think they need to pump up the music and the social activities in order to reach those who are NOT going to church, instead of pumping up the teaching to reach the ones who ARE.

if you go to church because of habit, tradition or ritual, think about this: God doesn't want ritual, He wants relationship. if you go to score brownie points with God, just because you showed up, i have news for you ... it's not working. He doesn't want you to just show up. and whether that's your intention or not, if you're not learning anything, then you're just showing up. and believe me, He's disappointed. He expects you to change. and if that means going someplace new, getting out of your comfort zone, driving farther, not sleeping in, going to the lake later in the day, whatever .... you should do it.

so why is church important, anyway? because God commands us to go. because church is a way to help us stay on the right track, to teach us more about Him through ways we can't learn on our own, to put us in fellowship with other believers ... it's all for Him, really. because the more positive coming from me, the more He's glorified. so i go to church as a means for positive output. don't we take in more than enough negative just by living in the world? i don't know about you, but i want to add as much positive as possible in order to override that other stuff.

do yourselves a favor. look closely at your heart and ask, "where is God?" He wants to give you so much more!

blessings!

in the last several days God has opened my eyes to many things. i want to address them, but not with just one blog entry. since my life has, in my opinion, become mundane and daily, it's hard to come up with things to write about that i feel are interesting. therefore, my realizations over the last week will be written over a period of time. i hope you find them to be blessings in your life, just as they have become in mine.

BLESSING #1: friends, fellowship, tears, hugs, laughter, and silence

i felt the need for a whirlwind trip to Colorado to see the people i love and miss dearly. in three and a half days i saw seven specific people and had wonderful one-on-one time with each of them, and had the pleasure of quickly reconnecting and hugging at least 17 others.

TO ALL OF YOU ... thank you for the honor of knowing you, seeing you, receiving your love and care. each of you is a precious gift, not only to me but to each other.

having even five minutes with each of these people is just what i needed. daily life in texas gets emotionally cloudy from time to time. i tend to get bogged down with duties and sometimes feel as if everyone i left 1,000 miles away has moved on without me. which is normal, because that's life. but i found out during this weekend that i have not been forgotten about, which is a wonderful and humbling feeling. let it be known, i have NOT forgotten ANY of you, even the people i was not able to connect with because of lack of time. i pray the opportunity come back and visit again will come sooner than later.

anyway ... i wanted to take this time to thank, as a whole, everyone who took time out of their busyness in order to spend just a few minutes of precious time with me. i am overwhelmed and tremendously honored. your presence in my life is a HUGE blessing!

since i can't give much, especially to those in Colorado, please accept this ... a picture of what is affectionately known in my life as "the happy flower." i send you happy flowers today and pray you realize you have more blessings than seem apparent at first. i love you all!

a year in texas

i can not believe how quickly this year has gone by. it really doesn't feel like i've lived in texas for an entire year. i think i'm finally starting to understand time in God's mind ... this really is a short time to live in our temporary world.

i'm keeping busy ... i work full-time at the tractor place, where i've finally made a friend (it only took four months!). the job itself is good, but it's a lot harder than i thought to be creative every day. sometimes i get so tired of thinking that i wish i could just file or do data entry for a couple of days. but overall i like it.

monday nights i go over to Mr. Nello's house to help him learn how to use his computer. that's a fun challenge. he tries, but he has an older computer with flaky internet. plus, he's 75 and can't type. so mondays are my patience days. i show up at his house at 7:15 p.m., pray with him and his wife, then she leaves him to learn on his own (sometimes she participates for little bit). he asks a lot of questions and listens to my silly analogies and then he sits down and does email. i watch him and tell him where to click. then we might throw in pulling pics off his camera or watching a DVD, just for fun. at 9-ish, i leave with $20. the next week we do it all again.

tuesdays & thursdays are church nights. since my first appearance in this church, two people who were doing the computer/overhead/recording stuff have moved away, so for the past couple of months i've been helping out. it's not hard and only ends up taking about 10 minutes more of my time, but it can be a little distracting sometimes. but hey, i'm serving the Lord by serving His people, so i'm ok with it all. this is an "in-your-face" kind of teaching church ... the pastor doesn't believe in tickling your ears with a big musical performance for 30 minutes and a 15 minute feel-good message. we sing only about 3 songs (out of the hymnal), and then he teaches us the word of God for 45-60 minutes. it's incredible what we're learning about Bible doctrine, the heart of God, and how to grow up spiritually. we just finished up a prophecy series, where we saw explicitly how God's prophecy for re-gathering the Jewish people in their own land (Israel) was explained in the Bible and then fulfilled on May 14, 1948. talk about making God's word a reality. never before in mine, my mother's, or my grandparents' lives have we learned so much.

wednesday is a night of relaxation at home, usually. and friday is mexican food night and more relaxation. and then the weekend comes and it's time to catch up on the home stuff. this weekend i did my taxes, finished the afghan i was knitting, started a scarf project, and went to church on sunday (among other things).

i've also, finally, started going to the gym again. it's working out pretty good for me to go at lunchtime. after sitting for 4 hours at my desk thinking and staring at my computer, it's nice to get up and move around, doing something productive with my body. then, somehow, i actually have energy to complete the last 4 hours of my day at work. i've been trying to eat better and exercise, and so far have lost 4 pounds. hey, better than nothing!

this year has been good. a lot of changes and adjustments. but overall i've enjoyed being with my family on a more regular basis, living with my mom, and embracing this new moment of my life. but, i'm not so sure i'm liking the part where a year passes with one blink.

time flies

i can't believe another year is gone already. seems like 2007 seriously FLEW by, like no other year in my life. i haven't had to write "2008" yet, so it still hasn't sunk in completely.

i don't normally make new year's resolutions, but this year i'm resolving to have a new outlook ... ahead with hope. there's always been a part of me that looked at the year that just passed with disappointment. i've had a tendency to look back, only seeing my "failures" ... the things i didn't accomplish. but this year, my resolution before the year even began, was to not look back on 2007 with anything, especially disappointment, but to focus on looking ahead at 2008 with HOPE. and so begins my resolution of hope...

Sears Wish Book

remember that giant book? the one from Sears, with all the coolest toys in it? it was probably about 2 inches thick and would come in plenty of time for me to browse it, searching for just the right things to put on my wish list. i guess it doesn't exist anymore though. too bad.

the reason i bring this us is because of the above picture. it's of Rockefeller Center, all decked out in holiday lights. this is on my wish list of places to visit, most especially during Christmas. i'd actually like to go to NYC just before Christmas and hang out for that week, then go to Times Square, or someplace near there, to see all the New Year's festivities. just once i think i'd like to experience it. i'm not even sure why, but something in my head says New York City at Christmas and New Years is magical. fun. childlike. snowy. different. experiential. i just have images of me ice skating in Central Park with gloves, scarf, and beanie, actually enjoying myself while being cold and focused on not falling down (and all preferably with a husband with the same ideas).

anyway, i just thought i'd share with you one of the things on my wish list. :-)

the holidays

(NOTE: this has turned into much more than intended, both context and quantity. read at your own risk.)

it's that time of year again. this same week last year i was walking the streets of Antigua, Guatemala, admiring people, churches, colors, differences. i was speaking Spanish with locals and bartering for Christmas presents. i ate spaghetti for dinner. it was warm and sunny all day and felt absolutely nothing like "Thanksgiving."

a year later, i'm wondering, "what DOES Thanksgiving feel like?" i guess i thought living in Texas again, maybe that "feeling" would come back to me. but instead, the entire Thanksgiving holiday has crept up ever-so-discreetly, practically forgotten about because of the "Christmas-Revolt". it used to feel like something. i used to anticipate it. i used to look forward to it. i guess because it meant seeing my family, enjoying our time together, eating delicious food, and being reminded that Christmas was right around the corner.

but now ... now it's just another day, another month, another year. i think it means i'm getting older. i'm realizing just how fast time is passing me by. i can't believe an entire year has passed. i can't believe that tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. and it certainly doesn't help that EVERY store in the ENTIRE United States (yes, that MIGHT be an exaggeration, but i'm fairly close i'm sure) is all decked out in Christmas, and most were already decorating BEFORE Halloween, for crying out loud!

i'm sorry, but decorating earlier and earlier does NOT help my spirit. if anything, it makes me despise Christmas as a holiday worse and worse each year. i guess i shouldn't get started on this because i'm liable to tick somebody off. but "we" have made every holiday, but especially Christmas, into such a material production that it really turns me off to celebrations or decorations or anything else. i mean, really, why should i put up a tree at my house and listen to Christmas music when EVERYWHERE i go i see and hear the same stuff? i get more than my fill just going to the grocery store. by the time Christmas finally arrives, i've had ENOUGH of blinking lights and Santas and "Jingle Bells."

it used to be SPECIAL. and now it's not. and it just makes me sad. and the more materialistic "we" make it, the more it leaves the TRUE meanings in the dust.

to make a long story long...

Happy Thanksgiving. instead of thinking about all the turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie you're gonna eat, think about the blessings in your life and thank God for those things. be thankful, and reminded, of the promises of God, and the ULTIMATE blessing He provided.

next month, instead of worrying about what to buy for each member of the family as time quickly passes, forget the materialism of the holiday and focus on THE BIGGER PICTURE ... JESUS CHRIST! He left His perfect home, His perfect Father, and made Himself lower than angels, in order to fulfill the plan of God to SAVE YOUR SORRY SOUL. that's what you should be focused on, every day, but especially during Thanksgiving AND Christmas.

forgive my preaching. i didn't meant to go off like that. i truly believe "each to their own," so if you want to put up your tree and lights before Thanksgiving, go right ahead. if you want to buy each person you know five presents they don't need, that's fine. and if you never think of Jesus even once during this holiday season, that's ok too. i won't hold it against you, and neither will He. :-) all i ask from you is that you try to understand that i just "long for the days of old."

random pics

here are some random pictures i thought i'd share with you. first is the latest stage of the patio ... since then i've added some more rocks, changed some plants out, and still need to do some more work to it all, but this is what it looked like last week. :-)

now here's the front of my mom's house. and the leaves in the yard. and the leaves in the side yard. and the leaves in the neighbor's yard. i've never cared about leaves before because, to my knowledge, i've never raked, or had to rake, or bothered to rake, leaves before. so now i'm looking at all these leaves wondering, "do we have to rake them? is that going to be MY task? and what do we do with them once we've raked them up???"

and these are self-explanatory....

patio

check out our patio. it's ALMOST finished. :-)

manual labor, oh my!

it's been two weeks at my new job. everything is still going well. this last week i designed a couple of more ads, organized the used website inventory (those four external sites i was talking about in the last post), and updated our website with a few things.

in addition to technological work, mom and i have taken our backyard to a new level ... well, we're trying to anyway. i don't have any before pictures, because when i got the shovel in my hand i just started digging instead of thinking, "i should take a picture first." but, i have an after picture of one section of our project. this is our fountain. this took two weeks to finally get right, and even then it's not perfect. but, it looks pretty good and makes water sound and has a ledge for the future squirting frog. :-)

we're also in the process of digging up an 8' x 20' section of the yard to extend our patio (pretend you were me taking this picture ... that section of yard is to your left). needless to say, my body hurts from head to toe and we still have all the dirt of that section to dig out and do something with. what do you do with dirt you don't want anyway? hmmm....

we're not going to do anything fancy. we're just going to make a rectangle with some cement blocks (16" or 24" each) and then plant some flowers/plants between the new patio and the fountain. and THEN we'll be done with my "brilliant idea."

you know, i'm starting to see a pattern. every time i take on a home-do-it-yourself-project, in the middle of it i discover i never want to do that again. the same is true of this project. it sounded and looked great in my head, but my body is screaming and cursing at me and now my head is saying, "remember this next time you come up with some brilliant idea. please."

oh well, live and learn...

another ad

this was ad number 3 and 4, designed as one image to be on a full-page of our local newspaper.

the last two days have been spent on less-creative endeavors. we advertise our used inventory on four different websites, plus our own. the four external sites were disorganized, to say the least, and i've been working on organizing them to include all our used inventory, with correct information and pictures, on all four sites. it's daunting and tedious, but i'm getting it done.

next week i have to create at least two ads that i know of, maybe more. the first is one just like i did my first day on the job. we run an ad in a classifieds paper every week, so that's always something i have to do on monday (or earlier, if i'm ever given the info ahead of time). the rest of the ads run once a month or occasionally.

the first week has been pretty good. not much talking happening though, so i kind of feel lonely a little, but hopefully with time i'll start "fitting" in.

selling tractors and such...

it's been two days and i've created four ads to sell tractors, hay balers, backhoes, ATVs, and other pertinent things with specials like 0% for 36 months. here's how these days have gone...

monday i arrived to fill out two little forms, see how the timeclock works, and clean off my desk. then i organized what little office supplies i had in my area and acquainted myself with my computer. then i installed a trial version of Adobe CS3 that my boss downloaded over the weekend for me. i altered an ad to include our info and tagline (like they've been doing) and went to lunch. that afternoon i redesigned the ad to be double the size and completely new art. i worked on that until the end of the day. my boss took one look at it, said it was good, and handed it over to another guy. he made a couple little changes, said it looked good, i fixed them, and then was given approval. the entire process took about 10 minutes and was very matter-of-fact.

i worked this morning for about two hours on new logo ideas. then i designed my second ad, with new artwork. that one was approved by one person, which included being looked at for about five seconds and then he said, "ok, good, send it to so-and-so. i like it." a bit later it was time for lunch. this afternoon i worked on two ads that were to be side-by-side on the same page for our Outdoors company. this one was the hardest so far because i was given much less direction and had to search longer for certain images. at ten minutes after 5 the manager of the Outdoors store came over to discuss the ad. so tomorrow morning i'll make those few changes and then send it to the paper.

also this afternoon, while i was waiting for feedback about the Outdoors ads, i got oriented with the inventory system and the website. i made a few minor changes that hadn't been made since July and learned a shortcut in Dreamweaver i didn't know about yet.

i've met about 10 people there. 10 out of 25+. people seem nice, but stick to their areas of work and tend to keep busy with actual work. the phone rings constantly. the receptionist answers the phone, puts that person on hold, then calls over the loudspeaker, "sales, line 5" and things of the like, ALL DAY LONG. it's weird. never been in this kind of environment before. it's just like a car dealership, except we're selling farm equipment. i never would have guessed.

i have my own cubicle with one wall. it's situated in the sales department. i have a window. it's warm in the mornings and cold in the afternoons. i have a good computer with a widescreen LCD monitor. i have as stapler and a pair of scissors and a couple of pens and paper clips. :-)

the owners are married, their kids are the managers (one at the regular store, my boss, who's basically just a kid (20-ish) and the other at the Outdoors store, also just a kid), the Outdoors' manager's wife is the receptionist. a lady in accounting is married to a service tech. and i'm sure there are other relationships i haven't learned about yet.

so anyway... just thought i'd share that overall it's good. :-)

you're hired!

i got hired for the job today! :-) went in at 10:30 and met with two of the three people i was supposed to meet with. talked for a nearly an hour and finally was offered the job. full-time, M-F, 8-5, website maintenance and coordination/design of all advertising. yay for me! :-)

interview

9:45 a.m.
i just got off the phone with a very nice, Christian lady who runs the tractor company in town. get this ... she ran into the monument man, the guy who wants me to be his computer tutor who is handling my dad's headstone, at Subway a couple of days ago. one of his favorite questions is "where do you go to church" so she tells him Champion Fellowship, the new church i was going to for the music. he says he knows someone who goes there and tells her my name, that i'm looking for a job, and that i'm a computer guru. later she remembers meeting a Jenny at church one Sunday (which is true, we both remember meeting each other during the meet and greet time of the service) and thought she might see me yesterday, but i didn't go yesterday (i went to the country church with mom instead). ANYWAY .... i didn't go, so she didn't find me, so we didn't talk.

so we talked for about 20 minutes. she needs someone dedicated to updating their website and doing all the other advertising needs they have. they have someone, but he's actually supposed to be doing other things like sales or something and can't really dedicate as much time as it takes to keep the website current. she says it could be full- or part-time, depending on my needs, because i mentioned doing work for Parcel Plus as well.

8:00 p.m.
just got home from dinner and found a message on the machine from Carol at the tractor company. i called her back and told her i'd love to meet with her and the other necessary people at 10:30 tomorrow morning. she says, "you don't have to dress up or anything, we all wear blue jeans around here." perfect for me! :-) so i'll go tomorrow to the tractor company and see what happens.

i'm excited, especially because they sound like nice people to work for. plus, given the fact that the last two weeks i've been trying to learn a particular website software, it just seems like God is really working and that what i've been learning is going to actually be helpful. i've just been very aware today of how very cool it is how He puts all the little pieces together, isn't it? :-)

job

a couple of weeks ago i met with a woman who runs a mailing/shipping/gift store and also has a marketing firm inside of it run by herself and her husband. she contracts out a lot of graphic design work and talked with me briefly about the possibility of freelance work and maybe part-time work in the store. she finally was able to meet with me again today to have a real conversation about it all.

this afternoon i met with her and the guy she gives a lot of the major graphic work to. we sat fairly casually and talked about their needs/ideas and my needs and 45 minutes later we parted. their ideas are that i work part-time in three different roles. 1) counter help in the store, 2) graphic work through her marketing firm (small things, stuff that doesn't require a ton of art direction), 3) graphic work for the lead designer on a contract basis.

the hope is that between the three jobs i will stay busy, challenged, and financially stable enough to move out of Mom's house and support myself here in Brenham.

she is going to talk with her husband about the gross amount i need, then further think/discuss about the three jobs to figure out what it would more closely look like and get back to me (hopefully soon).

in the meantime, i'm continuing to teach myself a complicated, yet widely-used web application. it's good that i've been learning it, because it came up in our discussion today. so my eagerness to learn actually proved helpful today ... and, it motivated me to continue learning, even though i was highly frustrated with the program earlier today. :-)