On waiting

A friend of mine spoke on Sunday about waiting and I could really relate when she said that we all experience waiting.  I feel like I'm in perpetual waiting, in all areas of my life - my career, my health, for love.  It seems that every time I set goals, make a plan, and set out to achieve that goal, something happens.  I feel like I'm Jack Sparrow stuck in Davey Jones locker.

And yet, I truly believe that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be right now.  

I read a blog post by Paul Tripp yesterday and can really identify when he says "waiting is not only about what you will receive at the end of the wait.  Waiting is about what you will become as you wait" and that "personal heart and life change is seldom a sudden event.  Usually it is a process".  

I'm not really sure how I have changed since my illness and surgery last year, but I have.   I think after weeks of being sick I can get rather dramatic and at some point I decided to "arise from sleep" and live life.  

Here are some of the things that resulted from my last waiting:

• I decided to stop living a life based on fear.  Before my illness and surgery, I would have never went tubing, tried to waterski, ziplined, and especially ask to speak in front of a group.

• I began the pursuit of wisdom.  This has meant that I have stopped trying to get people to tell me what to do and have started making my own choices.  It has meant I have been trying to make the best decisions I can and it has resulted in a confidence of the decisions I make. 

• I have been more obedient to the prompting of my heart.  I would have never written this post, or ask to share in front of Journeys before the beginning of this year.  

• I have decided to quit living someone else's vision of life and try to figure out who I really am.

I was thinking this weekend how my life is kinda like the treasure hunts my mother would make for me at my birthday parties.  We started with one little clue that told us where to look for the next clue.  As soon as we would find the that clue and read it, off we would race to get the next clue.  How boring would the game have been if she would have just handed us a piece of paper that showed us where the treasure was.  

I think my clue simply says:  WAIT.  But this time, instead of getting angry and trying to move forward anyway (which I usually do), or get mopey and depressed (which I also do as well), I am simply going to try my best to wait and to pay attention, because I don't want miss getting handed the next clue. 

~b~

Randoms: From Turban Squashes to Robot Coffee Makers

This is Mr. Turban Squash.  We picked him up in Keremeos, BC at a roadside market.  He made his debut on Facebook when our van broke down in Golden.  When we finally arrived in Canmore, I took him for a walk and on a whim, decided to take his portrait:

Mr. Turban Squash is watching the Canmore traffic drive by on an overcast fall day.

Opportunities

I decided to start saying yes to more opportunities outside of work that come my way and stop worrying about my career for a while.  Then my co-worker showed me a job posting which would basically be a lateral move into a position in Ottawa, but at a higher pay level.  I just found out I've been accepted in the selection process, so I guess I have some studying to do.

My friend Aaron and his band Victoria Awake are releasing an album called If You'll Have Me at the end of November.  I saw them play at Lydia's and am definitely looking forward to their CD release party.




Last week I was feeling a bit better so I worked on eating 5 small meals a day since I often can't eat a regular meal, or not at all in the evenings.  This week I'm going to figure out just how much I can reasonably do in a day.  I still want to enjoy life, despite my pain, but I can't push myself so hard that I make things worse.  I hope I am pleasantly surprised at just how much I can do.

My son told me that some guy predicted that it would be common for humans to marry robots in 2050.  I told him that if I'm still single by then, I'd like to marry a coffee maker.

If anyone knows of a nice single coffee maker that is available, send him my way.  

~b~

I hesitate

I hesitate to write this post, but my blog posts pile up in my head like a queue and if I want to blog about my awesome trip to Rockridge Canyon and my hilariously terrifying adventure down a zip line I'd better get this one posted.

On Sickness

For the past month and a half I have been sick with the worst sinus infection ever (it must be true, just look at the italics).  This means constant headaches, constant fevers and no energy.  After multiple trips to the doctor's offices and three different antibiotics, my head felt like it was going to explode at work, and my ear infection was so bad I couldn't fall asleep because my ears were ringing so loudly.  I am so thankful that my headache finally stopped before my trip to B.C. last week.  Since I got home from B.C I've been experiencing some pain that seems to get worse every day (to the point where I need to take T3's to get through the day).  It sucks to realize that I will probably be sick for a while, and to not know why I am in so much pain, or why my immune system is so crappy.

I've never been direct about my faith on my blog before, but I can't imaging going through this past year without it and I can't seem to get this post out of my head.  So if God or faith makes you squeemy, you might want to skip the next paragraph or two.

Last year about this time I shared with my community at Journeys things I was learning.  One of the verses I shared was Habukuk 3:17-19, which I admitted I really didn't understand.  But I can say now I get it.  Here is the lowdown on the passage:  Everything sucks.  There is nothing and no hope for a future and yet Habbi (as I like to call him) looks outside his circumstances and rejoices and is joyful in God.  Habbi says that God gives him strength, he's like a deer, he's able to go up high mountains.  (This whole rejoices and joyful in God seemed so ridiculous to me).

After a year full of panic attacks, surgery, depression, and lots of sickness, I can definitely say that the only thing that can get me through the darkest nights of my soul is God.  Looking at the wrong things, like my immediate circumstances only brought fear and despair.  I thought I was just being melodramatic, but fear and despair is simply the product of looking to myself for control over my immediate circumstances.  But when I look outside my circumstances to God I see he is in absolute control and I believe he has a plan for me.  Seeing my situation in this way brings me such peace and comfort and all I want to do is praise and glorify God.  And I don't think that I could write that last sentence truthfully, until I had experienced all the muck and yuck in this past year.

I wish I could wrap this post up nicely by saying how peppy and energetic I felt, but that'd be a lie.  So for Round 2, I am simply going to Be Still, which is probably the hardest thing to do as I am such a doer and achiever.  To me, this means living in the moment in each day.  It means trusting that I will have the strength to get through each day and not worry about getting through tomorrow, or the next day, or next week.  It means instead of feeling stuck, I just need to see what I can do with the energy and opportunities I have on a daily basis.

And so this is how I choose to respond while I wait to get my health back:

• Adjust my plan.  I still have things I want to achieve, and there's no reason why I should give up and do nothing, I just need to adjust my approach into teeny weeny little steps, until I am strong enough to run in leaps and bounds.  

• Steward wisely.  I think it is easier sometimes to live with "less" (money/time/energy), because you are forced to be responsible and being wasteful could be disastrous.  There is little room for error.  I don't have the luxury of wasting my time or energy, I need to be spending my energy on the most important things.  I'm just happy if I can work a full day and come home and be a good mom.

It is inevitable that sometime in our life we will go through some really hard struggles, but if there is anything I learnt from my dad it is that I can have ongoing health problems in my life and still laugh, love, and enjoy life

~b~