Sigh

I have been reminded more than once recently that, uh, I have a blog.  Remember this thing?  I used to, you know, update it every once in a while.  But for the last few months (let's not focus on just how many, shall we?) I haven't written much.

I could spend time dwelling on this and making apologies, but I've decided I won't.

What I will say is that I just recently had the privilege of introducing Goodnight Moon to the boy I nanny.  The first read through he seemed to be bored, but soon I had him looking for the mouse in every picture, and going through the pictures again.  It was fun.  I don't even know the last time I met a child who hadn't somehow already heard that book.  I did cave to my OCD tendencies and point out to him that in the "goodnight mittens" page, the line features only mittens, which is silly, because in the full picture of the room, there are mittens AND socks on the line.  That always bugged me as a child.  Also, has anyone else noticed that it takes more than an hour for the rabbit to go to bed?  Because I feel like when I was a kid it didn't take an hour+ to go to bed.  Now that I'm older and I read the Bible and straighten up my room and such, it takes much longer, but even I don't need more than an hour to lie in my bed and say goodnight to everything in my room.  Not to mention the fact that him having mush by the side of his bed is just weird.  Was it his midnight snack?  Couldn't the old lady whispering hush (who is actually an old rabbit, let's be honest) have removed it before she left?  Because the mouse was sniffing it and that's just gross.

Uh, anyhow, whether or not you believe it, I do like the book.  I just have read it a bunch of times this week, so it's a bit fresh in the mind.

And that's where I leave off.  I really have to read more books not written for five-year-olds...

How do you know?

Even though I've done many things in my life that I'm sure the Lord OK'd, it's still sort of a mystery to me how exactly it is that we know.  A lot of it has to do with feeling of peace we get when we are poised to do something that it seems He's approving of (this isn't the end of a sentence, I can use a preposition if I need to!), but it's sort of a far cry from an exact science.

I've been praying for quite a while about quitting my job.  Recently a few other work-type options seemed to pop up, and then fall through, and I was sort of left without other things to do.  Now, I've had three jobs thus far, the dental assisting (haha, that was an easy job to land, thanks, Dad), the nannying (it was more like babysitting, actually, but hey, I didn't complain), and the insurance job I have now.  Each one was orchestrated of the Lord--I literally had to do nothing to get them, and they each provided what I need, and worked with my schedule exactly just so.  Before I got my current job, the insurance gig, I felt at loose ends.  The nanny thing was no longer an option (full-time school?  What is that all about?), and my grandmother with whom I had been helping frequently had just passed away, so I would no longer be needed there, either.  I remember frantically looking for a job for a while, till an older woman whom I respect very much told me that I should use my time at home to help my mom.

Good point.  I stopped looking for a job, focused on helped my mom at home (it was the start of Hobby Class season, so there was plenty to be done!), and let the job part rest.  Then, a friend of mine told me that she was shortly leaving her insurance job and that if I sent her my resume she'd get me a job there.  I put it off for a few days, and then sent her the resume, only to get (and start!) the job within a week.  I've been there for over a year, and have known for a while now that my time was pretty much up.  But that left the question, what do I do without a job?  Before I had a "real job" I kept very busy, this much is true (my friends with jobs would frequently say that I seemed busier than they were, which I don't understand, because now with my real job I'm busier than ever, but anyhow, that's beside the point), but I was hesitant.  Did I just quit with no prospects; go back to being a stay-at-home daughter and granddaughter?

This past weekend I was in St. Louis.  I was praying about the job situation, because I felt it was just time.  Time to be done, time to move on to whatever else the Lord had for me.  So I decided that I would come home, work a week, and then turn in my resignation on Monday (the upcoming one, the 6th).  Well, on Monday (the one we just had, the 29th), I'd been back at work for about four hours, and all of a sudden I stopped and thought, "Is it now?  Should I quit now?"  Quit, obviously, being code-word for two weeks' notice.  Anyhow, I was in the conference room when I had this thought, and literally stopped in my tracks.  I had no idea what I should do, and actually dropped to my knees on the floor of the conference room, right then and there, and begged the Lord for guidance.  Something told me to wait, so I did.  I got up, finished cleaning off the table in the conference room, and went back to work.

But Wednesday.  That felt like the day.  I had woken up that morning and felt peace.  It was time.  So that day (there's a longer version of the story, but I'll spare you) I talked to my boss and co-worker and explained that I was leaving.  It didn't go so well (again, another story), but the moral of that story is, I'll be here for another two weeks, and then I'll be through.

At that time, I had no idea what I'd be doing.  None.  There are leads on a potential nanny job, but who knows if that'll work out.  I got home for dinner that night, only to hear that my grandfather wasn't doing well, and would perhaps shortly be admitted to the hospital.  We went over and visited with them, and he seemed to be doing fairly well, as did my grandma.

But then yesterday, my grandma had a stroke.  As of right now, I'm not sure exactly what that means for the future, but it means at least some time in physical therapy and other such doctor-related visits.  So we have a grandpa who has kidney failure, and a grandma with a stroke, and a granddaughter who shortly will not have a job.

So I still don't know what I'm doing.  Maybe in two weeks they'll be somehow all better, or maybe they'll be with the Lord.  I don't know what a day will bring forth, but I know that if they still need help in two weeks, I'll be free to help.

It's times like this that make me so incredibly thankful that following the Lord's directives really works.

Anyhow, sorry, I didn't set out to tell this whole lengthy story, but I started writing and this is what came out, so...  well, enjoy!

'Tis done!

When I decided, a few months into reading the Bible this past time, that I wanted to read through the whole thing in a year, I figured I'd get close.  Maybe get there, maybe not.  But, to my eternal surprise, I managed to read the Bible very quickly.  In fact, I finished reading the Bible today.  I can't do math very well, but I think August to April is nine months.  Which is cool.

Did I like it?  Yeah.  Would I have been able to do that my first time through?  Uh, no.  As I was flying through some portions of the Bible (I think I read all the minor prophets in a week) I realized that I was only able to do that because I've gone over these Books before, and studied them out.  Not just the minor prophets, either.  While I was reading through books like Hebrews and Revelation sometimes I would pause and think "if I hadn't heard this explained a hundred and seven times, I would have no idea what was going on."

But it worked.  Very well.  Even if I never attempt such a feat again, I'm totally going to read the early history books (Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, etc.) as close to the prophets as I can (especially Jeremiah and Isaiah).  I've always sort of been weirded out when people talk about reading the Bible "as a novel," but I think I finally understand what they're trying to say.  They're not comparing it to a novel, but rather treating its readability as a novel.  For my part, I usually forget all the history stuff by the time I've gotten to the prophets, thereby making it difficult to remember things like who Uzziah was or why Jotham was important.

And don't even get me started on all the different names of Jehoiachin/Jechoniah/Coniah.  If those are the proper names, anyhow.  But it's rather confusing to me.  But this time, thanks to the fact that there was only about a month between those two sections, I managed to remember most of what I'd read in the history books.  And it made the prophets so much more enjoyable!

Anyhow, truth be told, I'm not sure I'll ever have enough time to do this again.  The only reason I was able to do this was because I set a goal to read at least five chapters a day (there's that whole three-a-day and five-on-Lord's Day thing that I couldn't follow all the way because I started multiple months into my year, so I figured five a day might do it) but I started bringing my full-sized Bible to my nanny job (once I realized I could no longer read my small Bible, which was sorrowful) and usually sat around in the mornings and drank a cup of coffee and read the Bible for a while.  That was cool.  And at night times I would read my Bible before and after getting ready for bed.  Usually two or three chapters when I first went up to my room to get ready for bed, and two or three more right before I went to sleep.  That way I wasn't bogging myself down with a bunch of chapters, and I was always ready to pick up where I'd left off 45 minutes prior, or however long it might have been.

Anyhow, I'm not sure why I'm blathering on about this, but since I've long given up the days of excitedly telling my family when I finished the Bible each time, yet I still get that rush of hopefulness that tells me that each time I finish reading the Bible the Lord's coming is SO much closer, I always feel like blathering.  And now I have a place to do so!

Funny story.  The first time I finished reading through the Bible by myself I was maybe nine or ten, and I was SO excited, and I went out into the hallway that connected all the bedrooms, and a few of my sisters were standing around talking, and I told them that I'd finished the Bible for the first time ALL BY MYSELF!  At this point one of my sisters looked at me and said "So have we.  Many more times than you."  And that was the last time I celebrated that joyous event with my family.  But I still get excited, and the Lord and I throw a party.  Mostly because He did such an amazing job on the Bible.  Every time I read it, no matter how quickly I may go through it, I find so many cool and new things to think about and learn.  What an amazing book!