.employee of the month.

I will be 28 years old in October. For the first time in my life I feel I finally got some recognition for always working hard at my place of employment.

No matter what the job, or what age I was, I worked hard.

I always did my best, did what I was told, was never late, and eventually at a few places I worked became some sort of supervisor. I never got a “Thank You!” or “You’re doing such a great job here!” or anything.

But I continued to work hard. I think it’s in my nature, plus I pick up on things very quickly and easily.

Recently I started working a part-time job at Old Navy to help off set some costs of my wedding/honeymoon. This is by far the easiest job I have ever had in my life.

I fold clothes, help customers and occasionally ring up clothes on the register. It’s easy for me to talk to strangers, so I don’t mind one bit. Plus, It’s kind of nice to talk to adults when I am around 12 year olds all day.

Shortly after starting managers would come and tell me how “quickly I folded.” or “how well I was folding”.

I just shrugged it off and assumed they were just trying to encourage me because I was new and they might have a hard time keeping people at this store.

Last week I walked into the breakroom and I noticed it.

On the board was a paper announcing me as Employee of the Month for all my hard work.

Now, this is my first month working.

There were many other new people who started with me.

So, yes I was excited. I thought to myself “Gosh, finally, someone recognized my efforts!!”

Ok – so others might have recoginized my efforts in the past, but it wasn’t verbalized and made known to this extent.

It was nice 🙂

Granted I like Old Navy, but this job will last about as long as my residency in Orlando.

.love.

It is about to be the middle of 2008. I can’t believe it.

I partly feel like my life has recently just begun.

Two years ago I met the man I will spend the rest of my days on this earth with, the one person who is truly my other half. I know, that sounds gay. But I’m serious. When I met my future husband, I wasn’t in anyway wanting a relationship, just someone to spend time with, kill the loneliness.

Before I knew it we were spending every waking moment together. Since the 8th day I have known him, we have never been apart for more than 5 days *that was because of work*. We always want to be together, regardless. Things are more fun when we do them together. We go somewhere with someone else and we come home saying “Gosh, I was wishing you were with me instead.”

Some people actually make fun of us for not having any other friends, but I think to myself….

They don’t understand. I wouldn’t if I was them.

He is my best friend. Why would you want to hang out with anyone else?!

The only people I even WANT to hang out with besides him is my family.

Speaking of family, I truly believe I will live the rest of my life with hardly seeing my brother. It’s very odd. But that’s another blog all together……

We always have this joke “People calling each other their soulmate is so GAY!!” then we whisper “but you’re mine”. Then we laugh.

I would always hear people speak of their man and how much they loved him. How perfect they were together, and they seemed so happy. Most of my life that’s all I wanted. I wish I would of been patient enough for God’s timing. I would of saved myself alot of heartache. But alas, God already has my life planned out, and he knows what is going on better than anyone.

I’m looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together.

I have never felt that way before.

I have gotten married before, and in the back of my mind I honestly thought “okay, if this doesn’t work, there is always divorce” 

HOW AWFUL!

I wouldn’t and couldn’t ever leave my man now. No matter what he may do. *don’t tell him I said that* haha

About love…..is it a noun or a verb?

A verb most would say, right? I believe so.

You show love by your actions.

I am reading this book, A case for Christ, which is actually VERY interesting. In one part in particular, it goes into length about why God allows suffering in the world if he’s supposed to be “a God of Love”.

I really liked how the author explained it.

He said some other things, which I wrote down because I liked it so much….

“As we face trials and struggling and suffering, we sometimes can’t imagine good emering. Bue we’ve seen how it did in the case of Jesus, and we can trust it will in our case too.”

Now, I relate to that in a large way because things in my life have occured that I totally didn’t and sometimes still don’t understand. Personally, for most of my life until about two years ago I have felt like my entire life has consisted of someone abusing me in one way or another. Extreme?  I don’t think so. I still don’t understand to this day why alot of it happened, or why God even allowed it. He knows why, and God will hopefully one day reveal the reasoning. If I’m lucky. 🙂

“It is possible that God is wise enough to foresee that we need some pain for reason which we may nto understand but which he forsees are being necessary to some eventual good.”

Now, About a month ago I have become a firm believer that God speaks to people. You think I would of always thought this since I have been in church all my life, but NOPE. Here is another example of him doing so. Look to my comments after the first quote, I then go to look at the paper to type the next one.

God totally gave me my answer, “that suffering was necessary for some eventual good which will occur”

Wow, he is amazing.

“To prevent all evil, you must remove all freedom and reduce people to puppets, which means they would then lack the ability to freely choose love.”

I really liked what he said here. How God doesn’t “allow” suffering, but he had to allow people to make a choice. Yes, I believe God already knows the choices we will or will not make, but he gave us a choice none the less. We have the choice to choose love or not.

Would you want your husband, boyfriend, father, mother , sister, brother or child loving you simply because you controlled them and made them love you? What then is the point of love? Why even have love in the first place? Or people for that matter?

I believe that God allows evil because alot of time it is caused by those who did not choose love. What about the people dying in Africa? What about the small children who didn’t have a chance? Does God not love them?

I don’t know everything, but I do know our God is one of love.

I have recently, about a month ago, heard God finally saying to me “HELLO!!! I have been here forever, pay attention to me please!!” AAAhhhh!!! There he was! I don’t believe that this was the first time I heard him, but I did truly believe that he just dipped out or something because I couldn’t hear him any longer. Now I realize I was the one that “dipped out”.

I love God & I am currently showing my love through my actions *obedience*.

Gosh, this makes so much sense.

Yes, I am disobedient in many other ways and I have alot of “junk” to iron out.

All in good time.

 

.stress.

Stress is all relative, I know this.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t make my stress level go down a bit.

Now, I talk to myself, ALOT. Sometimes out loud, but mostly just inside my head.

I feel the stress start to build about one thing, and I attempt to talk myself out of it. The myself starts to remind me how much other things I have in my life that are stressers……then I get overwhelmed and want to break down in tears.

Why do I do this? It is all self inflicted.

Yes, I know this.

Here are today’s stressers that nearly pushed me into a breakdown.

breakdown: crying uncontrollably, usually in the arms of Kevin, until no more tears will come & I realize it will be “okay”.

1. I have one class that is all around bad. Now, I am not talking about just “bad” as in annoying, I mean bad as in…..cursing me out, speaking to me like I’m a piece of trash, blantantly ignoring me etc. EVERY single one of my classes will start behaving instantly when they can sense I am becoming frustrated with them or annoyed.

Not this one, they don’t give a crap.

Today, their badness was more than I could handle. They ruined my entire day. That is so sad to admit that a bunch of kids did that to me. You have NO idea how stressful bad children are. When they left I wanted to cry because I knew I had to deal with them for another 6 weeks.

2. End of the year evaluation with the vice-principal. I was also at this time going to find out if I was being laid off because of budget cut backs.

3. Finances in my personal life. Money I wanted to save, is now going to pay unexpected bills and it was making me feel overwhelmed in general.

4. My online class is over in one week. I have three more lessons to do, a project to finish and a final exam. If I don’t make a 80% on the final, I fail the ENTIRE class.

Now, all these things started stressing me AFTER the bad class and about an hour before my meeting with the vice principal. I fought back tears for at least two hours because I then had my good kids and the last thing I wanted was for them to see me cry over something like this.

So, my day is winding down to an end.

My life isn’t over, my evaluation was awesome. I got the highest marks you could possibly get in every category. I didn’t lose my job. I figured out a way to get back at the bad children. I decided to let God worry about how I will pay my bills. My online class, I can do nothing about except study and do it.

I am an emotional eater, sadly.

I want nothing more but to grub out on a $5 pizza from Little Ceasers and wash it down with some nice cold beers….

Oh My!!! that sounds so stinking good!!

p.s. i don’t drink to “get drunk”. I actually think it tastes good.

Now, I have lost 23 lbs and eating pizza will NOT make my kids behave, nor will it make money appear in my bank account or take my final exam for me.

I will instead watch TV and eat popcorn.

 

 

I love my job, seriously.

I love my job, really. Not many people can even say that with any truth.

I really love it.

I didn’t do my job for a year and was utterly depressed about it. Every day I’d think about how much I miss it.

I am getting near the end of the year, 7 weeks left.

My kids are from the devil, seriously.

OK – so in all seriousness about 2 of them are from the devil out of the 140 or so that I see.

I work at a Title 1 school = ghetto. But this isn’t your normal ghetto kids, these are hispanic ghetto children. It is MUCH different from your typical “black ghetto”. I don’t even know how to begin to explain it.

It’s worse, trust me.

They are all becoming bad children because FCAT is over, so they are under this assumption that school is over. Not to mention alot of them have horrible home lives and probably come to school to escape the reality that is their life.

There are about three of them that I wish I could adopt. Get them away from those people who call them their parents and raise them in a good home.

They are kind of like puppies or kitties you see in the pound. You want to take them all home and save them.

But you can’t.

All the teachers complain about their jobs, no lie. I never hear anyone talk about how they love their students. At my school, the teachers feel as if they are getting paid to babysit.

I feel like I’m getting paid to have fun.

I laugh, tell jokes, play games, and even teach them all at the same time.

I am constantly being told how stupid, silly and crazy I am by these little kids.

I have fun.

 

I like Psalms – alot

I read this verse today and it is totally how I am in my life at this very moment.

“Whom have I in heaven but you?

And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart

and my portion forever…..

My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me, O my people,”

And my heart responds “Lord I am coming.”

Psalm 73:25-26

.trust & obey.

There is one thing I constantly stress about.

.finances.

My fiancee & I share a bank account. I am the one in charge of our finances.

Will we have enough to pay this month’s bills? Am I making smart choices with our money? What if this happens? What if that happens?

Yesterday, I actually broke down & cried about it. Not just a few tears, but all out balling.

Now, earlier this week I read about giving trust to God in EVERYTHING. I read it, but it didn’t “click” and no light came on. Just read it.

This morning, I visited a Baptist Church which reminded me ALOT of this Baptist church I went to when I was kid. I started thinking about what I had read about trusting God in everything. It made me scared. How will God be able to control how much money is in my account, I mean he can’t make it appear out of thin air, right? How do I have control over the finances of the house if I am supposed to let God do it?

Minutes after these thoughts flooded my mind, the pastor quoted a verse about trusting God.

.weird.

20 minutes later we stand up to sing. The bible verse under the hymn title was one from John. It was just a blurb of the verse. It said “Trust in God in everything….”

.WHAT THE HECK.

My brain was flooded with this issue. Trust him. Just trust him. Ok, this should be easy.

I go home after church, and I am playing on myspace and end up on my friend’s page. One of her blog entries spoke of how she didn’t concieve a child until she put total trust in God in every part of her life. After she surrendered, she was pregnant.

I then stumble on my younger sister’s blog & she is writing about trusting God in the issue of how many children she should have and “controling” how many babies she brings into the world.

Wow, other people trust. I said to myself “You sister is right again, God is talking to you through other people, the service this morning….Just TRUST already!”

I began to soften up to the idea, and I attempted not to think about my “finances”.

I was at work today. I got a part time job at Old Navy to help pay for my wedding.

I began to feel irritated about “money” and I started to even blame my fiancee. I began to come up with reasons as to why it was his fault. The Lord seriously put a totally different thought into my mind just as I was getting good and angry.

It was this: meditate on my word, i am the truth

The bible verses I memorized so long ago, the one I needed the most, it just started in my mind.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, your mind and your soul. Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall make your paths straight”

I had not heard or said that verse in years, and it seriously just came to me.

I must have repeated it over a hundred times to myself today while folding clothes at work.

I worked an 8 hour shift.

I meditated on God’s word almost all day.

& I finally feel free from this financial stress

I can’t explain it.

I don’t know how it happened.

I just know it was because of Christ.

.numero uno.

This is my first entry. I’m not sure why I am starting this, but I am always having thoughts running through my mind. I decided this would be a great way to “let it all out” so to speak.

About six months ago or so I emailed my younger sister to ask her some questions concerning God. I asked her many things, but they included things such as: How do you hear him? How do you know he’s talking to you?

I had been struggling with the whole idea of me being able to “hear God” or “desiring to know him more”.

I grew up in a Baptist Church, went almost my entire life. I know all the good bible verses, I can recite Psalm 23 by heart, I can sing almost 50% of all songs in a hymnal without looking, I know the sinner’s prayer and I still had these questions looming in my mind.

Now, many crazy things happened to me in the few years past when it comes to church and I decided after the ordeal I didn’t want anything to do with it. I began to feel as if I was living up to a checklist that MUST be done in order to be a Christian, otherwise I might as well forget it. I was feeling as if I was attempting to live up to something I couldn’t obtain. So I threw in the towel.

Then, six months ago, I started to wonder. I know dern well I don’t want to burn in hell. I know that if I continue to live without Christ, then I would. HHhhhhmmm…….So, that led me to emailing my sister with the questions. I needed to know “How do you hear him?” “How do you know he’s the one talking?”.

I did not understand or like her reply.

She basically said, “you hear him through prayer, things I have read, answered prayers, things I hear  etc”

It honestly sounded like crap to me. You hear God in things you read?! What the heck!

So, I just figured whatev, I guess I will just hang out and wait to “hear” him or something. Now, I did continue to pray and I began to wonder how I was gonna “hear” from him.

Two weeks ago, I heard him. Craziness, I know.

I actually heard him through prayer, just as my sister said. It’s weird & hard to explain, I just knew it was him. So, all I knew from there was that I just wanted to know more about Christ. I knew all the “bible stories”, but I just want to know more. I felt in my heart that there wasn’t this “list” I needed to keep up with, I just wanted to love him and know more of him.

I ended up at the library.

I felt convicted about the idea of reading. I read ALOT. It’s one of my most favorite past times. I decided that if I am going to read, it needs to be about the place I am going to be dwelling for eternity, or about Christ.

Which led me to this book titled, Come Thirsty By Max Lucado.

Now, here is another crazy thing. God started talking to me AGAIN! Yes, through a book. After this happened, I realized my sister’s email was full of nothing but truth. She later told me that my heart wasn’t ready to hear it. Right again she was.

The things I read just opened my heart, eyes and mind to alot of things.

A part of the book I read yesterday, it was about how people ask the question about why God allows bad things to happen to people. It discussed how “bad” is all relative and what is “bad” to you isn’t necessarily “bad” to another person. Then it talked about how silversmiths made swords. How the metal was put into a fire and pounded on over and over and over. Put back in the fire, then pounded on some more. The silversmith would work on the sword until he could see his reflection in it. Which is what God does with us, we are sometimes put through tough times until we are made perfect, like the sword.

How God knows everything about us, our entire life before it begins and it’s all for good reason.

It put things into perspective for me when it comes to things that have happened my past that I question because I feel they are “bad” & I have this “bad” be in control of different parts of my life.

Then a few hours later, I am watching “Return of the King” and they are re-forging the sword of Gondor. Which was a total illustration of what I read. It was amazing.

I now daily yearn to know him more.

To love others & treat them as Christ would.