Sign the petition - save the unborn

I don't know if signing this will do any good or not, but I have to try.
Please, go out and sign the petition AGAINST the "Freedom of Choice Act".

Waiting, or copping out?

I had a thought over the weekend - when does "waiting upon the Lord" become actually "copping out so I don't have to make decisions"? Seriously, it'd be so easy to just sit and say, "well, God will tell me what He wants me to do, so I'm gonna sit back and just keeeep floating along until He tells me what He wants me to do with my life." Easy - no decisions, no responsibility for those decisions if they go wrong, because it's all God's Plan, you see?

But...I wonder at what point "waiting for God's Plan" becomes "so I don't have to do anything." How can you tell?

Always what we need, not necessarily what we want

God provides. He always does - and it's always what we need, not necessarily what we want. I have to keep reminding myself of this as I wonder about my contract. I was originally hired to the end of this year, and I'm starting to look again for work. Will I find it? Dunno. God provides. He provided this job, and a place for me to stay (well...two places, now. I'm extremely grateful to the kind woman who first invited me into her home, sight unseen, and put up with me for several months. And I am also VERY glad and thankful to my friends who have now invited me into their home to our mutual benefit.)
But, even though He provides what we need, that doesn't guarantee it will be an easy time. Being away from family and home each week, only going home on weekends...that's rough. Knowing that other people have it worse - away from family for over a year, having loved ones serving in the Middle East...that's WORSE, but knowing that others have it worse doesn't make my position any easier for me. I've never quite understood how other people (not everyone, obviously) can say, "Oh, I like to remind myself of other peoples' situations - then mine doesn't seem so bad and I can cheer up!" It doesn't work that way for me. I see other peoples' situations, then mine doesn't seem so bad...yeah, that part works. But then I don't "cheer up", really - I just think, "Geez...I must be some more kinda selfish shallow person to still feel like this is difficult when they have it so much harder." Then I feel worse, not better.

A very dear and wise friend told me, though, to remember that just because someone else has it worse / harder / whatever doesn't mean my feelings are invalid. Just because I'm not happy about my situation when someone else has it worse (and there's always someone with it worse) doesn't mean I'm selfish and shallow and I have to cheer up now. I guess what I'm looking for in that situation is "permission". If someone else has it worse, I almost feel that I'm not allowed to feel sad / depressed / anything-but-happyhappyjoyjoy. Well, the heck with that. I'm not really a happyhappyjoyjoy person, to be honest. Never have been. I'm sure that doesn't make me terribly easy to get along with, and I'm (again) grateful (and a bit puzzled, to be honest) that so many people are willing to try.

But anyway, God never said He'd make everything easy for us. Matthew 19:26 says "...with God, all things are possible", not "all things are easy" or "all things are preferable" or "everything works out the way you want it to." Faith moves mountains, but God doesn't say those mountains shift themselves around with no effort from us. GOD does the hard parts, but he's not some Great Vending Machine Santa Clause Wish Granter In The Sky, where you put in the right prayer coin, or the right ritual, or just wish hard enough and boom, we get Exactly What We Wanted! A new pony! A bike! Whirled Peas! Everyone to get along! Kumbahyah! Whoopee. Nope, not gonna happen. I firmly believe that God set up this job opportunity for me, and He wants me here, but I still had to apply for the job. The offer came out of the blue, and other circumstances surrounding the offer and eventual hiring were enough to tell me that this is where I'm supposed to be, but God never said anything about it being what I wanted, or expected, or that He'd make it easy. No, it's not what I expected, it's not really what I wanted (or especially where I wanted!) but it's where I needed to be, and where He needs me to be right now.
MY benefit from it may be just a financial one, or there may be other "Me reasons" for me to be here. It may be that the primary reason was to set me up to benefit someone else. I really don't have all the answers - but it's enough for me to know that God does. He's always working for our GOOD, even if it's not our PREFERENCE. That's tough to remember sometimes, especially when I reach to the other side of the mattress at 2am and there's nobody there.
But it is enough to get me through the 2am "nobody's there", and keep me going. I hope for something more preferable to come along, but until that time, I'm content (not happy, necessarily, but content) to be here, where he wants me, doing whatever He wants me to do.

Now...I'd PREFER to go have a chocolate-chip muffin. But...it's not good for me, so I'll have some Kashi cereal. Which, incidentally, tastes nothing like a chocolate-chip muffin.

Thoughts from the weekend.

Fog! We had fog this morning! Woohoo! I never thought I'd get so excited about FOG. Actually, I'm happy that we have enough humidity to make fog. Another thing I never thought I'd see: Hoosiers spontaneously cheering in WalMart because it started to rain. Seriously. The Official Indiana State Obsession is apparently The Weather, and we loooooovvvveee to complain about it. If it's lovely weather, people gripe about how we'll "pay for it later", or "oh sure, it's doing it while I'm at work", or it's just a tad too warm / too cold / too breezy / not breezy enough / too much sunshine / not enough sunshine / etc. / etc. / etc.
If it's not "exactly perfect" then that's of course prime gripe fodder. But this....this was amazing. People started applauding, and cheering, and trying to pay for their groceries as fast as possible so they could get outside and get rained on before it quit raining. Because it wasn't a very large cloud or anything. But bygolly, it was a rain cloud, so we were bygolly gonna go out and enjoy it. Which I've also never seen here. People try to get under cover as soon as possible so they don't get wet - they don't run out into the rain, as a rule.
This, plus some comments from Pastor's sermon on Sunday, got me thinking - why are people, as a rule, far quicker to complain than we are to express appreciation? We all know it happens - if we do something really nice for someone, but mess up one small detail, what are we going to hear about the most - the 1% we messed up, or the 99% we didn't?
Why do we focus on the 1%? Why do people do that? We've done a lot of volunteering for various organizations, and to be honest, I heard a few "thank yous" while we were doing stuff, but mostly it was things like:
"you didn't do this part right."
"I would've preferred you do it some other way."
"I certainly don't want to criticize, but..."
"The program was too long."
"You should implement MY ideas, they're WAY better than yours."

Not "hey, I've got some great ideas, would you mind if I helped?" Not "Hey, can I do something like that too? Would you mind if I tried it next time?" Not "hey, thanks for helping out - we really appreciate it."

When the appreciation and the "thank yous" do come along, they're very much appreciated. The sad thing is, I can probably count the "appreciators" on one hand.

So, I've made up my mind to try harder to be an "appreciator" instead of a complainer. Sure, there'll be times when I still need to say, "you know, this really isn't going to work," but maybe if I'm more known for expressing appreciation, it won't be taken as criticism so much as an offer to work things out. That's always good.

Do your best, then let it go.

Lesson for today. Do the best you can, but once you've done everything you can, let it go. If circumstances beyond your control make it impossible to finish a task you've set for yourself, don't get all bent out of shape, fussy, cranky, whatever. Let it go.
You did your best. Be happy with that. Control what you can, and leave the rest alone. Trying to control stuff that you absolutely cannot just gets you irritated, and really peeves off the people around you. Anal Retentive Control Freak isn't always bad, but it needs to be tempered with wisdom.
Let it go, and enjoy the rest of your life.