Carve out a chunk of time- this one's long

Well I'm checking back in. First, to answer the question about the firehouse- I was stationed in Ohio Township, I was one of 2 girls, and it was nothing but men sitting around cussing and watching porn, right out in the open. It was spiritually suffocating, and finally I left. It was a disappointment, I had wanted to do that my whole life, but the cost was too great.

This post may start off seeming like a pity party, just hang on- I promise there is more to it!

Now, I'm going to be brutally honest about my week. It sucked bad. Things have really been on the up and up for our family for a while, not only physically but spiritually as well. We are really growing as a family, which is different than just growing as a couple, I think. Apparently, Satan took notice as well, as over the past week we have suddenly accrued over $2,000 of debt. Normally, we would just pay this out of our savings, but since we don't escrow our property taxes and they are due next month, and due to the fact that we have already had an inordinately huge amount of medical bills, our savings is a bit low. Now if you know us, you know that this kills us. We don't use credit cards, we don't take out loans for over a year, the only real debt we have is our home, which we paid 20% down on. We hate owing money. First we got a letter from the gas company saying that they had underestimated our gas budget bill and now we had to pay $420 a month for the next five months to catch up. Was this our fault? Nope. But did we use the gas? Sure did. So that is enough that we had to do some major cutting back and re-arranging to get it paid. We just paid off the Jeep a few months ago (we had a loan on it for about 6 months, we really don't like debt) and we are going to sell the Jeep now (01, Cherokee, 4 wheel drive, 70,000 miles, runs great, $8,000), and get something around 5,000 or so to help pay the gas company off all at once.

Then the next day we get a call that Jacob grandpa had finally passed away, so we have spent the last several days in and out of the funeral home, which is always fun. He had a beautiful service, which I intend to blog about soon, it was special.

Then, we get yet another hospital bill, for my leg rot, which was almost $700. We have already had several whoppers on these so far, for Sophie's doctors appointments to my er visit, etc... Which granted, $700 is not a lot considering I can't just go buy a new leg, but the timing could have been better. On the bright side we have now maxed out our family deductible for the year. Yay?

Add all this on top of Sophie having an ear infection (which is a whole new bundle of holy terror, as I recently found out), me having a bladder infection, jobs being stressful this week and we have been feeling a little under attack! I hadn't blogged about all this because really, I knew it would all resolve itself eventually. God has a way of watching our for us in our trails, and I was just stressed out more than scared. I had a huge dose of disappointment, because all these new bills meant that I can not take off on Fridays starting in May as I had planned, which is really, terribly, bitterly sad to me. I had so been looking forward to that for 8 months now.

So add that all up and you get what I said earlier, a week that sucked. Finally a few days ago I got over myself and asked the pastor for prayer for us, just that we could get a reprieve from warfare for a while to regroup.

Since then nothing worse has happened, which is a blessing in itself. Praise God! But on top of that, I have been talking with my friend Emily about starting a new job with her that has excellent pay, I set my own schedule, work mostly from home and when I do have to go can often take Sophie with me. We are going to talk more about it soon, but everything so far looks like this is going to happen, and I am thrilled (she says in the understatement of the year). I would direct you to her blog, but I can't ever get the thing to work. Emily- help me out here.

Note: I love my job now. I love the line of work I am in as well. I work for a wonderful couple who have been very good to me, except the pay sucks bad and it requires more hours than I want. I have worked there for almost 6 years and make $9/hour. I could make more starting out at McDonald's. That frustrates me.

So- here is a link to what I will hopefully be doing soon.

http://www.peersproject.org/index.cfm

I love that it is both a job and a powerful ministry. I would be an school coordinator for 2-3 local high schools, mentoring and teaching high school kids about abstinence from sex so that they can go on to mentor junior high kids about the same. I am very excited about the opportunity this position has to serve, as well as the freedom it gives me to be a mother.

Please pray with me that God's will for our lives will be done in consideration to this position, and in the next few months when we will still be struggling to make ends meet. I guess what I want everyone to take from this is that things did not get better until I ASKED for prayer. We had just been bearing it on our own, with a few people that happened to know what was going on. But I had not asked anyone for prayer. I get so caught up in the fact that my problems seem so small. I'm not like the family of little Knox, who REALLY need our prayers. I don't have a brain tumor, I'm not a missionary in a far away land, my life is blessed and my problems seem insignificant. But I have to remember that to the Lord, all problems are important. I can't afford to be too proud to ask for prayer for myself, and neither can you! Give it up. What can we pray for YOU about?