Actions of the Missing

It's been awhile since I last wrote...I've been busy. Really!
I took a job. Yup, the thing I dreaded to have to do. I finally caught a break. I had been handing out resumes for a few weeks, filling in online applications too. There was never a bite. We had no money and no way to make any with no one hiring. I couldn't even get an interview. I was getting more and more disheartened. With painful knees I also dreaded the idea of working. How was I going to be able to stand all day in retail when I could hardly walk up or down the 6 stairs to my front door? Or down the street to pick up Shalom from the bus! Or through the mall without having to sit part way through to hand out the resumes!!
It was torture not having finances come in, and it was torture applying to jobs I knew would be physically painful to do just to get minimum wage. I was feeling trapped and pretty hopeless.

Then a break came! I handed a resume over to someone in the mall. We had a nice chat, but her store had already hired two girls last week. She even directed me to the Mall office where a book of jobs in the mall was listed. I thanked her and off I went. Next day the phone call came. A store I hadn't applied to but was the sister store of wanted to see me ASAP. I high tailed it there that afternoon, interviewed and within 10 minutes was asked if I wanted the job. I started the next day at noon. 
Wow! Did that just happen?!?

I was right about pain! Standing for six hours was incredibly painful! Especially the first day! As the days progress the pain increased, but in my feet not my knees. In fact the ligaments on either side of both my knees seemed to be strengthening. The pain in my feet from standing was slightly lessened by good shoes. It's been two weeks now and my feet did adjusted to standing but I found I have one arch that is either falling or just needs more support. It hurts to even touch it. I'm noticing the pain in my knees more now though because the pain in my feet is no longer over-riding the rest of my senses. 
SO! I'm working and have yet to be paid. First pay cheque comes on the 15th. An actual, physical cheque too. So old fashioned! I already know it will be disappointing. So much less then Larry used to make per pay cheque. 
I am thankful I have a job that is low stress though. The job is easy. It's like babysitting a cash register and taking money from people who are so easily parted with it, especially in this store! Country decor items. I can't work past 9pm...10 soon when christmas hours start. But that is so much better than my last job that had me working the 4pm to 1am shift. Ugh! I hated that!!! The hours are not horrid, and the work fairly easy, the pay not great but the ladies I work with are! It's a very laid back environment. We all get along well and there is no work place "drama" really.
Now, if only Larry can find a job that pays better then minimum wage, is full time and local! Then we will be able to stay here in Fredericton. That's the goal. To stay here and not to move away.

Photo by Michelle V Charlebois, 09-10-2011
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Thank Yous

Thanks to you, this has been a day of smiles for me. The first in a long two weeks of feeling hopeless. This has been a good day. I am amazed at how a great meal with protein and good quality food in my fridge and cupboards has made me feel so very rich! Knowing that we will eat well for a good few weeks and that my kids will be taking enough food to school for lunches has so lifted my mood, lifted a chunk of the burden I felt off, and given me some much needed peace.
We have been blessed in abundance. Today we received a couple bags of groceries from a friend that contained kid lunch foods and snacks among other things. Hurray! And a Dairy Milk bar....oh, you know me SO well! That was this morning. This afternoon we received the pre-made meals that someone had purchased for us last week through DinnerEase. It takes a few days for DinnerEase to put them together and deliver them. All I can say about these meals is WOW! First they are easy to put together. Second they are big portions. Third, they are Tasty! At least the one we had tonight was, Chipotle Mango Rubbed Salmon. Yum!  
To complete the day and make it even better, I was able to help someone else out with food. She's a just graduated student in the process of finding a job. She only had rice and oatmeal at home. That was pretty much it. After receiving so much today I just had to help her out. Since she just needed food for herself it was not a huge purchase. Eggs, chicken, fish, broccoli and bananas. It wasn't a lot, but it's all she wanted. She was pretty stunned to receive the food. It feels so good to receive. It feels even better to give and see the relief come into someones face that they can now eat well.
So thank you everyone. Not just for your help and all the wonderful food, but also for allowing me to help someone else who was in just as much need as we were. I have been blessed doubly so because of your generosity and love.

Thank you, thank you, thank yous (as they say in these Atlantic Provinces).
For those of you elsewhere, please remember to donate good quality food to your local food bank, or other local charity that helps feed people in need. 
Jennifer.

Reality Check

I often listen to the local Christian radio station. Have done for so many years over all the various places I have lived one could say it may be more of a habit then anything else.  I don't listen to secular music, or radio stations. Since I turned my life over to God back when I was 17 I have listened to nothing else but christian music. 

I was convinced even that my eldest daughter shouldn't listen to secular music. Many an argument occurred over the very topic. Mostly I just started to get upset, not because I couldn't change her mind, she was old enough to make a decision weather I believed it was right or not, but mostly because her choice was now influencing her younger sisters. They were still young enough that they did what their parents said but the words in music were filtering in through their older sister and I couldn't stop it.

Eventually I just stopped objecting. Instead I focused on explaining to the younger ones why I choose to listen to christian radio. What you put into your mind and heart through your ears and eyes is not just important but can be critical. I do believe that. I've had experience myself that once something is in, you can't get it out. 

But this isn't what i wanted to talk about.....

The point I was getting to was I heard a funny but very scary thing on the local Christian radio station the other day and it just hasn't left me. It's been hanging in the back of my mind now for a few days. Part of me wants to hang on to it, to meditate and find out how it applies to me.

So, the thing was a sort of commercial for christian living, and it's usually something funny. This one was about a guy asking a genie for stuff and her saying "yes master". Sort of taken like from the old T.V. show, I Dream Of Jeannie. The guy asked for a good day a work, a better job, a bothersome coworker to be moved to another department, a roast for dinner, a good golf game tomorrow, and good weather for the golf game.... Then the announcer guy said we often treat God like a Genie asking for this and that and expecting it all to be done for us. Like God is at our beck and call. 

I started to wonder, is that how I pray? I think I did at some point in my 20+ years of christian life. I've definitely gone through phases of how and why I did things. The current phase worries me the most, I don't hardly pray at all. I don't regularly spend time with God just listening. I spend a lot of time in avoidance mode, just keeping busy. Because I don't know what to do with the questions I have, the struggles I've been though. I feel completely broken. Which is suppose to be a good thing, broken before God, But it doesn't feel like that kind of broken. I don't know how to explain it any better than that though.

So, this commercial that has gotten into my head. I'm wondering if I am just currently rebelling against the order making I used to do, and the disappointment I felt when my orders where not fulfilled. Sounds plausible doesn't it? It would make sense. Except that I am too close to the problem and can't see truth.  I can't tell you if that really is what's going on, or if I have really fallen away from God, or if I'm just being a stupid child sulking cause I didn't get my way. It feels like all of the above, and yet possible none of the above. Only God really knows the heart and intentions of the heart. So, it is only He who really knows me and my motives and reasons.

All I know right now is that it is difficult to go on living like I've got it all together and I can and do relay on God. I'm not sure I actually do at this point. 

That said, I haven't actually left Him either.