A Crossroads in Life

Perhaps it is just a mood I’m in right now, but it seems like more and more, my circumstances are telling me not to finish my thesis. Now, I understand that seems like a rather big deal, and I am the sort of person who was raised to finish what I’ve started. I have every intention of completing it, and I believe if it was right when God led me to the program, then it is still right and it needs to be done to the best of my ability until it is completed. However, there are also times when God tests us by asking us to fail…or at any rate, give up something we’ve worked hard for, and I just feel like I’m prepared to do that if necessary. Yes, I want to finish my program, but I need to either finish it by the end of april, or the end of May, and if I don’t finish in April, then I can’t graduate in May, I’ll have to graduate in August. Now, if I graduate in August, I need to be enrolled in at least one credit for that summer term. My husband and I are planning on moving to Colorado in early to mid June, so I likely won’t be able to work for my Grad school department, and if I can’t work for them for the summer, they may not be able to pay for the one credit, which for a graduate level, is around 300 dollars. With us moving, I really can’t be throwing that kind of money around. PLUS, even if my department would let me work remotely for them, the university is experiencing economic hardship as well, and is even talking about eliminating some degree programs! So, the money might not be available anyway. I obviously still need to talk to my advisor about all this, but it just seems like everything is saying “It’s time to move on”…like there was a reason why I couldn’t do the student teaching and I need to just accept that. I am trusting God in this, and I know he will provide and bring together the necessary pieces, I just wish people didn’t get so riled up about it.

I hadn’t talked about this to anyone really, but yesterday I mentioned it to a friend of mine when I was talking to her on the phone. She actually got mad at me! I don’t get it. What does my finishing or not finishing my thesis have to do with her? Why do people get angry when something doesn’t work out? How does it affect her at all if I get my masters or not? I just don’t understand. I mean, I expect that people will react that way, it’s human nature I suppose…they probably feel like I’m accepting defeat or failure….but I don’t see it as failure. If it’s where God is leading me, if it’s what he’s asking me to do, then it’s not failure to accept it! God knows what is best for me, for my future, and for the future of my marriage and my family. There is just absolutely no need for it.

I have also been feeling lately that it is all vanity anyhow. The things that really matter in life are not diplomas, or papers pontificating on student understanding, or even having a job or making things….if God is not in it, then it is vanity. I have always been one to focus more on being a Godly example by living uprightly and being blameless before men and God, which I still hold to, and not so much on proactively witnessing. But recently I’ve just felt as though my current life, with my graduate responsibilities, my thesis, my wife responsibilities, and even my hobbies, leaves no room for even situational witnessing. I feel like I don’t have time for family and friends. I haven’t even found time to do thesis stuff, even after I finally found my motivation again! I will probably work on it some today, and hopefully get a lot done, but I don’t really feel like I have enough of a relationship with the people around me to be a witness by my living. I don’t think they see me enough! Plus, the things I find the most Joy in; my husband, friends, kitty, beading, reading, projects, etc…I keep getting further away from them. Work is good, it is from God and it should be appreciated as a gift from God. However, I don’t believe it should be depressing. I don’t believe work should suck your life away. It’s in those little things, and in those relationships that God is seen the best. I want people to be able to see him in my work, but I don’t know how to do that! I don’t feel smart enough or motivated enough to do the brilliant work that some people do. My mind has been all fuzzy lately. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m trying to hold too much in it, or if it’s something more serious, but I just don’t feel capable. I know I am capable of finishing it, but I don’t feel capable of doing anything supernatural with it. Obviously, that is God’s department, and I suppose this is the best place to be in order for God to work through me, because then there’ll be no doubt who’s responsible. Perhaps that is where God is leading me….I just pray that I will not let my co-workers and my superiors down, and that I will live an upright and blameless life before God and men. If he asks me to give up my Masters degree, I am willing and prepared to accept it. I just hope and pray that he reveals his will to me clearly and soon, in a way that I will understand without any doubts.

The Waiting Place

Do any of you remember "The waiting place" from Dr. Zeus' book "Oh! The places you'll go!"? Well, people end up there a lot in life...ironically I think most of life is spent in the waiting place...if you think about it, how much of our life is really taken up by spectacular moments? We're usually waiting for something, even if it's just waiting for the mail or for food to cook. We just don't always realize it when we're there. We pass through momentarily and are off doing something else before we have a chance to look around. But sometimes, sometimes it is very obvious. And when it becomes obvious, it can become unbearable!

Currently, I am in the waiting place. It is about 98 3/4% deffinately decided (to use another reference from the book), that we will move to Colorado in June. My husband has been accepted to his school and his program, he's put in pretty much all the paperwork, I've already had an interview for a job out there, and even viewed some appartments....which could be a post in and of it's self....anyway, the point is, I know I'm moving in June, and I can think about nothing else!

However, there are 2 1/2 months untill June 1st, I am still a graduate student, I still have my T.A. responsibilities, and I have a thesis to finish in that time frame! In some respects it seems like more than enough time, and in some ways, it seems scary impossible! I still need to write the majority of my thesis, I need to do at least 5 more interviews, hopefully 7, I need to analyze those interviews, I need to defend my thesis, and I need to submit my final written version and have it all corrected by then....well, that last part I could send in the mail, but it would be best if it was all done before we left. And that's just my school responsibilities. I also have to think about packing up a whole 2bdrm appartment and decide what will go, what will stay, and what can be sold.

I have a particularly bad habit, when I feel overwhelmed, of not doing anything. When I have so many things on my plate that I can't decide what i should do first, I end up taking forever to decide and then rush to complete things days before they should be done. I suppose it's not so bad, I've always operated this way, and in some respects, I work better this way. I've tried the recommended method of working on a large project a little bit at a time, but inevitably it always comes down to getting alot of little things done within a short period of time. AND, depending on what the project is, if it's not something I'm thinking about all the time, it takes me a good 20mins to an hour to get my mind back on the track for that project, so spending a little bit of time every day on it really doesn't help me much. I just wish I COULD do that, or that my house would clean it's self...that would help alot too! LOL.

Because, another bad habit of mine, is that when I am not particularly interested in what I have to do, I am easily distracted by other things I need to do that take less brain power. Like doing laundry or cleaning the house....and sometimes I can get REALLY distracted, and start using a completely opposite side of my brain! (Like writting in this journal or making something) Heh, anyway, the waiting place is a pretty annoying place to be. It's hard to get up the motivation to do things I know I need to do, when all I have any interest in is plans for Colorado! I know I should just let myself get comfortable here,...it's not going to go any faster and it certainly won't make the move any easier if I procrastinate and don't get my thesis done! lol. But still, I just have this sense that it's not going to be so hard to write the thesis, and I know I'll need to write it in big chunks to get all my thoughts out, and just...yeah....it's a matter of showing what I found in a way that other people can understand. It's not all that scary, just, time consuming and uninteresting. My least favorite thing is non-fictional writting...like for reports and such. It's kind of unfortunate that I'm so good at it. :-/

The Expectation of Marriage - Babies

Ok, so it's obviously been a long time since I wrote in this, because it's tied to an e-mail with my maiden name and It took me a good 10 minutes to figure this out.

So anyway, one of the most annoying things, I've found, about being newly married, is how everyone seems to assume that whenever you feel less than par, you must be pregnant. As if the very fact that I am now sexually active means that I'm going to get pregnant imediately! What the crap! I found this particularly annoying for the first few months of our marriage, because to be completely honest, being pregnant was the LAST thing I wanted. The very idea of being pregnant scared the crap out of me! My husband and I do not feel we are in a place to support children right now, and perhaps it's even a little bit selfish; we don't WANT to make room for a child. Either way, being pregnant now would certianly put some kinks in the plans.

But to get back to my story, for the first few months of our marriage, I barely gave a thought to being pregnant. We have been careful about using birth control, and I just knew that I wasn't. It pretty much never crossed my mind. Then one of my closest friends found out she was pregnant. She was married almost 2 months after my husband and I, and she found out she was pregnant about 3 months into her marriage. I have to admit, that scared me. They decided they WANTED to try for children, and for that purpose, I am excited for them. I know the child is welcome and wanted and I know THEY feel they are ready. But it brought the uncomfortable idea of pregnancy into MY world, and it freaked me out.

Ever since then, all I have heard, from sooo many different sources is baby, baby, baby, pregnancy, pregnancy, pregnancy! I see it everywhere, I hear it everywhere, and it was making me slightly paranoid! I mean, I'm still scared by the idea of being pregnant, of having children at this point in my life, but the idea of being a mom is starting to grow on me. My mom asked me if seeing my friend pregnant made me want to be pregnant. I can't lie, it does kind of make me feel left behind. I still feel as tho now would not be the best time for my husband and I, but SEEING her belly grow larger, knowing there is a life growing inside...that's a precious and mysterious thought. For about a month after that, I was so paranoid that I was pregnant. I stopped drinking wine, I limited my intake of tuna, because I knew if I WAS pregnant, those would be bad things to eat. The thing is, I wasn't trusting God with it. I mean, I know it's logical, I know it makes sense that I would feel freaked out and left behind and all that Jazz...it didn't help either that my friend confided in me that they were still using birthcontrol when she conceived. That completely took away my feeling of safety, and my poor husband was left with a nervous hypersensitive wife who was paying attention to every little ache and pain and stomach cramp imagineable. It quite literally drove me insane! I finally took an at home pregnancy test, and it came back negative, but even though I should have been relieved (which I was, don't get me wrong), I also felt strangely sad and empty!

Now, as a woman, I know I am uniquely desighned to carry children and to desire children, which is perhaps what came over me in that month, but once I was thinking straight again, I knew I had not experienced any symptoms of being pregnant and I realized that even if I HAD been pregnant, I did not have to obsess over it. Many women don't even know they are pregnant untill they miss their period or go for a doctors appointment or something. I was feeling like my life was being ripped from me and thrown out of control, when in reality, I was trying to cling to control that wasn't mine to begin with. God knows when it is best for my husband and I to have children, and he knows what is best for that child. He will not give us more than we can handle.

All that being said, I have started to experience nausea at night when I go to bed, and this morning I felt pretty icky when I woke up too. I don't know how much of it is in my head, and how much of it is eating bad stuff, but the baby thought sprang up first thing in my mind! I guess I would rather it be that than something more serious like a hernia or something, but it irritates me that I can't seem to shake that concern. It shouldn't even BE a concern. Children are blessings from God. I just need to stop obsessing about the whole thing and leave it to God. I trust that he's not going to give us a child untill the timing is right. I've no doubt it will require my husband and I to give up some things, but as long as we are seeking God's will I don't believe he will give us a child when we are unable to provide for one. Perhaps I am wrong on that, but it helps. I don't feel like I can talk to my husband about these concerns, because he thinks I'm being paranoid, which means he won't take me seriously. He thinks I'm worrying about it too much, which I absolutely WAS before, but saying so does not help me move beyond that...I am just so annoyed and frustrated. Having a child scares me, but being pregnant is starting to appeal to me. My husband thinks I'm paranoid, and I KNOW I have been acting somewhat paranoid, but It doesn't help me get past this worry. When you tell someone not to worry, they inevitably start worrying. That's just the way of things.

I am pretty sure I am NOT pregnant, since I don't feel like i have anything living or growing inside of me, but even if I am, I am determined not to obsess over it. God knows our needs and his plans for us are better than anything we could come up with for ourselves. I need to trust HIM with this. I just wish people would stop getting pregnant and talking about babies!

~Mae