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Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts

Friday, April 1, 2011

A bleeding heart

Sorry, my spellcheck isnt working! Good luck!

Ive been badly negecting this blog, which is unfortunate. I think in part I ignore it because I dont think it is ever read and in part because I dont know what the dirrection of the blog should be. The former has never stopped me from writing before. Ive been writing since before I knew how form my letters and its only been in recent years that I have had an oppertunity to put that suff where people can see it. LOL. I used to keep a blog about a health condition that I struggle with. I did that for four years and built an incredible support system that way, but in the past year or so everybody has migrated away from that site My health is also much better right now and I dont identify myself as much by my illness anymore. Anyways, not knowig the dirrection of this blog IS a problem. Initailly I started it as a way of doing homework assignmetns for a sociology class...I had to find things around me that reminded me of problems in society and give my opinion of it. (Yeah that was an easy class!) But then I wanted to kinda continue that but put in more about my personal life/intersets and aspirations. I also want this to be a possitive blog, which is sometimes hard because I have a hard time always being positive (dirrectly related to my health issues.)

Well, today I am just going to write soemthing that has been on my heart. Im currently in pre-Nursing school. Its a long story why Im not in Nursing School yet, and Im not going to tell it now. I have my pre-requisites done for the most part, but amd gonna retake a few of them becasue I got some Cs in the anatomy and physiology classes and I need higher grades to get into other schools (I have all As besides theose A&P classes and math classes.) So, sicne it has taken me so long to get this far, I have also been working on my associates in social work. So here is the deal, I want to be a missionary. Thats all Ive ever wanted to do, but Ive always felt lead to do medical missions and have been trying to get my nursing degree since I was 18. Im actaully a pretty good student but finances and my health has made this a slow road.

My husband, who was once very open to missions is now- not really into it at all. He wants to make money and have nice cars and live in the suburbs. There's actually nothing wrong with this. Lots of American's feel this way, but its not at all how I am oriented. As I began to discover these things I was gripped with a crushing depression. Its litterally been since before Kindergarden that I knew I felt called to missions. I selected my husband VERY carefully with this goal in mind. I actually turned down marriage proposals from nice, godly gentlemen simply becasue I wasnt willing to pass on what I felt was my God-given calling. Before we were married, my husband spoke of wanting to be involved in the ministry but that he didn't know in what capacity. He said when he met me, he felt like it was Gods way of dirrecting him to the ministry he had planned for him. He siad that he felt called to marry me, and that  becasue I already had a calling in my life, then he knew that was also Gods calling on his life (since God was bringing our lives together.) Ministry was a HUGE focus of our premarital counseling. We also were in a Missions class together before the wedding that concluded a few weeks after the wedding last summer. When that class ended, so did my husbadns interest in missions. He no longer likes for me to talk about missions. Sometimes when he starts talking about all the material goods he wants and I ask when missions will fit into the plan and he seems exasperated with me. Like I say, as this stuff started unfolding, I really was over come by depression.

In recent weeks I have been doing better, depression wise. I guess for a while I felt really confused. I felt like maybe I had msunderstood God, either about Missions or about Marriage. But the more I think about it, the less I believe I got that wrong. I know Im supposed to be my husbands wife. I prayed a lot about it and really felt it was the right decision. And I love my husband. What I am now trying to do is figure out what I want to do with my life- what Gods dirrection form my life is. I want my life to be something that will bring glory to God, something that will call those who have been astranged from their heavenly father to a knowlege of his saving grace. Nursing was always my prefered means of doing that. I knew that with nursing, i could minister to somebodies physcial needs and it would nto matter if I could speak their language. I longed to provide medical care to those who had no earthly hope to access such care. Thats where my heart as ALWAYS been.

I LOVE people. Ive been accused of being a bleeding heart more than once or twice. Do you ever just drive by somebody random on the street and just start thinking about how wholey and completely they are loved by God? That Christ DIED for them to have a realtionship with them. This happens to me A LOT. I've been known to just become overwhelmed by emotion at this thought that i sttart to cry and pray for that person. i cannot watch the news because its really too heavey for me. I feel like I sometimes feel the actual pain of the people described. As a write, I have to a be a good empathizer. As somebody who has suffered much pain and loss in this life, its not hard for me to tap into these feelings when I see soembody hurting. I beleive God designed me this way on purpose. I belive he WANTS  me to do soemthing with it. The truth is, if I am going to be stuck here in the US, I do NOT want to be a shift nurse. I see ZERO point to it. I have no passion for it.

Ive considered pushing and pushing my hsuband, manipulating him into agreeing to do Missions, like he did before we were married, but I dont think that would be God-honoring. I have to find a way to honor God in this situation. So I am asking myself, what do I want to do? What tallents has God give me? How can I make an impact here? I dont think missions had to be to far away lands (although I always THOUGHT I was called to serve over seas) Maybe God has a plan for me to be a missionary right here? I long to do foster care and adoption. Ive always wanted a huge family and adoption is how I want to make that happen.In particular, I want to be able to foster/adopt sibling groups.That will certainly impact lives, but I think I can do more than that. I want to homeschool- my vision was always homeschooling on the missions feild, but I've also considered teaching. I know in public schools you are very limited to what you are allowed to talk about so that could be limiting too. So, Ive considered somehthing like a private  Chrisitan montisori school, but I dont really want to minister only to kids from Christian homes. I am close to having my associates in social work- I've thought about working with DCYF- but if I do get the chance to do missions in the future, well, thats not really a transferable skill. Ive wondered if my husbadn could ever be pursuaded to be house parents to a childrens home. I saw some on missions websites before down in the south. But i dont know- that might also interfere with our ability to have children that we get to "keep." I've also though about doing somehting in therapy and working with children recovering from trauma and those with attachment issues, the mom I nanny for (who has her masters in Psychology and three adopted children from fostercare) said that is a hopeless career and the therapists who work in that feild are not able to fix the children or do much to make them better. But what if God was involved in the therapy? .... What else? I love agriculture, but again, mostlty envision that being useful to missions. I could see practicle applications for it in the inner city, but my husband doesnt want me to work in the inner city because he is afraid Ill get hurt. Ive considered pursing the nursing and planning to work in a not-for-profit but agan, with the inner city issue. I cannot imagine doing anything with my life that would not be working to make other peoples lives more bareable.

So in short, I have lots of ideas and Im excited to figure out how I want to make this work. Of course Im never going to give up praying for God to turn my husband's heart back to Missions, Im never going to stop praying that my hsuband's heart will be softened towards the people God loves. But I also need to figure out who I can serve God here, where I am. I need to have the best attitude about this possible, as if I was doing EVERYTHING as if unto the Lord. So, trying to figure this all out has been kinda stressful, if you happen to have read this, please pray as I decide what to do. Ask God to revel his will for my life-- or at least the next steps he wants me to take. And pray for my attitude all the while!

Friday, October 8, 2010

I got married...

I have taken a looong hiatus from this blog and you may wonder why. Well, the day after my last post, I started dating the man I would end up marrying. I was not looking to date and I certainly was not looking to get married at this point in my life, but sometimes God has other plans for us. Looking back at the last year+ of my life, its pretty clear to me a now that God was preparing me for marriage- I just didn't know it at the time. So I have known the man who is now my husband for over a year, I'll call him "M". He was in the co-ed Bible study at church with me. Its a fairly small church but we have a good number of people in the 20 something age bracket. Anyways, I could tell the story some time if anybody is interested...
Our wedding was June 28th- it was beautiful, emotional, wonderful, spiritual, homey, everything-I-wanted despite being imperfect! My husband and I are absolutely in love and its been wonderful to start this journey together. Now my husband and I are getting used to being married and despite all our premarital counseling, its been a shockingly challenging adjustment! I'm blessed to have a strong Christian woman as a mentor in the absence of my own mother to help me and encourage me along the journey and that is really helpful. I'm realizing more and more that don't know everything I need to in order to be the godly wife I so desire to be. Thankfully my husband is extremely patient with me and we both try to be gracious with one another as we figure things out. :) I think I'm surprised at what a challenge the transition is. I thought that since my husband and I love each other so much, since we both long to put God first in our lives and frankly, because we both tend t be so easy going that the transition would be a easy one...boy was I ever wrong! Now, I don't want anyone to get the impression that anything is WRONG, certainly its not. Its just that neither of us have ever been in this position before and there is a lot to learn. I'm sure anybody who has been married knows what I'm talking about. :)
So far, in the first three months, some of my/our biggest challenges have been:
  • Scheduling! Even though I put nursing school off for a year to be able to be at home more, we have a LOT going on. My husband is a full-time student (He's on the GI bill since he's a veteran so he is paid for being enrolled in school- that's where most of our income comes from.) I still go to school part time and work THREE part time jobs. Then we are very active in our church and at the end of everyday sometimes we can hardly drag ourselves to bed, never mind go on dates! I cannot IMAGINE if I was juggling nursing school on top of all of that.
  • I've become very emotional and sensitive. I try not to be overly so, and I never used to be but sometimes I just get hurt so easily by comments my husband makes that really shouldn't bother me so. I'm not sure why this has happened. :-/ My husbands a pretty wonderful guy and doesnt make especially hurtful comments, so I don't know what my problem is.
  • Learning to communicate tenderly even when I'm in a terrible mood. As a single person I could have taken some time to myself to calm down, and center myself- even when I lived with many other people. I now have to learn how to communicate in an appropriate way when my husband very much wants to be cuddly with me and I'm trying to DO SOMETHING and am feeling very agitated. This happens quite a bit and its tricky to navigate. Its taken me quite by surprise because I've never really considered myself as snappy before. I've hurt his feelings a number of times and its blown up into an argument on more than one occasion. :-( I can see that this could really become a toxic trend if I don't learn to break it!
  • My husband has had a really hard time adjusting to life with two large, active dogs. I had two Queensland heeler crosses before we got married and they are now living with us in our less-than-700 square foot apartment with us. Ive had dogs all my life so its not a big deal to me. Although he likes dogs, he never had one before and I think he is suprised by what a handfull they can be. Its been a rough change for all of us because of this, but things are getting better.
  • As a Christian couple who was seeking to honor God with our relationship, we saved physical intimacy for after the wedding...Having this new dynamic in our relationship is both wonderful and challenging. I'm OBVIOUSLY not going to share any details here but I do want to say that although I am SO HAPPY we waited, there have been a few times where I have asked God if having us wait is supposed to be some kind of joke. There are so many aspects to adjust to as a married couple and for me, this is one of the most difficult components for some reason. I don't know very many women who had to learn to integrate this part of the relationship AFTER marriage. Most people I knew handled that challenge at a different times in their relationship than right after the marriage and sadly, there have been times I have envied them for being able to break up the many challenges into smaller chunks. I'm terribly ashamed to say that I have even questioned whether I would advocate to my own children "waiting for marriage" considering how challenging that it is....But in my heart, I KNOW that God's plan is absolutely the best plan and even though it comes with added challenges, I think my husband and I did it the right way. I also know in my heart that I could not have handled the emotions that come along with this part of a (marriage) relationship without the absolute assurance and confidence that I was with the person I would be spending the rest of my life with and that it was pleasing to and blessed by God. I also trust that it will continue to work itself out and that God will give us the grace to learn from it and grow together. I will absolutely advocate to my children to save physical intimacy for marriage.

Okay, now some of the TREASURES of our first three months of marriage:

  • Waking up to each other every morning and enjoying coffee with the person I love most in the world. :)
  • I've been sick a few times in the past few months, first with a kidney infection and more recently with a stomach thing and my husband was SOOOOOOOO sweet and tender to me. Truly the servant leader he's called to me. It touched my heart deeply.
  • Having somebody there to share our struggles and disappointments with. The other day I was feeling extremely down because of a test grade I got and my husband was so encouraging and really made me feel better.
  • Having somebody there to share victories with. My husband got an amazing grade on a test for a subject at school he had really been struggling with and it was wonderful to be excited for him and proud. He worked really hard to do that.
  • Our (almost) daily Bible studies together. Its wonderful to be growing closer to our savior as we are growing closer to each other. We have also started attending a new couples small group at church called "Love and Respect." Its supposed to be very good and we are excited about it.
  • I LOVE cooking for my hubby! It makes me feel all girly and domestic and capable. Feeding people healthy, yummy vegan foods is my love language!
  • Being called "Mrs. C_____" by the kids during the summer VBS program!!!! :-D
  • Reading Dave Ramsey's book "the total money makeover" and making a goal together to get out of debt together (and stay debt free) putting it in place and in just three short months paying off two debts and anticipating having the rest paid off by next September!!! (We both had a few small loans before we got married for school stuff and we had to borrow a little money for the apartment we are renting but we are paying that off TODAY and we paid off our wedding rings last month!)
  • Despite it's challenges, the physical intimacy as well as the emotional and spiritual intimacy is absolutely a blessing to our marriage.
  • His willingness to sell his truck so I could go to nursing school, my willingness to put nursing school off a year to focus on our new marriage. We both grew to respect each other a LOT from that week.
  • Not having to say "Good night and good bye"at the end of the day and just being able to say "good night" as we fall asleep in each others arms.
  • His protectiveness over me, his calling the cops when we had reason to believe I was in danger because of a situation at work. And his subsequent refusal to allow me to walk the dogs with him at night during that time because he wanted to keep me safe. <3>
  • His playing the guitar for a concert of one- me.
  • The way he looks at me when I'm looking scrubby- like I'm the most beautiful creature in the world
  • Our camping honeymoon and the dreams we share of living in the country one day.
  • too many more to list

So, I'm a happy girl, but I'm definitely a spiritually and emotionally GROWING girl. Haha...I guess now I can start to record that journey!