Tuesday, January 17, 2012

O-ver-whelmed

It has been a while. Besides two needed getaway trips to JMU/DC and NOVA, I have been leading a pretty lazy life. I told myself this time last year, give or take two weeks, that I was experiencing my last college winter break. A month of being off, with no stress and time with family. Well I lied to myself... this year I have managed an even longer one! It has been a challenging time for me. I welcomed it at first, needing time to catch up on sleep. But that is all I have managed to catch up on (and well I quickly joined The Hunger Games obsession)! Today I am attempting to motivate myself and actually put to use all this free time to more important things than catching up on all reruns of all my favorite childhood shows.... and I am blogging.

It is a hard stage of life to be post-grad, employed as a sub in a horrible economy. I have been eligible 3 days now- no calls and no success on job shopping. I hit refresh on my browser 50 times in which the same message appears: "There are no available jobs at this time." I have experienced feelings of loneliness, laziness, abandonment, failure, fear, BUT amidst it all God has provided and I have been more thankful than any other times in the past. Simple ways of providing money, like a random babysitting gig last Friday or subbing for my PM Kindergarten class next Tuesday, have caused me to continuously praise God the entire day. One of my dearest friends, Paul, encouraged me last Friday after the babysitting job while we were hanging out. He said that it was so refreshing for me to be around that night because I was so joyful, something he hasn't seen in a while.

I have been reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It is not my favorite style of writing, so it is hard for me to absolutely love it, but the premise is something I need to learn badly. She challenges you to experience daily thanksgiving and recognition of God's gifts in everyday life; to practice being fully present. My prayer is that as I continue reading, my heart would be softened to live out daily thanksgiving. There are so many things I take for granted along with so many seemingly small ways I find God in everyday life that I usually let pass me by. How much deeper my love for the Father and recognition of His love for me would be if I could recognize more often His presence daily.

On that note, today is a day of conquering a big to do list including: organizing my job portfolio, asking questions about applying for teacher licensure, applying for teacher licensure, and asking for reference letters (biggest cause of anxiety right now). I have been putting these off, because I have been so uncertain about where I want to end up... I need to start somewhere and I need to trust God with the plan. Perhaps that will be a post for a later time.