You know that thing. That thing you feel when you are doing something you love. Something you’re good at. Something even you, in all of your insecurity, can admit you are good at. Something you know God gave you. That gift. That talent. The pure bliss and joy you feel when you do it. That bubbling of your heart (the touchy feely heart bubbling, not the heart burn acid reflux-ish bubble). It makes you want to smile, hum, skip, bob your head. If you are perceptive you might even be able to see it in others. It makes you believe in yourself. It makes you dream. It gives you the warm fuzzies. You have courage in it. You have spunk when you do it. You do it with gumption…

I’ve been thinking about that thing tonight. It began stirring in my heart by my favorite television show, Glee! Cheesy, dramatic, funny, silly show. It has its flaws and cons, but it does often communicate a good message. In the finale the glee kids competed at regionals. It was obvious, which is obviously what they meant to show through the acting, that the glee kids had “heart”. They were the underdogs, and they didn’t win, but they had heart. You could see it. And yes, its not real. But they meant to show that through their acting, and they did. When people do things with “heart” you see it. When you do something with heart you feel it. You feel that thing.

The thought was brought back to my mind by some kids from my church that have more gumption than most adults could ever achieve. These girls are not even teenagers yet. They are preteens and they have started their own business. They are making and selling dog treats, toys, shampoo, and washing dogs, etc. And I asked, “So what are ya’ll doing with the money, splitting it?” To which she replied, “We’re saving it for college.” They are all 13 or under! Can you imagine what God is going to do in the lives of those girls? With dreams and visions and courage and spunk and gumption like that?! They are going to change the world.

You don’t have to be a kid to have it. We all have it. It’s in us somewhere. The guts to do what God created us to do and the things He called us to do, it’s there. My thoughts about that thing are confusing me tonight. I know what makes me feel it, and what I have it in. I feel it when I write. I feel it when I cook and bake for others. I feel it when I teach. I feel it when I hold a baby. I feel it when I know God is using me to make a difference. I feel it when I work with girls and women. But what does it mean when you don’t feel it. People have jobs everyday that are just jobs. It makes the world go round. Are you supposed to feel it at your job? Does not feeling it mean you aren’t doing what you are supposed to be doing? Can you make yourself feel it? And what if all the things you feel it in don’t go together or make sense? Feeling it makes me dream. Not feeling it crushes dreams for me. So tonight, I’m confused. I don’t feel it at all in my job. So I’m torn. Can I make myself feel it? Or am I in the wrong place? And how do I make the things I feel it in, the gifts, talents, and abilities, fit together?

I need a dream. I need a vision. I need direction. It can happen. “Somewhere over the rainbow way up high, and the dreams that you dreamed of once in a lullaby, somewhere over the rainbow blue birds fly and the dreams that you dreamed of, dreams really do come true.” I once knew I could change the world and make a difference. I’ve had dreams. I have them. I KNOW God gives me that thing for a reason. Maybe I’m just impatient. I want it. I want to feel that thing. I want to feel my heart burst with joy knowing I’m where God wants me and doing what He wants. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Here I am. Fumbling with all these pieces, trying to put together the puzzle of me that only God truly knows and can put together. In the words of Mr. Shuester, “Life only really has one beginning and one end, and the rest is just a whole lot of middle.” I want to have high hopes for you middle.

Disclaimer: My tummy hurts and I can’t focus on work so my head is swimming and if I know me, this is likely to be ramble-y and a combination of several posts I’ve thought about making in the last month and have lots of run-on sentences and no certain point. Or maybe I’ll amaze myself and have a killer ending paragraph to tie it all together, but don’t count on it. 🙂

Well it’s official. I’m growing up. I’m 27 now you know. I’m very responsible and adult like (despite the fact that I’m being irresponsible right now and blogging at work and wearing flip flops at work). Okay so maybe I’m not always responsible and adult like. I do have three Glee soundtracks in my car I listen to non-stop, along with all three High School Musicals, Camp Rock, and The Hannah Montana Movie soundtracks, and lets not forget The Jonas Brothers and all of their cds that also live in my collection. BUT I am growing up. I have had my first full time adult job for 8 months now and have managed to make all of my clients, even the difficult (crazy) ones like me. Just this week one of those cra.. I mean difficult ones told me I was a tough cookie and she was glad I was her case manager. See! Me.. a tough cookie. That’s growing up. Another reason I know I’m growing up is because of this past birthday I just had where I got further from 25 and closer to 30, where I almost decided that I was officially too old to celebrate birthdays because of the day… Allow me to share.

Okay so it was my birthday and every birthday I always plan out my outfit in detail, buy a new outfit or something fun like that. I mean it’s your birthday! You have to look cute. So of course, I did. Bright yellow dress, gray and yellow stripped cardigan, cute owl necklace, good hair day, you know, great birthday outfit! So my coworkers and I had decided to order out to Copeland’s for lunch to go and eat it in the office for lunch.  Well if you know me and my quirks, you know I have a tendency to be a control freak and to get stressed out when things don’t go smoothly. Well in true Kasia-fashion, since no one else volunteered to take everyone’s orders and organize everything in a time that I thought they should, me and my control freakishness did it. And then of course, I got stressed out because people wouldn’t hurry, we didn’t order on time, people changed their orders, etc. So I placed, called in, and collected money and cards for all 10ish orders. One coworker did help collect the money. So then I went with all my separate labeled in detail envelopes with the money and cards with two other girls to pay and pick up everything. I paid the tip and paid for two people’s orders (on my birthday), who eventually paid me back but it was over a week.

So we get back with the food, and everyone’s food is there… except mine! So of course I’m already stressed out and aggravated, and then no food for me! Except my cheesecake was there. So while my friend went to pick up mine, I started eating my yummy banana fudge cheesecake. I mean it’s my birthday okay, I can eat dessert first! So whilst eating said yummy cheesecake… “Kasia, line 3.” So I answer and its a dropping a bomb of a call full of crazy stuff I’m going to have to fix and deal with, which on any other day, sure would have been stressful, but following the events of the day already and the fact that it was my birthday… well I didn’t handle it to well. Not too many details, but it lead to me having to call police, call protective services, lots of allegations, illegal drugs, stealing, etc. So as I get off the phone and start to complain and freak out and inquire about what to do now, I hear, “Um, Kasia. You have chocolate on your dress.” I look down and it not just on my dress, it’s ALL OVER my dress. I’m talking from the frilly scoop neck to my knees. So I lay my head down on my desk and just cry for about 30 minutes. Then spent 30 minutes using an entire tide pen getting it all out, which I did. Then I got fussed at about something else so went and sat on the bathroom floor at work and cried for another 30 minutes. Then cried in my car all the way home.

Now I did end up having a good birthday. Against what I felt, I wanted to just lay in the bed and cry, but I went to a women’s ministry thing that night, wore a sombrero, heard the happy birthday song and had great company. And the next day I went out with some wonderful friends for dinner and a movie and it was in fact a redeemable birthday. And I’m not gonna stop celebrating, yet. But, I know I’m growing up, and just growing as a person, because even though I was hypersensitive because it was my birthday and it just stunk, I cried all the way home and on the bathroom floor because God was speaking to me and showing me huge things.

I’ve been going to counseling for almost two years now and the counselor I have had since August is just amazing. Every day isn’t great. But there isn’t a week of my life that I can’t look back and see how I learned something new about myself or grew in someway or took a baby step of some sort. I’m not where I wish I was, but facing your past, a stolen childhood, a dysfunctional history, and learning from it and how to fix it and change things about yourself that are your fault and some that aren’t, doesn’t happen over night. Becoming who God wants you to be is a process for anyone, but even more so when there are so many things in the way that affect how you see God, yourself, how you trust, and fundamental things that are vitally important to living the life God wants for you. Thursday is counseling day. Friday was my birthday.

That Thursday I had one of the many revelations I’ve had about myself through this whole counseling and going through God’s refinery process and then saw it unfold before my eyes all day Friday. I always knew I had to deal with things as a child that a lot of adults have never even had to deal with. But I didn’t know that meant something. My reading for counseling that week had been about growing up in a dysfunctional family and how living in constant unpredictable crisis after crisis affects you and how children of those families often lose their childhood. My first thought was so what, big deal, how does that affect anything. But as always, as I read my homework from this book that I swear was written by me from the future or something, it hit me like a ton of bricks. My friend Stacy and I used to joke about how, because of how we grew up and things that had happened in our families, we always have just lived in survival mode. I’ve prided myself in living in survival mode. When people told me I was strong to have dealt with stuff, in my mind I shrugged and didn’t feel like I was strong. I just felt like I survived, because it’s what I knew how to do. And thank God for survival mode then, I needed it. But now as an adult, I’m having to learn to let go of it.

My entire childhood and adolescence was lived from crisis to crisis. When you grow up like that, you learn to not trust when things are calm, to always expect a crisis and to live your life focused on whatever crisis is at hand. As an adult, the way it plays it self out is in sabotaging your own success. As I read every example of how adults do this, my heart sunk. I saw myself in every single one: you tell yourself that you don’t deserve to succeed, you tell yourself that God doesn’t want you to succeed, you tell yourself the good you desire will never happen so you might as well quit trying, you tell yourself that whatever you have accomplished has been fake because you were wearing a mask, you cultivate an addition to work (or volunteering or activities) that keeps you in a state of near exhaustion, you give in to fear just before you reach a major goal, you tell yourself the future will never come, you maintain a commitment to stay on the edge of success without ever achieving it. Now, I’m not a negative person usually. So I’m not saying I consciously said or thought these things ever, or was even aware of them, but as I read them and the more in depth descriptions, I saw myself and so many things that I do. I understood parts of myself for the first time.

And then (and by the way Mr. Blog, I know you have fallen asleep and are no longer listening to me, but that’s okay, I am good at talking to myself, it’s a very complicated talent I’ve developed) reading the book I wrote in the future and published under some other name and sent back to the present, about a lost childhood, just wow. It talked about how a child loses that is by becoming a caretaker, by abuse, by learning to turn off emotions, and by choosing to survive in a harsh family situation. All of which are things that happened and I did without even being aware. I was just surviving, but it happened. And let me say, I love my parents. And am so happy to be alive and that their DNA and only theirs made and could have made me. But life is messy, things happen. We are fallen people that live in a fallen world. We make mistakes and those mistakes affect generations. Not on purpose, but they do. But when you live in crazyland full of crisis after crisis, the adults have bigger things to focus on than making sure a child is nurtured as a child should be. My parents always provided. My mom even as a single mom even always provided. We never missed a meal (obviously), we always had a house, clothes, and basic physical needs. But children have emotional needs. They don’t know they do. And sometimes parents don’t know that the child does either, but it’s a fact.

Children need to play, they need to know emotions are okay, they need to feel safe, they need to believe mom and dad will be there tomorrow, they need to know someone will be there when they are hurt, they need to know certain values are honored in their family, they need to know someone will listen, they need help knowing what is real. To a child shadows move on their own, monsters live in the closet and under the bed, their best friend doesn’t like them because they threw a rock at them, it’s a parents job to do all of that. Big scary job, but it is. If home isn’t a safe place, if its a dysfunctional crazyland,  that doesn’t happen. Kids brains aren’t developed. They don’t know what they are doing. They are just surviving when life is crazy. They don’t learn how to feel. They don’t learn what emotions are okay or what emotions you should feel about something. So a child makes an unspoken decision to become a caretaker. In the words of the book,

“She musters all the strength she can find, she starts taking care of things and people. The child becomes a fixer of people. She learns to smooth out rough spots in relationships. She becomes a problem solver. She covers for her parents when they make mistakes. She may even do some very impressive things to bring honor to an otherwise dishonorable situation. This child is now a caretaker. Caretakers do not have much time to be children.”

During childhood is when you develop the ability to trust. If something happens to take that away, children learn that trusting is too dangerous and not to do it anymore. They become bullerproof and lose the innocent trust of childhood. In healthy families, when something bad happens, a child can talk about it later and ask what it meant, why it happened, and if everything is okay. In dysfunctional families, nobody says anything the next day, or the next, or ever. Things are never talked about. This is what I read and felt it sink and sink and sink into my heart and awareness of myself.

So Friday, the birthday, I see it everywhere. I saw it in everything I do. In every way that I handled the events of the entire day. I watched myself being a caretaker over something as small as taking lunch orders.  I watched myself not trusting others enough to do it. I remembered time after time when I’ve done it in the past. It’s like a movie playing in my mind all day. A mix of my childhood and adulthood and so many things that now made sense. Understanding why I freak out and why I can’t imagine a future and why I can’t believe God’s promises for me. I saw myself not trusting that anyone will stay in my life. I saw myself as the fixer of people, of everything. I saw myself living from crisis to crisis. I saw my walls and how I don’t let anyone in and let anyone help me. I saw how I hide from my emotions. I saw so many instances of sabotaging my own success. I saw my relationship with God. I saw what the past two years of this sometimes really difficult season of my life have been. I vividly saw the picture described in the book I wrote in the future and sent back to the present (the book is called Making Peace With Your Past by Tim Sledge). The author said,

“…it’s like trying to hold down a bunch of balloons under water. The balloons are all trying to rise as you try to keep them down. Someday you will get tired, and the balloons will shoot out of the water because you will say: I’m tired. I can’t hold them down any longer.“

As I sat on the bathroom floor at work, as I cried my eyes out all the way home, I saw it. I was in the big ol’ Camp Garaywa pool. The balloons were red. I was crying and yelling at the sky, “No, no. I can do it. I can fix it. No not that one. I have it. I can take care of myself.” And I heard God saying in a calm, loving voice, “Just let go. Kasia… just.. let.. go.” And I realized this, this whole process, balloon by balloon, sometimes inch of balloon by inch of balloon, God’s teaching me and showing me how to let go and how to trust Him, and other people. I’m not there yet, but it’s a process. The definition of process is to work, to shape, to form. Blood, sweat, tears, effort and all, I’m not there, but I’m on my way.

Please don’t hear me complaining. I am not at all doing that. I 150 percent believe God gives you the parents and family He meant to. He doesn’t make mistakes. And I love and appreciate every sacrifice my parents made. I am alive because of their sacrifices. But I also believe God is the Master Crafter and Orchestrator and Play-maker of my life, of our lives. I believe and know He uses everything, the good, bad, ugly, dysfunctional, crazyland, baggage, issues, mess of life, all of it, for good. I believe He pushes the right buttons in my heart for all of this to come up and to surface so I can break the cycle. So I don’t have to keep passing the dysfunction down to future generations. And so that I can help other people. Like I said, life is messy. For 25 years I survived in my safe survival mode pretty wrapping paper covered package. But God decided it was time to get messy and deal with the mess that affected me in ways I never knew. He decided it’s time to be broken, and maybe for a while, and sort out all the pieces, so He can put them back together.

So I know I’m growing up. Because yes, I had a crappy birthday with no princess cakes or candles or train rides in formal dresses, but I saw God. I saw God in a friend who cared enough to get my forgotten food. I saw God in a tide pen. I saw God on a bathroom floor. I saw God in a red balloon. I saw God in the encouraging words of several friends I don’t let in enough. I saw God in an ugly sombrero. I’m growing up by growing… as a person, as a friend, as a child of God. I’m growing up by discovering the truth about myself and who I am, and who God is. I’m growing up by tearing down my walls one brick at a time. I’m growing up by slowly letting the red balloons go one by one.

And so… I’m 27 now. And I’m going to keep listening to the Jonas Brothers and being obsessed with Harry Potter, but I’m also going to keep growing.

In honor of my friend Candace who has found herself in that oh too familiar Waiting Place we’ve all experienced, I feel the need to share the wisdom of our good friend Dr. Seuss from my favorite book.

“You can get so confused that you’ll start to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. . .(dramatic da da da)

The Waiting Place…

for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or the bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.”

We have all found ourselves in this rather unfortunate place that my dear friend Dr. Seuss defines as The Waiting Place. Waiting for the elevator music to stop playing and lady to stop saying, “your call will be answered in approximately eight minutes or more” for the third time in the past 15 minutes on hold for AT&T, the bank, or all the other lovely numbers we have to call to be put on hold. Waiting to be connected with the operator who gives you a number to call someone else then waiting for the operator there who gives you another number where again you wait for the operator. Waiting in line at Wal-mart or the bank. Or waiting in the doctor’s office waiting room. Or waiting for good new or bad. Or perhaps waiting for answers or on a job or on a husband or on directions in life. Whatever the wait, The Waiting Place, I confirm, can be a most unpleasant place. But in those moments of waiting, perhaps God is calling us to trust him, maybe teaching us patience, or maybe He just wants to have us still for a moment so He can whisper softly to us that He loves us and give us a hug. And then…

“No! That’s not for you! Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing.”

Oh the blissful thought of The Escape… I think there will be Boom Bands in Heaven. I also think the sigh of relief after a stay in The Waiting Place sounds a little bit like a Boom Band tune.

A Self Portrait

There once was a girl who had a rather tragic beginning.
She was meant to be born when the leaves do their spinning.
Instead she was born on the very wrong day.
She was born in the very muggy month of May.

And some people think she was born in the wrong region,
For Asian she is not, and not Polish, nor Norwegian.
But her name is rather odd and rhymes with Asia.
And this is not where she’s from, this silly girl named Kasia.

She laughs like an old lady, emphysema-like and wheezy.
And the wiggling of toes makes her very uneasy.
A collector of odd things, like owls and super sticky post-its.
She organizes other people’s refrigerators and cabinets.

She likes to smile, but it usually make her cheeks hot.
The love of her friends, make her smile quite a lot.
A dreamer, procrastinator, silly, quirky, child of God, and friend,
The life she has been given, is not tragic at all, beginning, middle, or end.

Ha. Poetic Tuesday might not last long. Fun to try though.

Or Serious Monday. Or some other similar word I haven’t thought of or discovered yet. And who knows, I may change my mind and not want to be serious. Or skip a week of being serious. Or two weeks. Or a month. The beauty of writing. I get to decide or not decide. Can you handle an indecisive mind that never stops thinking Mitch? (Note: Mitch is the blog’s name for anyone reading other than Mitch)

So currently Monday is serious/contemplative/introspective/pensive because Monday is the day I go to counseling. Lots of self awareness type thoughts take place on Mondays. Oh how I wish an hour of work went by as fast as an hour of counseling. Though usually the first five minutes go by at a work-like pace. But by the end of the hour my counselor is having to push me out of the door. I won’t go into all the gory messed up details of my brain, that’s what the counseling is for. But some things are worth saying to you, Mitch, and to friends, maybe some even to the world. Today I feel like talking about healing.

Of all the places to find wisdom, I know Grey’s Anatomy wouldn’t be a top choice for many, me included. But the season premier voice-overs (best part of every Grey’s episode) spoke some words that I felt…

Meredith: The dictionary defines grief as keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow. 
Little Grey: Grief may be a thing we all have in common, but it looks different on everyone.
McSteamy: It isn’t just death we have to grieve. It’s life. It’s loss. It’s change.
Alex: And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, has to hurt so bad. The thing we gotta try to remember is that it can turn on a dime.
Izzie: That’s how you stay alive. When it hurts so much you can’t breathe, that’s how you survive.
McDreamy: By remembering that one day, somehow, impossibly, you won’t feel this way. It won’t hurt this much.
Bailey: Grief comes in its own time for everyone, in its own way.
Owen: So the best we can do, the best anyone can do, is try for honesty.
Meredith: The really crappy thing, the very worst part of grief is that you can’t control it.
Arizona: The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it when it comes.
Callie: And let it go when we can.
Meredith: The very worst part is that the minute you think you’re past it, it starts all over again.
Cristina: And always, every time, it takes your breath away.
Meredith: There are five stages of grief. They look different on all of us, but there are always five.
Alex: Denial.
Derek: Anger.
Bailey: Bargaining.
Little Grey: Depression.
Chief: Acceptance.

You may or may not have noticed that I seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth for almost a year. For all the inquisitive Nancy Drews out there, or Neds in your case Mitch, case solved. Reason for disappearance: healing and grief. Excuse? No. Not meant to be. If you care to know all the details, I’d love to sit down and have coffee with you, I have nothing to hide. Only a story God has given me and a history that makes me who I am, my present what it is, and my future what it will be, all meant to bring God glory. But I do not intend, tonight at least, to spill my guts. I’d just like to talk a little about healing and grief. A few things I’ve learned. And am still learning.

As written by the Grey’s Anatomy writers, and others I’m certain, death isn’t the only thing we grieve. Change… Life… Loss… Grief is kind enough to not show favoritism. Thank you grief. Ha. Joking aside though, yes it stinks, worse than a zoo, but it’s real, it hurts, but it has purpose.

Forrest Gump says life is like a box of chocolates. I’ve also heard life described as an onion. If you don’t like onions, bad analogy. I happen to like them, so it works for me. But like an onion, it’s really of no use or no good to anyone as is. It’s got all those squiggly, sprouty things on the ends, and those paper like coverings. And I guess if you’re boiling crawfish, maybe after removing the paperish coverings and squigglies it could be edible to a crazy drunk guy after boiled who likes to eat onions like apples. But onions are most of use when cut. When the layers are peeled away. And what happens when you cut and peel layers? Unless you know some secret I don’t… tears. And lots of them. I’d like to think the onion is grieving. But in the end, once cooked, after some painful heat, it adds flavor and tastes much sweeter.

As stated earlier, this things is huge. Enough to fill a book. I do not intend to write that book here. But I will add this. Don’t fight it. Don’t hide it. Don’t avoid it and think you can suppress it. Feel it when it comes. Deal with it. Because even if you think you beat it by not dealing with it, it’s still there. We are breakable humans. God didn’t make us unbreakable super humans for a reason. We bleed, we bruise, we feel pain. Why shouldn’t we let ourselves accept that our insides are the same? Beyond the organs and blood and vessels, those insides. We don’t deny the fact that if you stub your toe it hurts, if you cut your finger it bleeds, if you fall up the stairs (a skillful talent) you bruise. Life hurts, it cuts, it wounds, it bruises. Healing of the insides doesn’t happen if you pretend you don’t need it. Unfortunately we can’t just put band-aids on our hearts. It builds up and 26 years later culminates and forces you to peel the painful layers. Grief ends in acceptance. Not denial. Denial is a part of grief, but acceptance is the end. And I personally think the last stage is lifelong. Like a cool scar. A story to be told. And in the case of these life scars, a God’s glory scar.

Remember that episode of cops where that lady’s way too young for her boyfriend got arrested for not paying child support so the lady went and lived with the boyfriend’s baby mama and kids. Oh wait.. that’s my mom. Does this game of life have a go back to start box to land on? Ok just kidding. I love many things about my life. And my family has made me who I am. And I do love them, most of them, I think. But I should know that calm never means calm, just means calm before the storm. Serious moment over.

Now to attempt to be slightly funny because the notification of the above mentioned circumstances have put a damper on my I’m in love with the concept of Jim from The Office high and I need to write and make jokes about things (and I meant to not use commas or punctuation and not take a breath til the end, as I would have said it). In light of recent circumstance I’ve decided I am now taking applications. Let me explain the circumstances, before I explain what I am taking applications for.

Circumstance #1: I name inanimate objects. My car, Wentworth. My GPS, Ivy Clara. The pumpkin on my desk, Pete. My blog, Mitch. My owls, Portland, Asa, Ace, Clementine, to name a few.

Circumstance #2: I sleep with a stuffed elephant named Pumpkin.

Circumstance #3: My family is crazy.

Circumstance #4: I have to eat left overs for three days in a row at the least and freeze a portion too, for later use.

Circumstance #5: I make cute little lunches for myself with folded napkins and sandwiches cut in triangles and carrots and graham crackers in ziplock snack bags.

Based on the above mentioned circumstance, I have decided, using logic and reason, that I am now taking applications for a husband and/or kids. Please send all application to The Council (which is also taking applications, though some of you have been inducted into said Council without your knowing due to your valued opinions and the level that you know me and/or how much you love me). Refer all questions to The Council as well. They will be able to inform you if an applicant is suitable or not.

[If you don’t know I’m kidding (at least for the most part, though I can’t say I, I mean The Council, would turn down an application he he) then you don’t know me and should not be reading this blog.]

One might gather from the title “The End” that there may be a beginning and a middle. Well one would be smart. In the case of this story, its far more appropriate to tell “The End” first. And if I don’t some people may kill me :). Not you of course Mitch. Oh Mr. Blog has a name. His Aunt Micki named him Mitch. And let me go ahead and clarify that “The End” is only referring to the end of this story and a season, not my life. I know you are so relieved about that. Mitch would miss me.

THE JOB!!!

Ok so the end is… I have a job! A real, grown up, adult job! I briefly mentioned before (see “Bodies are funny.” post) how I found the job. Synopsis: Many many may job applications and resumes sent, no call backs, job posted an hour, sent resume, 2 hours later a call to interview the next day, had to bring degree, didn’t know where it was, first box I opened on top, transcripts, act of God I got those too, interview was amazing, they said I’d hear by this coming Friday, which would have been a week and a day from my interview. And keep in mind, this is just a summary of the end. The middle involves lots of craziness and trials mixed with a whole lot of God provision that all lead to this end.

From the time they called me back something just felt different. Something inside me felt different. I felt different. I believed God’s small voice through Himself and others that had been constantly telling me, “There is a reason, I have something for you, trust Me.” The more I thought about the job before and after the interview the more I got excited and just knew it had to be it. I’d venture to say 100 people were praying. I was constantly begging God. Not just begging for the job, which I did a little of, not ashamed. But begging that He’d keep reminding me that He had a plan for my life and I hadn’t messed it up.

The company is called Quality Support Coordination, Inc. It’s the Covington branch, about 20 minutes or so from my house. They are a social services agency that provides “quality support” for people with disabilities enabling them to live in their communities instead of facilities. They don’t provide the services but connect their clients with people who do. My degree is in Social Work. It seemed a perfect fit. Everyone at church, probably at least 20 people, told me on Sunday that I was going to get the job on Monday, they were going to call me. And..

THEY DID!! At 3:51 p.m. they called to offer me the job! My title is Case Manager/Support Coordinator. I will be in training at first, but after training will have 35 clients. Full time, Monday – Friday 8:30 – 4:30. An hour for lunch. I will be on a 3 month probation period, but I am confident this is what God has for me and that He in every way provided this job and it will work out. Every puzzle piece (which you will hear more of in the beginning and middle) lead to this. Even the parts not a part of this particular story, like my education for instance! I’m actually using the quality (and expensive) Mississippi College education that I got! I am a social worker!

We call our clients on a monthly basis, but usually it will end up being more, as there is always problems working with government and social service agencies. We visit them once a quarter. Mileage is reimbursed. Paid holidays, 60 % paid insurance, paid life insurance, 8 hours a month of paid personal time, 4 hours a month of paid sick time, annual evaluations. The dress is casual! They all had on jeans and cute shirts. I’ll be making almost twice as much as I would have been making with the Nanny job that lead me to move to Slidell and fell through. I am in total and utter shock! 100 and a thousand percent of the glory goes to God (yes I know that isn’t a real number). I believed, my fellow brothers and sisters believed. God knew. He mapped out every step. Every trial and tear.

So there you have it. The end. The end of a very long, painful, sometimes dark season. He didn’t leave me. He wouldn’t let me leave Him. And it was worth it all. And I haven’t even started the job yet. But to see God provide, it is already worth it all. Thank you for your prayers.

 Stay tuned for the middle and beginning in no particular or decided order.

Ok yes. Mr. Blog. I know. Three times in one day?! You can only listen to so much right? Oh ok good, I’m glad your proverbial paper ears are always open!

I don’t know if you know this about me, but my life is a melodramatic comedy. Crazy, funny, weird things happen to me, throw in God’s provision, drama and tragedy and you have my life. I also don’t know if you know that cars and I are not friends.

I had a car. It broke. A lot. A whole lot. Then I didn’t have one. For a long time. Because she broke down on a bridge. For a long time. I had on a dress. Cars driving by fast on skinny bridges and dresses don’t mix. I sat there for 2 hours. A cop pushed my car with his car to the next exit. I sat in a greasy fish restaurant for 2 more hours. The fish was good. My mom came and got me. We fought for 2 more hours. Was a great day. So goodbye red car.

My mom let me use her old car. The trunk randomly popped open when you went down the road, particularly on bumpy roads. I lived in New Orleans. Have you been on New Orleans roads? Then it started jumping. As in jerking as I drove down the road. It was broken. Again, no car.

So my dad bought me a great car. A Saturn station wagon. I named him Wentworth. He’s an Ivy League car so he needed a smart name. Why Ivy League? The Yale and UPenn stickers of course! So Wentworth and I have gotten along pretty well. No problems. Until now…

Last week he wouldn’t crank. His battery cable got corroded. We fixed that. Well for a little while my tail lights wouldn’t work. Replaced bulbs, went out. Then no break lights. Checked fuses, not that. I got stopped by the cops three times and decided I should get them fixed. One cop strongly suggested (aka rudely demanded) I ride around with my hazard lights on. So my Dad so wonderfully said he’d pay to get it fixed! Yay! Well I went to the car fixing place. Waiting for parts so it can be fixed. Well in the checking process some other things messed up. My gear shift won’t work. I have to put the key on the acc setting put in it neutral then crank it. If I put it in park at the bank or something, I have to uncrank and repeat the process. Well then tonight I realized the inside panel lights don’t work. So I can’t see my speed. So I’m driving down the road, hazard lights on, inside light on so I can see my speed, and the crazy gear shift. Kari Job cranked up, and with the light on I’m sure people can see me singing. So I’m driving down the road looking like a crazy ghetto granny. Oy with the poodles already!