Hopeful, but hoping I won't be let down

Disappointment has been a recurrent theme in my life the last few years: house possibilities, job possibilities, parenting possibilities, etc. One of the drawbacks of dreaming big is that you have a long way to fall when your dreams shatter.

I am still looking for a new job to replace my current job, which ends tomorrow thankfully. I have a few possibilities that look like they might work out, but nothing I'm excited about. I need a flexible schedule, and I would like work that is interesting to me and suited to my abilities and personality. I would really prefer part-time so I can have more time to help Mike with ministry.

I found a job posting today for a part-time job with flexible hours as an administrative assistant for a psychology office. The pay is crummy, but I don't really care about that. It is in exactly the field I want to study! The situation sounds ideal.

My resume will be on its way as soon as I get home tonight, and prayers are already there (no delay with God's postal service).

More important than praying for the job, I need to pray that I will be able to accept God's plan in this regard.

Who is out there?

I know that very few people ever read this blog, but I have a few hits on my new stat counter, and I'd like to know who's reading. Please leave a comment and let me know you're here!

Remind me why I wanted to go to lunch

Several of my co-workers have a tradition of going out for lunch together on Fridays. I used to go with them almost all the time, but the last few months I haven't. Since today is my last Friday here, I thought I'd join them one last time.

My co-workers know that we have been trying to have kids forever, so having a pg baby sister is kind of a painful thing, especially when we can't even proceed with adoption right now. So at lunch, I mentioned that my sister only has 5 weeks left to go in her pregnancy. What was I thinking? Here's the bulk of the remaining conversation:

J: You know what?! For some reason I keep having NIGHTMARES that I'm pregnant. I don't know why it keeps coming up, but I keep having NIGHTMARES that I'm pregnant.

R: Maybe your body's trying to tell you something.

J: No, seriously. There is no way that I'm pregnant, but I keep having these NIGHTMARES!

Me - thinking: I have nightmares that I'm pregnant, too. Only the nightmare starts when I wake up and realize it's not true BECAUSE I CAN'T GET PREGNANT.

K: Maybe we should tell Boss so he could ask you every day how you're feeling.

R: Yeah, he'd believe it too because remember when we told him that I was pregnant? He thought we were for real.

J: Yeah, what was up with that? Was he afraid you were going to leave or something?

R: I don't know what his problem was. I've already had one pregnancy while working here. No, actually, I had two, only one of them was a miscarriage.

J: You were pregnant twice while working here?

R: Yeah, but I had a miscarriage the one time. God must have really wanted me to have Son 2. He said, "This one is an angel, so I'll take him straight to heaven to be with Me. Here, give her the next one. He'll cause a lot of headaches. A trouble child."

S: You don't have to have a miscarriage to end up with that.

Me - thinking: You know, someone sent a postcard to PostSecret that said, "I get angry at every mother who doesn't love her children as much as I would love mine if I could have them."

Later...

J: Oh, I almost forgot to tell you all something!

R: What? You're PREGNANT!

J: Oh, THANK GOODNESS NO...

I was really happy to get back to the office so I didn't have to endure any more. I'm hoping and praying that my next co-workers will be a little more sensitive.

Too many things in my head

If you look through my previous posts, you'll see that's a common theme ;) I think it reveals that I'm not very good at completion or resolution. That's a big issue for me.

Anyway, I only have one week left at my job. Woo hoo! Except that I still don't have another job :( I hate looking for jobs. I don't really want to work outside the home and ministry, so that makes everything else 1000 times more difficult. I don't have the education or experience to do the jobs I would like to do. Everything else is just ok. I think a fresh start will be helpful to me and the challenge of learning something new will keep me on my toes for awhile. But overcoming the "I don't wanna" attitude is difficult.

People ask me why I'm leaving, especially without having another job lined up, and they don't understand how big of a stumbling block it is for me. There is so much more involved - dealing with an uncertain future, figuring out how to balance a job and ministry, not doing well in learning the lesson of contentment, some depression, and a whole host of other factors. I was losing my mind in my current position, and for my own health and sanity, I needed to leave. That's it.

I'm trying to figure out a way to continue my education through an online program. I want to earn a bachelors of science degree, in either social work or psychology. I honestly would prefer psychology, even though I want more of a social work oriented career, because I believe it will build a stronger foundation for the work I would like to do. My specific area of interest is in child development in foster care and adoption situations. My ideal goal is to major in psychology for undergrad and get an MSW, but I'm not sure I would be accepted to an MSW program with a degree in psychology. I'll have to do some more research on that. Eventually becoming a LISW and LPC or PPC would be awesome, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have in the future to pursue education and a career. Both of those are still secondary to family and ministry, but they are very important to me.

To be able to work around job requirements and ministry, I need a totally online program. I've found some psychology programs, but no social work programs yet. And the psychology programs are few and far between.

So back to the job search issue: what I'm qualified for is office work as an administrative assistant, bookkeeper, legal secretary or something of the sort. My work schedule has to be flexible enough to allow me to go on a 1-week mission trip, attend family camp, and have some more time to see my family in IL, and those are minimum requirements. I really don't care what the pay is (within reason), and I don't really care about fringe benefits. I can do a detail oriented, facts and figures sort of job as long as I have a great deal of human interaction. Jobs that fill the bill and won't expect me to make a bazillion year commitment are few and far between.

I need to trust God to provide in this regard because I know that leaving my current job is the right thing to do at this time.