Big (and small) Things To Come

The danger of blogging as irregularly as I have been is I tend to come across as if my live moves from one big event to the next. This year I’ve blogged about trips away, my sister’s wedding, the birth of my niece, meeting my father. Which is all very wonderful. But I’m quite sure that ten years from now, when I read back over these days, maybe on a day when things are slow (because when else will I have time to sit reading old blog posts from ten years ago?) Future Me will start to think things like “Wow, I had so much going on back then. My life is so boring now.”  I know this is likely to happen because even now, when I look back at my blog from ten years ago, I think things like that. and then I get all depressed about how dull my life is compared to back then, when things were busy, busy, busy, with ministry, and trips here and there, and study, and major life events. It’s only when I look closely that I realise I was posting irregularly, sometimes even once in a month, and so maybe it wasn’t that I had so much going on, but I was only blogging when I had something interesting to blog about.

So here’s a little note for Future Me: My life right now is average, sometimes even mundane. My days consist mostly of running kids to school and back again, hanging out with a toddler and singing songs, drawing pictures, teaching him new words, colours and shapes. I spend a LOT of time at home with him. I go grocery shopping weekly. Mount Laundry is my Everest. It’s all terribly unexciting.  (I love it!) But occasionally, something big happens. And that seems to be when I blog. So don’t feel bad if things seem to be moving slowly. Most of the time they are. It’s only every now and then that something big comes along, and when it does, that’s great, but actually, it’s the way you live the everyday, normal, mundane days that really make up a life.

OK. Now that I have that out of the way, and I can stop worrying about poor, sad, Future Me...

I have big news.

The first is this: I’m pregnant. Again. Baby #5 is on the way!

The second is this: Hubby’s work is closing down. By the end of November he will be out of a job.

I know, right? Those two pieces of news fit together rather awkwardly. But include God and His Love and Power and Provision into the equation, and we’ll be ok. I’m sure of it.

I’m sure, but I’m soooo impatient! I want desperately to know what our next step will be, where Hubby will be working when he does find a job, where we’ll be living (because with Baby #5 on the way we’ll need a bigger house, but can’t really do anything about that until he has a job).  I want to be able to start settling the family into a new house, a new life. Or at the very least, I want to be able to do things like lie in the bath rubbing my growing belly and picture where my home will be, and where I’ll be giving birth. It doesn’t help that I’m insane right now with pregnancy hormones.  One day I’ll be crying and wailing and “Ohhh what’s gonna happennnnn!!!” and the next day I’ll be the picture of contentment and “God’s good and we just have to be patient, but we’ll be fine...”

We’re praying. A lot. We really want to wait, to move only when God tells us to. But it’s hard! We seem to be surrounded by people who think we need to do the opposite. Act immediately, and in our own strength. Go to WINZ and apply for the unemployment benefit now, panic and act, panic and act fast. I’m sure they mean well. But when you are trying to speak out faith, and they respond by suggesting you act like you believe only in yourself, you want to rush them out of your house as quickly as possible, before they convince us. We can doubt all by ourselves thanks, we don’t need anyone to come and plant seeds and say things that make us panic and run towards something that God doesn’t have planned for us.

I don’t even know if this makes any sense. I feel like my pregnant brain is all over the place. Let me try again to explain where we’re at.

1. I took a pregnancy test. It was positive. Once the shock wore off, there was happiness and excitement all round. 
2. We started thinking about moving. We need a bigger house, since the one we're in has only 3 bedrooms.
3. Hubby has a good job. We’ve done it pretty tough since moving here, but he’s finally in a job he enjoys, that pays well.
4. After an E-rating on an earthquake review on the building where he works, a series of events and months and months of meetings and various proposals, the Salvation Army bosses decide that the best plan of action is to shut the service down. All staff have been made redundant. As Manager, Hubby will still have a job until late November, but after that he’ll be unemployed.
5. Immediately after receiving the news about his work, Hubby and I both sense that God has something amazing for us. As his colleagues begin looking for work, we sit and wait. We hear of jobs that are available around town, and Hubby lets his colleagues know. They apply for the job, get the job, and are happy and excited about the next chapter of their lives. Hubby and I still sit, and wait.
6. People start to think Hubby is insane, or lazy, and wonder why he’s not working harder to find new employment. (OK, I don’t know if that’s actually true, but it probably is. Why else would bible-believing Christians respond to his saying “I’m waiting to see what God is going to bring my way” with “You could always go on the unemployment benefit” or “You should demand that the Sallies find you another job”.)
7. I don’t know why or when I started writing this post as a numbered list...

Here’s the thing. We’ve looked on Trademe, and on Seek and on a whole lot of other job websites, and there’s a whole lot of jobs Hubby could apply for. With his qualifications and experience, and the jobs that are listed on TradeMe alone right now, he probably could have had a new job already by now. The issue isn’t that he can’t find work.

He hasn’t applied for anything yet, because of this sense we both have that God has something perfect and amazing for us, and we want that perfect and amazing thing! And we don’t know if that thing will be here in Invercargill or somewhere else. And until we know for sure what we should do, we aren’t doing anything.

And believe me, it’s not being lazy, or irresponsible, and it’s certainly NOT easy! We both have our moments, (more and more as time goes on) when we just want to jump into action and sort everything out ourselves. Especially when people around us suggest looking online or talking to so-and-so about whether he can get us a job, and especially when we explain why we haven’t yet applied for anything and people just don’t understand. Honestly, it’s like when you say “I believe God has something for us” people think you’re just saying that to stop yourself from freaking out. And they think they’re agreeing when they answer with “Yea, for sure, there’s always the benefit if something doesn’t come up anyway.”

Anyway. So that’s what’s happening with us at the moment. And it’s been soooo good for me to write about it. I really should take the time to sit here and blog more often.