Its almost midnight and I am wide awake listening to my neighbors excruciatingly loud music (they have 3 small children, not sure how they are sleeping) and their dog bark and whine in the backyard. Ugh.
I just got back from a few days visiting my parents in VA and NC and this is one of the few times that I'm actually not that excited to be back in Philly. Last Monday we had a meeting for the upcoming teen mission trip and it was less than encouraging. In fact, it involved a lot of complaining from the teens and I left feeling very discouraged. On Tuesday I headed to VA to visit my mom, which turned out to be a very relaxing time. On Thursday morning my mom and I headed to NC to see my dad. (In case you didn't know, my dad is the new chief of police in Washington, NC. He has been there since July 1, but my mom has stayed in VA to try and sell the house there. My mom will be moving to NC with my dad in a few weeks, thank goodness!!). I completely fell in love with Washington and I am so excited about going back there to visit, its so beautiful and relaxing!!! Its a pretty small town right on a river and only 45 minutes from the ocean. I can take night walks along the river and not be afraid!!!
My time in VA and NC was so nice and relaxing and I wanted more of it!! I got back to Philly last night but didn't tell anyone and enjoyed a day alone here in Philly. It was a BEAUTIFUL day here, which almost made me forget where I live. Almost being the operative word there...my phone rang off the hook with people calling me needing one thing or another and only one asking how I was doing.
We leave for the mission trip on Monday and I have a lot to do to get ready, and not a lot of time. I should have spent today getting things done, but I chose to rest, sleep and read. I don't regret that, but I might feel differently tomorrow. :) Tomorrow will be a pretty full day with Sunday School, church, a birthday party, shopping for everything I need for the mission trip and then our final mission team meeting. I am really hoping tomorrow night goes better than last week. If it doesn't we might just cancel the trip. I don't think I would be opposed to that...
Bonita and Linda continue to be a beautiful light for me. I just can't believe how wonderful they are! I come back from the mission trip next Sunday and then leave on Monday for the Cornerstone staff retreat. Its usually a really good time, but it is designed to be a family retreat, which is not very fun for me since I don't have a family. Last year I asked if it would be okay for me to bring Linda and Bonita with me this year. Everyone agreed that it would be fine and I am SO excited to have them along. I almost NEVER get to hang out with just the two of them, and this is my chance!!! We are all very excited!! Plus, it looks like the girls might help babysit some of the staff kids while we are in meetings. I am just so impressed that at 11 and 12 they have shown enough maturity for them to not only be allowed to come along even though they aren't my actual children, but that they are trusted as babysitters. Incidentally, they are both wonderful with kids. I am still so impressed with how wonderful Bonita was at God's Girls, she really seems to "get it".
Awww, the music stopped for a little while, but it just started again. Oh well, I think I will be able to sleep through it. Anyway, I have a pretty busy few weeks coming up. I will be in Philly for about a week after returning from staff retreat on August 29th and the only things on my agenda are back to school shopping with the kids and cleaning my house. I do have some preparing to do for Kids Club and other things, but nothing hugely pressing, although I doubt I will ever find myself bored. On Sept. 6th I am heading back to NC to relax with my parents until the 11th. I am driving back to Philly on the 11th only to fly out again on the 12th for AIM's staff conference. (Ironically, the staff conference is in NC, but its the other side of the state and all of the flights included layovers in Philadelphia! So, to save money I'm driving back here and then just flying from here). I will be back on Sept. 15th and will start working part time for AIM as well as full time for Cornerstone on the 17th. I wonder what it will be like to pay all my bills on time... :)
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
It's Hard...
Its really hard to be a woman in ministry. I would also venture to say that it is even more difficult to be a single woman in ministry, but since I have never been a married woman in ministry, I can't really compare. What I can say, though, is that it is hard to be a woman in full time ministry.
It is especially difficult when 90% of your co-workers are men. It doesn't matter how hard you work or how "qualified" you are, you are still second to a guy in most circumstances. I work with one guy who is 4 years younger than me and has only been in full time ministry for 2 years, but he gets much more respect than I do and is often given the benefit of the doubt in situations that I am called to account for.
There are several women on staff at church and they are all amazing. They are all moms yet they do incredible ministry outside their homes as well. They understand where I am coming from, to a point. But they all have men in their corner backing them up. I do not.
It doesn't help that I work with teens...as a part of a leadership team that consists of 4 men and me. It is natural that they would have a camaraderie that I am not a part of. It makes sense that a lot of the work that I do would go unnoticed. It's no ones fault, but that doesn't make it easy.
Our teen ministry also consists of mostly guys. In fact, we only have 4 girls going on the mission trip, as compared to 13 guys. Its hard for me to get respect, its easier for them to just ignore me. And they do. Its hard for my male coworkers to understand how difficult this is for me. I don't expect them to, but that doesn't make it easy.
I work extremely hard. I do a majority of that work alone and behind the scenes. I spend a lot of time with kids and teens that no one sees. I spend a lot of time doing a lot of things that no one sees, either because I'm not in their sight or they just aren't paying attention.
Little things start to pile up, and they make the big things even bigger in my mind. Someone offers me a new set of couches and then the offer is rescinded when a guy friend decides he wants them. I ask to talk to a friend about some decisions I need to make about my ministry and the request is ignored. A guy friend shows up at my door, banging on it until I awaken to let him in (he needed to get something from me but I was taking a nap...he banged on the door for 10 minutes to wake me up), and then I am accused of overreacting when I ask him to never do that again.
I know I am not the only one struggling with this. I talked recently with a friend who experiences the exact same thing at her church. She does just as much work as her male counterparts, but they are heralded as gifts from God, while she is given a never-ending list of things she needs to correct. We understand each other so well.
I don't think all of this would bother me as much if I also didn't feel constantly at the mercy of the men around me. I don't make enough money and often need their help to get paid. I can't fix things that break in my house and am constantly dependant on their generosity. The amazing thing is, they are EXTREMELY generous. I do not work with self centered chauvinist pigs. I work with incredibly wonderful men of God. Most of the things that I struggle with are simply a result of the differences between men and women. Some changes do need to be made, but a lot of it is just the way things are. I'm a woman. They will never get that. And that makes it hard.
It is especially difficult when 90% of your co-workers are men. It doesn't matter how hard you work or how "qualified" you are, you are still second to a guy in most circumstances. I work with one guy who is 4 years younger than me and has only been in full time ministry for 2 years, but he gets much more respect than I do and is often given the benefit of the doubt in situations that I am called to account for.
There are several women on staff at church and they are all amazing. They are all moms yet they do incredible ministry outside their homes as well. They understand where I am coming from, to a point. But they all have men in their corner backing them up. I do not.
It doesn't help that I work with teens...as a part of a leadership team that consists of 4 men and me. It is natural that they would have a camaraderie that I am not a part of. It makes sense that a lot of the work that I do would go unnoticed. It's no ones fault, but that doesn't make it easy.
Our teen ministry also consists of mostly guys. In fact, we only have 4 girls going on the mission trip, as compared to 13 guys. Its hard for me to get respect, its easier for them to just ignore me. And they do. Its hard for my male coworkers to understand how difficult this is for me. I don't expect them to, but that doesn't make it easy.
I work extremely hard. I do a majority of that work alone and behind the scenes. I spend a lot of time with kids and teens that no one sees. I spend a lot of time doing a lot of things that no one sees, either because I'm not in their sight or they just aren't paying attention.
Little things start to pile up, and they make the big things even bigger in my mind. Someone offers me a new set of couches and then the offer is rescinded when a guy friend decides he wants them. I ask to talk to a friend about some decisions I need to make about my ministry and the request is ignored. A guy friend shows up at my door, banging on it until I awaken to let him in (he needed to get something from me but I was taking a nap...he banged on the door for 10 minutes to wake me up), and then I am accused of overreacting when I ask him to never do that again.
I know I am not the only one struggling with this. I talked recently with a friend who experiences the exact same thing at her church. She does just as much work as her male counterparts, but they are heralded as gifts from God, while she is given a never-ending list of things she needs to correct. We understand each other so well.
I don't think all of this would bother me as much if I also didn't feel constantly at the mercy of the men around me. I don't make enough money and often need their help to get paid. I can't fix things that break in my house and am constantly dependant on their generosity. The amazing thing is, they are EXTREMELY generous. I do not work with self centered chauvinist pigs. I work with incredibly wonderful men of God. Most of the things that I struggle with are simply a result of the differences between men and women. Some changes do need to be made, but a lot of it is just the way things are. I'm a woman. They will never get that. And that makes it hard.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
A Very Full Week
SO much has happened this week! I am absolutely exhausted and so excited to get to bed tonight, but I wanted to update on everything before I sleep. Here are the highlights:
First, I co-led an AIM trip this week. I was dreading it and wasn't sure if I would be able to really pour into the teams the way that I wanted to. As it turns out, it was an amazing week!! I even got to do a talk one night with the girls on both teams about being a woman of God. We had a lot of questions about dress code throughout the week and one of the leaders heard about God's Girls and asked if I would talk to his girls about the beauty and modesty part. I was extremely nervous about it, but it went AMAZINGLY!!! After the talk I had several girls come and tell me that they had never heard what I was telling them and they were so excited. All of the girls from one team immediately made plans to go shopping together to buy modest clothing! One girl and I had a great conversation about being beautiful and she confessed struggling with an eating disorder. We talked and prayed together and it was awesome!!! One of teams was an from an inner city in Toronto and the teens reminded me so much of my teens at Cornerstone. I really enjoyed working with them and their leaders were amazing. I am praying about the possibility of taking Cornerstone teens to their church in Canada next year!!
This week we also had the Reading Rocks party! We had over 50 kids participate this year, and most of them came to the party (several were out of town or forgot). The party was a bit of chaos, but overall it was really fun and the kids had a blast!! Each kid got a brand new book bag FILLED with school supplies (because Shannon is incredible and made money multiply through sales like I have never seen before), a school uniform and even new underwear and socks!!! We also played games where the kids won different prizes. Every kid went home very happy. I am VERY proud to say that Bonita was the second highest points earner with 373 points!! I think she could have been first but she was at camp for the entire last week of the program. I am still so proud of her!! Linda earned almost 100 points and got a backpack as well. Pedro and Miguel are still out of town but will get their backpacks when they come home. (Miguel was gone all summer but he absolutely would have participated and earned a ton of points if he had the chance. Pedro was only around for a little bit, but earned enough points to be invited to the party).
Of course, this week was also God's Girls and I can't believe we have finished our 3rd year!! This year was very different, Carisa and I both went into it a lot more scattered than we have in the past, but it all still went VERY well. The entire week was amazing and it all culminated in the annual God's Girls sleepover last night. We had 8 girls participate this year, and of course I LOVED having Bonita there (she was pretty excited about it as well). I feel really good about how everything went, but I have to honestly say that I am relieved it is over. This week tends to be the hardest week of the year for me spiritually, but that wasn't the case this year...Praise God!! I made the conscious choice to ignore the lies of the enemy this year, and it seems to have worked. Whenever I had thoughts come to mind that I knew were not from God, I just ignored them...I didn't try to fight them, I just moved on. I ended the week very tired, but still feeling really good about all that God has done. That's awesome to me!
There were only 2 real hiccups with God's Girls this year. First, last night around 10:30 Frank called Carisa is intense pain from a kidney stone. Carisa had to immediately leave to take him to the emergency room which left me with the girls to finish up the night. We had not finished all of the teaching yet, but thankfully the stuff that was left was mostly my part to teach anyway. (I am SO thankful that Carisa was around for the "sex" talk, I am not ready to give that one any time soon!). We finished the night well and while we definitely missed Carisa (me probably more than anyone), we were fine without her. It took a while to get the girls to sleep, but that's to be expected at a sleepover. :) Carisa finally got back around 6 a.m. and helped get the girls up and home this morning. It was a crazy night! (You can check out the God's Girls Blog and read all about it as well as see great pictures!! The web address is: http://www.godsgirls2007.blogspot.com/)
The only other difficult part of God's Girls this year is probably only known to me and Carisa (and Carisa only because she knows and loves me so much). Every year we have at least 2 amazing Christian guys come and speak to the girls about what a Christian man is looking for in a woman. Our goal with this is to show the girls that Carisa and I aren't the only ones trying to live as godly women, and that good men are seeking godly women. Every year it is a fun time as the guys share and the girls get to ask them questions. This year things were going great until the question was asked, "How old do you want to be when you get married?" Both of these guys are 23 (one is 22 but about to turn 23), so they are still very young, and obviously younger than me (I'm 27). Both of them immediately responded that they wanted to get married and have children before they were 28. One even went as far as to explain that his reasoning was that he didn't want to be too old when he had children.
I was devastated. There is a VERY small possibility that I will be married by 28, but it is very doubtful...and I will certainly not have children by that time. The reason I was devastated was not that I am desperate to get married or that I have any regrets about being single at my age. I was upset because they in effect told these girls, "We just don't want to end up like Trish". They basically just made my ministry 100 times more difficult than it already is. Each year at God's Girls (and honestly with the teen girls as well) I place myself in front of these girls and do my best to show them that the life God has chosen for me is a beautiful one. It is an amazing life full of incredible blessings and above all, it is a life full of Him. I absolutely want to get married someday, but more than that I want God's plan for my life...so I will wait for His timing for my wedding day. I live an extremely uncommon life around here and am often pitied, looked down upon and even made fun of. But, I know I am following God in the choices that I have made, so I make no apologies and have no regrets. However, it is extremely difficult to convince young women that being single at my age is not the end of the world. Those guys just made that even harder.
God is the redeemer and my prayer is that my life will consistently show that. I was telling a friend earlier this week that my prayer is not that I would be proven right, but that God would use my life to prove Himself right. I want my life to be a constant example of His beauty, mercy and love. My prayer is that when I die there will be no discussion about how old I was when I got married, if I even marry at all. My prayer is that my life will be a celebration of His goodness and faithfulness and that someday people will look at me not with pity, but with a stronger desire to know Him, no matter what the cost.
Finally, Cornerstone has a new website with all of our pictures, so you really want to check it out!! You can see tons of pictures from God's Girls, Reading Rocks, Kids Club...pretty much everything! I added the link to the right, so check them all out!! :)
First, I co-led an AIM trip this week. I was dreading it and wasn't sure if I would be able to really pour into the teams the way that I wanted to. As it turns out, it was an amazing week!! I even got to do a talk one night with the girls on both teams about being a woman of God. We had a lot of questions about dress code throughout the week and one of the leaders heard about God's Girls and asked if I would talk to his girls about the beauty and modesty part. I was extremely nervous about it, but it went AMAZINGLY!!! After the talk I had several girls come and tell me that they had never heard what I was telling them and they were so excited. All of the girls from one team immediately made plans to go shopping together to buy modest clothing! One girl and I had a great conversation about being beautiful and she confessed struggling with an eating disorder. We talked and prayed together and it was awesome!!! One of teams was an from an inner city in Toronto and the teens reminded me so much of my teens at Cornerstone. I really enjoyed working with them and their leaders were amazing. I am praying about the possibility of taking Cornerstone teens to their church in Canada next year!!
This week we also had the Reading Rocks party! We had over 50 kids participate this year, and most of them came to the party (several were out of town or forgot). The party was a bit of chaos, but overall it was really fun and the kids had a blast!! Each kid got a brand new book bag FILLED with school supplies (because Shannon is incredible and made money multiply through sales like I have never seen before), a school uniform and even new underwear and socks!!! We also played games where the kids won different prizes. Every kid went home very happy. I am VERY proud to say that Bonita was the second highest points earner with 373 points!! I think she could have been first but she was at camp for the entire last week of the program. I am still so proud of her!! Linda earned almost 100 points and got a backpack as well. Pedro and Miguel are still out of town but will get their backpacks when they come home. (Miguel was gone all summer but he absolutely would have participated and earned a ton of points if he had the chance. Pedro was only around for a little bit, but earned enough points to be invited to the party).
Of course, this week was also God's Girls and I can't believe we have finished our 3rd year!! This year was very different, Carisa and I both went into it a lot more scattered than we have in the past, but it all still went VERY well. The entire week was amazing and it all culminated in the annual God's Girls sleepover last night. We had 8 girls participate this year, and of course I LOVED having Bonita there (she was pretty excited about it as well). I feel really good about how everything went, but I have to honestly say that I am relieved it is over. This week tends to be the hardest week of the year for me spiritually, but that wasn't the case this year...Praise God!! I made the conscious choice to ignore the lies of the enemy this year, and it seems to have worked. Whenever I had thoughts come to mind that I knew were not from God, I just ignored them...I didn't try to fight them, I just moved on. I ended the week very tired, but still feeling really good about all that God has done. That's awesome to me!
There were only 2 real hiccups with God's Girls this year. First, last night around 10:30 Frank called Carisa is intense pain from a kidney stone. Carisa had to immediately leave to take him to the emergency room which left me with the girls to finish up the night. We had not finished all of the teaching yet, but thankfully the stuff that was left was mostly my part to teach anyway. (I am SO thankful that Carisa was around for the "sex" talk, I am not ready to give that one any time soon!). We finished the night well and while we definitely missed Carisa (me probably more than anyone), we were fine without her. It took a while to get the girls to sleep, but that's to be expected at a sleepover. :) Carisa finally got back around 6 a.m. and helped get the girls up and home this morning. It was a crazy night! (You can check out the God's Girls Blog and read all about it as well as see great pictures!! The web address is: http://www.godsgirls2007.blogspot.com/)
The only other difficult part of God's Girls this year is probably only known to me and Carisa (and Carisa only because she knows and loves me so much). Every year we have at least 2 amazing Christian guys come and speak to the girls about what a Christian man is looking for in a woman. Our goal with this is to show the girls that Carisa and I aren't the only ones trying to live as godly women, and that good men are seeking godly women. Every year it is a fun time as the guys share and the girls get to ask them questions. This year things were going great until the question was asked, "How old do you want to be when you get married?" Both of these guys are 23 (one is 22 but about to turn 23), so they are still very young, and obviously younger than me (I'm 27). Both of them immediately responded that they wanted to get married and have children before they were 28. One even went as far as to explain that his reasoning was that he didn't want to be too old when he had children.
I was devastated. There is a VERY small possibility that I will be married by 28, but it is very doubtful...and I will certainly not have children by that time. The reason I was devastated was not that I am desperate to get married or that I have any regrets about being single at my age. I was upset because they in effect told these girls, "We just don't want to end up like Trish". They basically just made my ministry 100 times more difficult than it already is. Each year at God's Girls (and honestly with the teen girls as well) I place myself in front of these girls and do my best to show them that the life God has chosen for me is a beautiful one. It is an amazing life full of incredible blessings and above all, it is a life full of Him. I absolutely want to get married someday, but more than that I want God's plan for my life...so I will wait for His timing for my wedding day. I live an extremely uncommon life around here and am often pitied, looked down upon and even made fun of. But, I know I am following God in the choices that I have made, so I make no apologies and have no regrets. However, it is extremely difficult to convince young women that being single at my age is not the end of the world. Those guys just made that even harder.
God is the redeemer and my prayer is that my life will consistently show that. I was telling a friend earlier this week that my prayer is not that I would be proven right, but that God would use my life to prove Himself right. I want my life to be a constant example of His beauty, mercy and love. My prayer is that when I die there will be no discussion about how old I was when I got married, if I even marry at all. My prayer is that my life will be a celebration of His goodness and faithfulness and that someday people will look at me not with pity, but with a stronger desire to know Him, no matter what the cost.
Finally, Cornerstone has a new website with all of our pictures, so you really want to check it out!! You can see tons of pictures from God's Girls, Reading Rocks, Kids Club...pretty much everything! I added the link to the right, so check them all out!! :)
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
And now...
Pictures of my house!!! I had an AIM group over today and they cleaned my basement for me. My house is still messy, but its to the point where I will probably only have to spend a day cleaning, not all weekend. Yay!! So, there might be a bit of a mess in some of the pictures, but you get the idea. Its SO beautiful to me!!! :)
We haven't gotten to painting yet, which is actually a good thing because I need my mom's help to pick out a color. :) The ceiling isn't finished yet either, so stay tuned for that in the coming months. I'm so excited!
I don't have time to do before and after pictures right now, so here are a bunch of the after pictures!
How beautiful are those floors?!?!?
And the surprise they left me was this beautiful mural in the basement...this is actually one of my basement walls!
If you look really close, you can see the girl is wearing a VT tank top...I think its supposed to be Bonita or Linda, but I'm not sure...
So, everything is still a work in progress, but I am so excited about where we are! Next, the bathroom! :)Monday, August 6, 2007
You will have to wait...
Okay, so you are going to have to wait a little bit longer for the pictures of my house, sorry! The group left on Saturday and they did an amazing job, but they also left a HUGE mess behind (I don't think the word huge accurately describes the enormity of the mess that is now my house). I am NOT complaining and don't mind cleaning the mess...I just don't have time right now. So, until I can get to the cleaning (hopefully this weekend), you will have to wait for the pictures. Stay tuned though!
God's Girls starts today and I have to admit I'm not too excited about it. I think I will be once it actually starts, but that hasn't happened yet. I think I'm just preparing myself for the worst. God's Girls is usually the hardest week of the year for me, and I am going into it very tired, worn out and stressed with A LOT on my mind. I don't know many of the girls that will be participating this year, which also makes it difficult. Bonita is a God's Girl this year, though, and she is so excited she can't stand it, so that is getting me more excited. I just really want to be able to spend time with her this week without a million things weighing on me. Starting next Sunday she and Linda will both be in my Sunday School class and will be official God's Girls. I'm not sure I am ready for Bonita to grow up like Linda has...she's supposed to me my little girl!! :) I am very proud of the woman that she is becoming, so if she can't stay little forever at least she is growing into a woman who loves the Lord!
Tonight is the last God Squad of the summer. For the next 2 weeks we will be preparing for the mission trip. We have 16 teens going this year and it is going to be amazing! God has been working overtime to prepare these teens for this trip and I can't wait to see what He has in store for all of us!
I am terrified of the weeks to come (including this week), but I have felt that before this summer and God blew me away with His goodness and faithfulness. I'm praying and trusting that it will happen that way again! :)
God's Girls starts today and I have to admit I'm not too excited about it. I think I will be once it actually starts, but that hasn't happened yet. I think I'm just preparing myself for the worst. God's Girls is usually the hardest week of the year for me, and I am going into it very tired, worn out and stressed with A LOT on my mind. I don't know many of the girls that will be participating this year, which also makes it difficult. Bonita is a God's Girl this year, though, and she is so excited she can't stand it, so that is getting me more excited. I just really want to be able to spend time with her this week without a million things weighing on me. Starting next Sunday she and Linda will both be in my Sunday School class and will be official God's Girls. I'm not sure I am ready for Bonita to grow up like Linda has...she's supposed to me my little girl!! :) I am very proud of the woman that she is becoming, so if she can't stay little forever at least she is growing into a woman who loves the Lord!
Tonight is the last God Squad of the summer. For the next 2 weeks we will be preparing for the mission trip. We have 16 teens going this year and it is going to be amazing! God has been working overtime to prepare these teens for this trip and I can't wait to see what He has in store for all of us!
I am terrified of the weeks to come (including this week), but I have felt that before this summer and God blew me away with His goodness and faithfulness. I'm praying and trusting that it will happen that way again! :)
Friday, August 3, 2007
Kinda Boring...
I am sorry that I don't have a whole lot to update, once again, life is just really crazy right now. If I had to describe everything that is going on in one word, it would be humility. I feel incredible humbled right now and...well I'm not sure what to do with that feeling.
Frank has been working like a maniac on my house all week and I know it has been hard on him and his family. I LOVE the way my house looks and appreciate everything that he has done more than he will ever know...but there is no way that I could ever repay him for all of this. So, I can't help but feel incredibly guilty for all the time I have taken away from his family.
My home church has been with Frank all week, working SO hard...and they actually raised money to come and do this! Again, I am SO grateful and in awe of how wonderful everything is, but I know there are plenty of other worthwhile things all of these guys could have been doing.
I guess I just hate the fact that I need other people so much. There is no way I would ever be able to do the work that has been done on my house, so I am dependant on other people to help make that happen. Other people that owe me nothing and really should be doing other things. Its probably my pride that makes me feel this way. I can't even begin to express how grateful I am for everything, but I know how unworthy I am as well.
I am excited to move back into my house and settle into some normalcy. I have felt very out of sorts for the last 2 weeks, not having a home or any semblance of a schedule. I am really struggling because I like to have things finished, and nothing I am doing is finished. I have a ton of balls in the air, so to speak, and I don't feel like I really have a grasp on any of them...and that tends to stress me out. In the next 2 weeks I will lead an AIM project, co-lead God's Girls, help run the Reading Rocks Party, hopefully clean my house (it is a disaster from all the work projects), finally close on my house, visit my parents for a few days and then leave for the mission trip. When I look at it like that, I get extremely overwhelmed. However, if I just focus on tomorrow, I think I will make it.
Tomorrow we are moving all of my furniture back to where it goes (right not the basement and 2nd floor have all the furniture, and the 1st floor is empty). I think several of the teens are going to help me...their servants' hearts are again extremely humbling. Once I do that, the cleaning will have to happen in sections, over the next few weeks. It will all get done, though...and even if it doesn't, its not the end of the world. Right? :)
PS I'm not exaggerating at all when I say that my house looks AMAZING! I will try and post pictures of the finished product tomorrow.
Frank has been working like a maniac on my house all week and I know it has been hard on him and his family. I LOVE the way my house looks and appreciate everything that he has done more than he will ever know...but there is no way that I could ever repay him for all of this. So, I can't help but feel incredibly guilty for all the time I have taken away from his family.
My home church has been with Frank all week, working SO hard...and they actually raised money to come and do this! Again, I am SO grateful and in awe of how wonderful everything is, but I know there are plenty of other worthwhile things all of these guys could have been doing.
I guess I just hate the fact that I need other people so much. There is no way I would ever be able to do the work that has been done on my house, so I am dependant on other people to help make that happen. Other people that owe me nothing and really should be doing other things. Its probably my pride that makes me feel this way. I can't even begin to express how grateful I am for everything, but I know how unworthy I am as well.
I am excited to move back into my house and settle into some normalcy. I have felt very out of sorts for the last 2 weeks, not having a home or any semblance of a schedule. I am really struggling because I like to have things finished, and nothing I am doing is finished. I have a ton of balls in the air, so to speak, and I don't feel like I really have a grasp on any of them...and that tends to stress me out. In the next 2 weeks I will lead an AIM project, co-lead God's Girls, help run the Reading Rocks Party, hopefully clean my house (it is a disaster from all the work projects), finally close on my house, visit my parents for a few days and then leave for the mission trip. When I look at it like that, I get extremely overwhelmed. However, if I just focus on tomorrow, I think I will make it.
Tomorrow we are moving all of my furniture back to where it goes (right not the basement and 2nd floor have all the furniture, and the 1st floor is empty). I think several of the teens are going to help me...their servants' hearts are again extremely humbling. Once I do that, the cleaning will have to happen in sections, over the next few weeks. It will all get done, though...and even if it doesn't, its not the end of the world. Right? :)
PS I'm not exaggerating at all when I say that my house looks AMAZING! I will try and post pictures of the finished product tomorrow.
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