What is My Calling?

Ever since I can remember, I have always wanted to help people for a living.  I get the greatest joy and satisfaction from assisting others achieve great things.  I am lost, Lord - professionally speaking.  I finished up my degree and a new position became available here at my current place of employment.  Long story short, I got the job, but the pay is not that much better.  Don't get me wrong, more money is still more money.  However, I did research for positions like this one and they low-balled me.  :(  I talked it over with my old boss here and she agreed.

I need Your guidance.  What am I supposed to be doing with my professional life?  What is your plan for me?  It is difficult, but if I need to accept this chapter at this particular place of employment is over, I can and will do that.  I just need Your guidance on where I should go.  I pray you help me be open to Your guidance when You show it to me.  I think I have a tendency to interfere with Your plan for me and always second guess myself.  I pray you help me not to be so focused on the income either.  I mean, please give me the confidence and knowledge to know what I am worth and do not let me sell  myself short, but help me to realize money is only to help me and my family survive.

Help me to have complete faith that Your guidance will come and Your timing is always perfect.  I pray I learn whatever lesson it is You need me to learn in this moment.  I pray You help me lean on you and not try to lean on my own understanding.  I am so anxious to get to work on what it is I am supposed to be doing I can hardly contain myself.  Please help rid me of any and all anxiety.  Please help me slow down and take it one day at a time.

I pray when You do show Your guidance that it is so amazingly crystal clear, there is no way for me to misinterpret what it is You are guiding me to do.  ha ha ha :)

I recently heard in a small faith sharing group, when you pray for patience you get tribulation.  I have prayed for a lot of patience and maybe you are giving me exactly what I am praying for.  Also, maybe I should really think about what it is I am praying for.  ha ha ha

Finally, I pray I am able to love as You love me - unconditionally.  I pray I am Your light in the world.  I pray You help me shine so brightly there is no darkness with me present.

Always Yours,
J

I am Beyond Greatful

I just turned in my senior thesis to get my degree.  I started the paper in 2007...it took me a very long time to finish it.  However, I am in a very different place in my life today than I have been.  You put me on a path to complete this a while back and all the while I had no idea.  I always told myself I would get around to finishing the paper; I would get around to getting my degree, but You saw how the path I was on would not lead me to where I am today.  So, You did what I could not do for myself and I did not see that until today.  

I was hired for a great company as an administrative assistant.  This position did not require a college degree and positions like that do not come open very often.  You blessed me!  I thought it would be the end of things when my boss who had been with the company decided to leave, as well as another co-worker in my group.  I received a different boss that, in my humble opinion, was and is not a people person and it made me feel as if I wanted to leave the company for anything else.  I actually had an interview with another company, and I thought the interview went very well.  However, I did not get the job.  Again, You blessed me!  The last of my co-workers from my group retired and while his responsibilities were being doled out, I got a new boss out of it.  You really blessed me with her!  She is the angel I needed that would open my eyes to so very much and give me the encouragement I could not give myself.  When I could not do for myself, You did for me.  Through my new boss you made me see the strength I have but never paid attention to; You offered me encouragement when many other areas of my life made it feel as if my world would be crashing down; You made realize I am capable of many great things with You as my guide and with the angels You place in my life.  

I will be graduating college in May 2016!  I had lost hope, but You restored it.  I already see so many opportunities presenting themselves to me and it is because of You.  I pray I never forget that.  I did not do this on my own.  While there are other things going on in my life I wish I could fix, I am slowly but surely beginning to understand Your will is so much better than my own.  I am learning how You guide me and speak to me through other people.  

As this year comes to an end, I pray I am able to pay it forward and You use me in some body's life the way You see fit.  Thank You, thank You, thank You - for Your grace, for Your guidance, for Your mercy, for all of the blessings You have bestowed upon me and my family - even the ones I do not recognize  just yet - THANK YOU!!!

I need You

I need You now and always...

Love,
J

imPatiently Waiting -

I struggle with patience and Your timing.  Again, I think I know what is best and I think I know the time in which things should happen.  How self-centered that is of me!  Do I honestly think I know better than You?  I am uncomfortable in my current situation - separated from my husband, living with my dad and his girlfriend, financially behind and in the hole, etc.  The whole reason I left the house was to keep my serenity as it is quite difficult to do so while my husband is an active addict and seeking no help.  I must continue to remind myself of this reason.  My husband knows the reason I left and he still continues with his active addiction without seeking help.  It is easy to forget why I left and throw a pity party because he is not doing anything about his problem.  The key word is "his" problem.  It is not mine, I cannot do anything about it, and it is not up to me to do anything about it.  I did not leave to manipulate him to finding help.  I left to keep my serenity.  Although uncomfortable, I do have serenity...for the most part.  I do not have to deal with the behavior that comes with the disease of addiction, but am in utter dismay of what my house has turned into.  He smokes in the house, the dishes are piled up, and is for the most part a huge mess.  That is not only his house, but my house, and my girls' house.  Our clothes reek of smoke and I cannot stand what he has done to our house.  I have asked him numerous times to quit smoking but it goes in one ear and out the other.  

Today Lord, I pray You help me remember I left to keep my serenity.  I pray You help me remember You are in control and things will happen in Your timing, not mine.  I pray You speak to my husband's heart, mind, and soul about the help he needs.  I pray You help him to QUIT SMOKING in our house!!! :)

Love always,

J

Oxymoron

You never cease to amaze me!  That is the oxymoron...of course You don't; You are You!  :)

Sunday's homily was directed to me and You heard my prayers.  This is not to say all is taken care of and I have nothing to worry about, but my faith has been restored.  I prayed for peace, understanding, and love for many people in my life and I have seen my prayers answered through things I have heard them say and in their actions.  I know my prayers do not fall on deaf ears and You have Your own timing, but to actually see my prayers answered is truly a miracle.  

What a shame my faith ever has to be restored.  Why would I ever lose faith?  Thank You for loving me even in spite of my lost faith.  

I thank You for all of the blessing You have bestowed upon me and my family.  I pray for my husband Lord, and that You continue to help him in his struggle with his disease.  I pray You protect him from all things that intend to harm him.  I pray You wrap him so tightly in Your love and that he feels all of it.  I pray You speak to his heart Lord and let him know he has choices and You are always there by his side.

Yours,
J

Not Wanted

Since moving back in with my dad, I really haven't felt wanted there.  I mean, they (he and his girlfriend), are letting me stay there because I have nowhere else to go, but I really do not feel as if I am wanted.  Of course, when I asked my dad if it would be alright to stay there until I got back on my feet he had no problem with me living there.  However, I was  not there a total of four hours before his girlfriend was asking me what my plan was.  She began making suggestions on where I could go and what I could do.  Seriously?  

Her daughter and her baby are now coming home for Thanksgiving which was news to as I was under the impression she was going somewhere else.  I asked my dad, "so, I guess that means I will need to leave then?"  His reply to me was, "well, it's going to be a tight fit."  WOW!  Now there is no doubt in my mind, I am not wanted.  Why did he even agree to letting me live there?  My feelings are very hurt to say the least.  It also brought up old feelings.  

My dad is an alcoholic...I am an adult child of an alcoholic.  Double whammied because my mother is an addict, too.  This is not an "Oh, whoa is me," prayer, but I cannot for the life of me understand this...my current situation, my life, what I am supposed to do, my purpose.  What do You want me to do?  When I was a little girl my dad would always be out drinking and hanging out with his friends.  I would be with my grandma on his time to have me.  I loved my dad so much as a little girl.  I am not saying I love him any less now, but looking back I can see how I developed the notion that I was unwanted, or that there must be something wrong with me because my parents don't even want to hang out with me.  I'm no fun or they would love hanging out with me, on and on and on.  Obviously, I have not healed from that pain and I still feel that way at times.  I can't stand what the family disease of alcoholism and addiction has done to me and I see it doing the same thing to my girls.  

I am trying to take responsibility for me now that I am an adult and can do so.  I have good days and bad days.  Knowing what I know about myself now, I can see it in other people.  I want to shake them like crazy and say, "Wake up!!!  Get help!!!" but it is not my business or my responsibility to do that for them.  I try to fight my old ways of thinking like, I am not good enough, or people don't want me, etc.  

Lord, I pray you help me to understand what it is I am supposed to be doing.  I pray You help open my eyes to Your guidance.  I pray you help me to be the best mother I can be each and every day.  I pray you take all of the ill will and ill feelings I have against everybody, but especially my husband, my dad and his girlfriend.  I pray they begin to see each other for who they really are and how they behave.  I pray You help my dad cease his hypocritical and judgmental ways.  I pray you open my husband's eyes to Your purpose for his life.  I pray You help him do what is right for all of us.  I pray You help him overcome this horrible, horrible disease.

Your Will, Not Mine

I didn't call.  I am trying not to do things as I always have.  I went to a meeting the other night and heard somebody say, "I am tired of taking the same steps over and over again and I am ready for a change."  I am, too.  I am, well was, the very definition of insanity.  I continued doing the same thing over and over again expecting the outcome to be different.  I was driving myself crazy.  It has been my experience that I cannot do anything different by staying in the atmosphere I was in.  It was very difficult for  me to live with him in his active addiction.  I really want him to get help and I know he has to do it for himself.  I love him like no other, Lord, and You know this.  I also have to accept that he may never get the help he deserves and I am not sure how I feel about that.  

This disease is very ugly!  I married him thinking we could enjoy the rest of our lives together.  I envisioned family vacations, many family Christmas celebrations, tons of birthday celebrations, spending time together, raising a family, traveling, falling in love over and over again.  I knew it wasn't going to be a fairytale, but I never imagined we would be where we are today...

I am slowly learning and even slower at accepting that this is Your will.  You have a plan for all of us.  You know what You are doing.  I am not You.  

The past two days have been better for me.  Being in Your presence is a HUGE help!  I pray You continue to be my strength.  I pray You continue to be my confidence.  I pray that You continue to help me get out of Your way so Your will may be done.  

Ever Yours,
J