attempting trust

“Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us." 
~ Blessed John Henry Newman 

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for me, 

that I might always trust Him as you did!  

 A great meditation on this saint by His Excellency David Zubik, 
Bishop of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, found here.

where we're at

This post is both an exercise in describing where we're at right now, as well as a checklist of progress we've made (simply for yours truly) in preparation for our move.  
 
Thus, without further ado.....where we're at!  

- We're down to two options: staying in Madison (and B reapplying to law school for Fall 2011) and moving to Naples, FL and B enrolling in a law school there (this one is dependent on his admission into the entering class off their waiting list).  It is a relief to be so close to knowing our final outcome, but with being so close comes, at least for me, a real bout of impatience.  I went to the mailbox today, just hoping that we would receive some type of closure from the school in Naples, and when there wasn't a scrap of mail there, all I could do was blurt out a frustrated, "come ON!"  I even went back to the mailbox a second time, just to see if perhaps I'd missed the mailman the first time.  I just have to keep reminding myself, Lord, it is Your will we seek, and not our own.  And then I throw in a flustered "but in the meantime, bless me with patience!"

- We're packing - A LOT. I have started the process and it hasn't been terribly overwhelming just yet.  The plan at the moment, if we haven't heard from the school in Naples by July 31st, is to move our stuff into storage until A) we find a suitable apartment in Madison or B) we move to Naples!  I'm finding just two parts of this process a bit overwhelming: the sheer amount of boxes (we will probably have thirty to forty by the time we're done packing) is starting to take over our living space, and I am at a loss with what to do about our laundry.  Part of me just wants to let it accumulate and deal with it later, and another part of me wants to crank out five or six loads right now and be ahead as we look to do our serious moving next week.  I am sure the latter will win - it's just a matter of biting the bullet and getting it done.  Unfortunately, I am very unmotivated to walk all the way around our building to our laundry facilities while it is 85-90 degrees and humid in the middle of the day.  I fear I'll just need to get over it and do it, because I don't think the heat is breaking anytime soon.  


- We're trying - however feebly - to trust our loving Father with whatever plan He might have for us.  I am often the one struggling with this, but I have found a certain peace about things in the past few days.  It hasn't been a complete peace, that's for sure, but it's a start.  I just keep telling myself that this will all get done - somehow, someway, this will all get accomplished.  We will move, wherever that might be, and it will happen when God intends.  In the meantime, as we wait on God's will, I just plug along and do what I need to do in order to get this move started.  For now, that's just a lot of packing.  :-)  


As I left a restaurant where I picked up some dinner for B tonight, I was behind a car that was stopped at a light and was going to go straight through the intersection.  I was in a hurry to get home (one of my weaknesses and struggles lately has been with showing charity to my fellow drivers), and tried my darnedest to wiggle my way between the van and the curb to sneak around her to turn right, but to no avail.  As I waited, impatiently, for the light to turn, I saw that the van had the simplest of bumper stickers on the back: a small image of the Divine Mercy, and Jesus, I trust in You.  How often I need that reminder!  

a presto

the waiting

It's 11:00 at night, I should be in bed, but I can't sleep.  Thus, currently, I'm listening to "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan (a World Cup song), reminiscing about the '06 World Cup while I was in Italy, and blogging random thoughts.  B and I both snoozed a little bit tonight (B was tired, and I was nursing a headache), and while my husband has been blessed with the ability to sleep wherever and whenever, I, on the other hand, have not been endowed with this gift.  This is my third late night this week due to later naps during the day - they're never terribly long (maybe half an hour at most), but they're enough to keep me wound up during the time when I should be winding down each day.  

Perhaps part of it, also, is the spinning in my head about possible scenarios for us in these next few weeks.  I lay in bed and my mind starts to whirl with the uncertainty we face once our current lease expires on the 31st.  B is waiting to hear still from three law schools, one in Minnesota, one in Wisconsin, and one (waiting list) in Florida.  

Here, let's do the math:
Three distinct schools + three different cities + three weeks until we're out of this apartment = BIG TIME ANXIETY FOR YOURS TRULY.  

My insides seem literally to twist and turn as I'm poring over all the different situations in which we could find ourselves in just 21 days.  And don't even get me started on how my brain processes all of this - most of the time it's reeling, and just trying to keep up with the barrage of thoughts I throw at it at any given moment.  

A sampling of the thoughts that spin through my head, usually at least once a day:
Where will we be on August 1st? 
Where will our belongings be on August 1st?
With B working, how are we even going to be able to move?  How are we going to get our things out of this apartment in the first place?  
What will our job situation look like in a month? 
What about health insurance?  
What about just staying afloat financially during the transition of moving?  
Will we be able to attend a family reunion in North Carolina next month?  


 Needless to say, this is all just gut-wrenching, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I don't handle any of this well.  I crashed emotionally earlier this week - I think I had had it up to here for the afternoon, just thinking about the unknown and stewing over the vagueness of our next move in life.  I came home and cried.  (I'm not a terribly emotional person usually, so to have had two emotional episodes in one week is a big deal for me.)  "It's just too much for me," I whined to B.  "I'm sick of this, I just need to know what's next.  There's so much planning involved, but I need to know where we're going to be in order to make those plans."  

"You think you need to know," B assured me.  "But it's not God's time yet.  You want to know now, but it's not God's time to reveal that yet."  

"Well, it needs to be His time," I retorted.  "I need to know."  

Yet here we are, a day later, and we still don't know - I still don't know that which I believe so earnestly that I need to know.  I anticipate the mail every day - almost counting down the minutes to when the postman will arrive, praying that he has something there that will define the course of our lives for the next year.  Sometimes, forgive me, I don't even care if he brings with him three rejection letters - three denials from the three schools, just anything to bring more direction to the next three weeks.  It's so ridiculous, we're off to Kansas City for the weekend, and it hurts to know that I'm going to miss getting the mail for two whole days.  And deep down I know that we will know at the right time - God will reveal this to us when He sees fit.  It's just the waiting around part, as the days tick down, that is seemingly eating away at me.  

What little faith I have!  

not His Will

trFor the past two and a half months, we've played a waiting game with the admissions committee at B's top choice of law school.  We've flirted with the possibilities of enrolling, moving, finding a new apartment, all of those things that come with transitions and new changes.  In my head danced around ideas and fantasies of what these next years at this law school would be like - living in a small apartment off-campus, B going to school, I working to support us, trying to stay thrifty in the one-income household but probably splurging for some favorite things here and there.  Maybe, just maybe, God would also bless us with our first child during B's tenure at this law school.  The possibilities, the dreams, the hopes - they were endless.  And I, deep in my heart of hearts, believed that we'd be getting a big, fat, acceptance letter sometime this summer, and all those dreams would become our reality.  

Yesterday afternoon, as casually as we had received the e-mail about B's spot on the wait list, we received word that there was no way the admissions committee could offer him a spot in the class of 2013.  The dean of admissions rambled off all the generalizing phrases - we had a lot of qualified applicants, and it hurts us to have to turn you away, all of the same, redundant words that really just mean: we can't let you in.  It was the simplest of messages - and I peered over B's shoulder as he opened the e-mail, and my heart just sank, and the tears flowed like rain.  

And for the next half hour I acted like a stubborn, snotty child - angry at the committee, hurt by their triteness in the e-mail, despondent that what had seemed so real had been snatched away in a matter of seconds, and so very devastated for B.  We had just been talking on the way to get the car an oil change that B had felt pretty good about his chances, just an hour or so earlier.  We had legions of people praying for us, praying that God's Will would be this school.  We were so ready to move on with our lives, to get off this pause button of applications and forge onward, toward careers and grownup things.  How had it gone so very different, in just a matter of minutes?  What did this now mean for his chances at the four schools from which we still await a response?  Would we be subject to additional rejections?  My head started spinning with all of these questions, and I grew more frustrated.  Eventually, my poor husband, the one who had actually suffered this rejection, had to comfort me, when it was really I who should have been doing that for him in the first place. 


And then we talked it out.  Where do we go from here?  What happens if B doesn't get in this year?  And most importantly - what is God really asking of us in this?  That is a question that I don't often like to ask.  There were times yesterday where I was upset with God, frustrated at His Will, so painfully before us.  And in those painful moments, my conscience hit me like a ton of bricks....


God will work in this situation, to bring about His glory.  

No matter how painful, how frustrating, how maddening all of this is, God will use this to glorify Himself.  

My only prayer is that I can remember this as we wait for the next month - hoping, wondering, dreaming about what the next academic year will bring us.  

"in case you forgot....I'm here."

Last Thursday was a difficult day - at least parts of it.  For the first time in a long while, I accompanied B to the east side of town to the technical college for his class that night.  Once I dropped him off, I went onto pick up my cousin and hang out with her for a bit while her mom hosted a "ladies' night" get-together at their house.  On the way over to the east side, B and I had a really great conversation - skipping around from topic to topic, what we normally do during long car rides.  Eventually, however, the conversation switched gears, as we started to talk about the future.  

In recent years, I've always approached the future with hesitance.  For two straight years, B and I have endured a spring where the future was totally unknown.  The never-ending sea of graduate school applications always leaves guessing and speculating about where exactly we're going to end up, come August.  We lived through this last spring - planning a wedding, rejoicing in engagement, but not knowing where we were going to be ultimately.  One of my favorite phrases last year, when folks would ask about our plans, was, "well, we know we're going to be married in this church at this time on August 22nd, but we're not sure where we'll be on August 23rd."  Ideas and dreams and hopes about the future swirled in our minds - would we be able to honeymoon?  Would our honeymoon consist of traveling cross-country in a Uhaul, off to law school?  Would we have to move before the wedding for law school and come back to Madison to get married, and where would we both live separately in the interim before the wedding?  The sheer uncertainty of it all was enough to throw me into a tizzy on more than one occasion. 

And the irony is, that a year after our first round of law school applications and not knowing where we would end up, here we are again, nearly eight months into our marriage, and completely unaware of what the future holds yet again.  There's no denying that God really does have a sense of humor.  This time around, I know there's been a lot more anxiety for the both of us - to us, it seems like there are so many more variables spinning around this decision.  Will law school happen for B?  What school, if any, will accept him?  Where will it be?  If law school doesn't happen, do we really want to go through another round of applications next spring?  Where does starting a family fit in?  The questions seem endless for us - probably more so for a high-strung person like me, but I know that B has been struggling with the uncertainty too.  

Anyway, back to the drive to the east side.   The conversation switched gears and all of a sudden out of my mouth spilled all of the uncertainty, worry, and doubt about the future.  All of those questions that we've asked of each other, and of God, spilled out into yet another conversation between us.  And as always, B was gentle and encouraging, reassuring me that we will know in time where we are meant to be.  And I, as always, in my weakness, was doubtful and uncertain and worried.  All of my worry was suffocating, quieting me for the rest of the trip to the tech school.  I tried to shake it off as I said goodbye to B, but the trip to my cousin's was one of unease, and I tried my darnedest to pray in that moment, even in simply a whisper to my Father God, asking Him to keep our situation close to His heart.  

The night passed, B's class ended, I took my cousin to Culver's and the library and we had a wonderful time out on the town.  B and I headed back to the west side and prayed the rosary on our trip back to our apartment.  We piled into our place, dropping our bags and belongings, and I logged onto the computer for a minute before our weekly TV show came on.  Eventually, we logged onto Brad's e-mail so he could check for any messages.....


and there it was.  

The simplest, yet most wonderful reminder of God's hand in all of this.  

 
An e-mail from the admissions committee of Brad's top choice, informing him of his spot on a waiting list for admission.  


It was as if the voice of my Father God had whispered to me, His silly little girl: "All of your worry and your doubt of my faithfulness, and look!  In the midst of it, I am still here.  And I still love the both of you."

It was littlest, but most needed glimpse of His work in our lives.  Even in our weakness and in our failures, especially our failures to return to Him faithfully in prayer and sacrifice, He is still present in our lives.  In spite of our broken humanity, God still works in the situations that, to Brad and I, seem most important in our lives at this moment.  He is still there; He is still faithful.  The e-mail wasn't an invitation to admission, but it also wasn't a rejection of admission.  For me, that 200-word e-mail was a profound reminder that God is still in the midst of things, even when we doubt He's even there.  

B might get into that law school in the fall, and he might not.  Yet now, more than ever, my husband and I remain convinced at how much God is working in our lives, even when we fail to notice it, and fail even more so to give Him the glory, honor, and praise He most assuredly deserves.