Beauty for ashes...

It was a hard week. And I will cry tomorrow, though it will be in the car, where no one can see and only the 2 people who read this blog will know. :) The career fair, in my opinion, was a bust. The only available Spanish jobs are those of my colleagues at other schools who lost their positions - and they were there too. Both of them. It was hard to look at the long list of openings at my school and the line of people, knowing there was no place for me. It makes me said remembering it even now. But there is a silver lining - the possibility of teaching ESOL - English Speakers of Other Lanugages. Or ESL, English as a Second Language. I know the district person through another connection, so who knows, but I'm simply going to be patient. My problem is not fighting for what I need, it's waiting for it.

That being said, however hard and emotionally challenging this past week has been, and this current one is, God's graciousness has shown through in another, unrelated, but liberating and soothing way.

Saturday, I went out for a walk in one of those abandoned neighborhood things in Paulding - really, two of them. The first was too close to noise, but I walked, in the sun, with the clouds providing some reprieve every few minutes. There was a wonderful breeze despite the humidity. And as I walked, I intended to pray, but I found myself telling the Lord simply, "Here I am." I didn't even verbalize my prayers or think straight thoughts. I was just quiet. I thought, why so many words? He knows what's going on because it was sifted through His hands. And so, there I was, feeling like a child because I knew that I had underlying frustration that I couldn't solve my own problem, and I wanted an answer right there. I'm so much about solutions that, sometimes, my drive for their arrival precludes the lessons I might gain in the waiting, or even feeling anything pleasant at all. So I walked, thanking God for the creation that he had made, the scents, the quiet, the clouds, the beautiful things. I went back to the car. Then to the next neighborhood.

I drove around a bit, looking for a neighborhood with underdevelopment issues - it took me a bit, but I ended up in Edenwood. It had a nice secluded area, and it was pretty. I sat down and read my Bible. I read about the Israelites seeking passage through cities and all the opposition they faced. How God communicated. How they had waited, then how God began to send them where they needed to go. I love reading that history. It's something that feels stabilizing to my heart. And I read in Isaiah about how sin separates us from God - and I was wondering if there were many, many things I wasn't asking forgiveness for - if something was causing distance. So I prayed that scary prayer - that one where you ask God to reveal your sin to you. Man, I know I hate to know how awful I am. But I can't get better if I don't acknowledge what's wrong. Well people do not need a doctor. Sick people do. So I prayed that too.

Then I left. The night before, I had enjoyed time with precious friends from church whose son was graduating. It was something very meaningful for them and for all of us who were graciously allowed to participate in celebrating. I love these times in the summer, but more than that, I love sitting with the women who are my mom's age and ten years younger. Since many people from our church were there, I got some special time to sit and chat with different ladies. I like listening to their stories, hearing their advice, taking in their encouragement, laughing. I just love gleaning from them. And there is something very healing for me in talking about the difficulty of what's going on with my job.

Through all the emotional hardship, as I have been getting ready here and there, this and that, the daily routine of doing it has ministered to me in the strangest way. This weekend, my overwhelming heart feeling as I looked in the mirror was beautiful. It's weird for me to talk about beauty. I feel it's such a personal issue and so easily damaged that I rarely address it; it feels like an Achilles' heel. I don't want to talk about it because for so long, I wanted to be above it and feel like I've lived my entire life battling to convince myself that I am. I don't know exactly why, but part of it has to do that as an overachiever, I took EVERY lesson and extrapolated it to the extreme: I felt like I had been taught that beauty isn't everything, it's not good to brag (so I didn't tell myself I was beautiful, or really pay myself the compliment of even simple, honest observation if it were something positive; it's bad to think well of oneself). Taking all that to heart, I muted that part of my life. But I am a young woman, much as I think I am above the natural inclinations to feel what many, if not all, women feel: beautiful, needed, wanted, thought of, not forgotten, valued, respected, loved. You can only stifle those things for so long. I have no idea where I got this notion that I need to be "stronger" than my needs. Why is there such a drive to be self-sufficient? Why is there a drive to feel like I need no one, or healing or leading?

Anyway, I digress. This weekend, I felt pretty, and the feeling really hasn't gone away as I've gotten ready in the mornings, looked in the mirror. It was today that it occurred to me that it's been a mood-lifter during this time. And it's been coupled with a peace and a security that I really haven't ever known. But I feel calm. I feel like the calm of the Proverbs 31 woman - the quietness of spirit - falls over me in the alone moments, the getting ready moments, the "just breathe" moments. I think that God is gently encouraging my personal femininity, which is strange to me because it's not like how I thought I might be. I don't feel like the process is forcing me into a mold that isn't recognizable to myself, but it's uniquely and comfortably "myself." And it's comforting, rather than alarming, soothing rather than creating anxiety. And I simply feel calmly good about it. Despite the turmoil going on around me with my dad, my job, and my small life, the peace of "now" has helped me to calm down and feel better about who God is calling me to be. I'm relieved to find that I can recognize that person to be me, and not someone I'd be pretending to be. God is merciful.