A STEVE WEEKEND ...is now over. We had a delightful weekend that started Friday night when our future son-in-law arrived from Austin, TX. He had not met Ron yet and originally this was to be the weekend he would meet Ron and ask for Dawn's "hand" (and of course, the rest of her as well:). For those who know the story, he called in September when she was visiting the U.S. to ask then because he wanted to give her the ring rather than wait until Thanksgiving when he will go to Ukraine to visit her. Ron gave them his blessing, but still wanted to meet Steve in person. This was the weekend. We were able to have our calendar fairly free of events to attend and enjoyed getting to know him better. He was able to help me with my resume that I am writing (and thinking through some of the issues I need to think through for that). The weather was beautiful both in temperature (70's) and sunshine. The only missing ingredient was Dawn!

Unfortunately, a number of our friends that we would have liked him to meet were out of town. Oh well, that was the downside, the upside was that we had a fun weekend with an almost family member.

MY FIRST MEME...I've been tagged by Tara for a meme. Here are the rules: turn to page 161 of the current book you are reading and read the fifth sentence. I am one of a group of people who read more than one book at a time, so I will tell you what I'm reading and why (if there is a reason), then I'll give you the sentence.

The two books I'm reading as I prepare for our Thursday Bible Study are:

1. The Formation of God's People, Israel (from the Adult Biblical Education Series) by Jack B. Scott. (A study of Exodus-Deuteronomy) There are only 142 pages, so I'll quote from that page.

" Moses' warnings to them that they could not ever expect to earn their own righteousness by their works but would surely fail to obey God perfectly, prepared them for broken hearts that would learn to turn to God and to look to Him in faith to provide that need which they had for a new heart that would obey the Lord." (I can hear Tara in the background cheering:)

2. THE UNFOLDING MYSTERY: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament by Edmund P. Clowney. This is a short book following the Old Testament Patriarchs, Moses, David and others and showing how Christ is there (not just in the New Testament). The author pulls so much of Scripture together, it is a joy to read...like seeing a puzzle fall into place.
By taking liberties so this will make sense in its context, this is my quote:

"Will the cry of the Lord's abandoned servant be heard? Yes! After the cry for salvation, David bursts into a vow of praise: I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the congregation I will praise you."

3.This is the book we are reading for our Sunday School class: THE TRUE WOMAN by Susan Hunt. Page 161 doesn't have five sentences. Here is the last one:

"The true woman will unleash her God-given femininity in expressing her love for Jesus with a holy abandon."

4. The last is a book I'm almost finished, but whose author is always very thought-provoking. I took some liberties with this sentence so it would make some sense (sentence 6 makes more sense alone than does sentence five). LEADING WITH A LIMP by Dan Allender.

"We hold on either to what we wish to remember or to what serves us well to recall, and we flee from the parts of our story that most deeply expose and unnerve us."

Here are some of the ones I would like to tag (unlikely that they can fit it in, but it would be fun to hear). Dawn, Holly, Halfpint House/ Megan, Dodo/ Caron, Dawn Treader (if he responds, I'll faint!).

And that's the end of my first meme.

REALITY CHECK...in many areas lately. I'll mention them in the order they come to mind, not necessarily priority. Maybe as I write, I can make some sense of all of the reality that is clobbering me!

1. I may not be as marketable as I had hoped. (And I wasn't wildly impressed with my marketable skills as a nurse with an eight year hole in my resume`.) I had my first conversation with a nurse recruiter yesterday. Realizing that I present much better in person, I need to learn how to manage this new way of doing job interviews by email/phone. I hate it! If I can call the person when I'm ready to talk, with all my information in front of me, mentally ready, that is fine...but impossible! I put my call in yesterday and 6 hours later, while I was on call waiting for someone in a billing department to take my call, the recruiter's call beeped in. It was late in the day and I knew if I didn't take it then, I was done for until the next day, so I took the call and of course, stuttered around as I looked for my materials and infomation so I could make sense. I had pushed a wrong button and couldn't find a number for the job, so that complicated things more, so I just launched into the other questions I needed to ask her. Basically, I came out of that conversation felling pretty dumb. She sounded very together and knew her "spiel"...and didn't seem to know much about the area of my questions. Somehow, I think that 60+ age on the registration blank, pigeonholes me before she has even seen me. I'm hoping for a better showing this Saturday at another hospital's Open House. We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out how to write up a resume` for the first time in my life! (I have never had to do that before for ANY job.)

2. I'm functioning in the area of my non-spiritual gift for the second year in a row and it is getting to me! There is a lot of improvement. Last year I was working in two areas of non-gift. One area is totally delegated to others who do it sooo much better than I. This year, I'm co-working in an area of non-gift as I co-teach with a woman who is gifted in teaching. The more I work with her, the more sure I am that this is her gift...and it isn't mine. The saving grace for me...and the reason that I'm not more of a failure...is that my gift is exhortation/encouragement. I don't pick out the points as easily as she does...in fact, it is often tortuously difficult for me to see them. They just jump out at her. I've noticed that about my husband too--he is a teacher. My motivation in doing what I'm doing is to encourage people to do what they do well or aren't sure they can do.
The problem with working in my area of non-gift is that it takes so much of my time to that, that I don't have the time to do the "people"/one-on-one work that I need to do to develop a lot of things that have gotten started. I know that others are doing that, but I really miss the contact with people. I am not a cave-dweller and that is what I have to become in order to be prepared to teach on the Thursday nights that I teach.

3. Overall time management, although improving from what it was before I went out of town, is not up to par. I feel like I have a lot of balls in the air and if I'm not careful, I'm going to get hit in the head when they all start to come down. There is no way I'll be able to catch all of them!

4. I'm getting pretty overwhelmed with homesickness as in, I just want to go home! I want to see old friends and be where it is easy to get outside and get the exercise I need. I want to be in my one story house and work in my garden and get my house in order (as tenents keep tearing it up). It is not against people here. I have some good friends here. I just long for long time friends who know my kids and remember things about them and ask how they are...because they know them. I don't know if these feelings are ties to the upcoming wedding or what, but the fun of a wedding is when your friends around you are excited for you and your child (that they know). I guess that is what is missing from this happy time. I'm far from the people who are so happy about this whole event and love to discuss the details.
Well, I think that is about all the "reality" I can handle for now.
I will have to refer to something from my Bible study to encourage my soul so I don't fall into a hole. Actually, I do have something pretty great. We are studying Exodus 19-20 along with Psalm 19. Psalm 19 was talking about general revelation and the Exodus passage talks more about special revelation. One of the writers that I was reading (I think it was Jack Scott) said that in special (or natural) revelation, here is one of the things that happens:
Every morning when the sun comes up, it preaches a sermon. The light of God always triumphs over the darkness!

How is that for a cool picture? It might be enough to make me a morning person...almost:) That might dispel the darkness for today...and remind me that I'm focusing on the wrong "reality".
m