Up in the Air

I've always been one that likes the security of a plan.   In college a roommate and I use to talk about how nice it would be to draw up a blue print of life.   With a new baby coming, our house up for sale and figuring out what to do about my career,  I'm feeling like there are a lot of uncertainties going on in my life right now.  My hope is that I'm not as big as an elephant, moving out of this house and homeless because I can't find a house I want to buy.  I've also had a lot of stress knowing how hard it would be to juggle my part time job with 3 kids who will all need to go to different places in the morning.   Yet I just can't quit because I love my job.  It is fulfilling,  family friendly and the extra security in these tough economic times is worth keeping it. 

As I pray that everything will fall into place I find I'm amazingly calm and peaceful about it.  I know the peace comes from faith that things will happen like they should. Looking back on the last few years my faith has grown as I've seen God's hand putting everything in it's perfect place, even when I wanted it to happen differently.  The time I saw it the most was with our decision to start a family.  We'd been married for about a year and a half and both of us felt the promptings to start a family.  It came as a surprised to me because I had always thought we'd start trying after Bart had finished school had a good job and was the main bread winner.  We took a leap of faith and soon Emily was on her way to join our family.  A few weeks before Bart graduated Emily was born.

During my maternity leave I was very stressed with a decision to stay full time or cut back to part time.   I knew I didn't want to go back to work full time but Bart had yet to find a job and like I've said before security is a major thing for me.  As I fretted over my decision, one day while rocking Emily in my quiet house I felt an assurance to tell my boss that I wanted to cut back to part time.  I did this and continued to fret all summer wondering if  I had made the right decision.  The next school year started and I went back to work part time with Bart still looking for a job.  I was constantly worried wondering about what the future held for my new little family and wondering why the blessings were taking so long.  It felt like an eternity but in reality it  was only a couple more months and Bart found a great job.  Looking back I see what a blessing it was for Bart to have that time with Emily.  The two of them became best buds as they bonded while I was at work.  It also was a huge lesson for me in Faith and learning to follow promptings even when the path is not clear.

So now as I don't have a clear blueprint of the future I know things will fall into it's perfect place as it always has.   I'm already seeing these blessings.  For instance I just got approved to take a 1 year's leave of absence from my job.  That means after the baby is born I'll get a year off from work but will be guaranteed my job back without losing any retirement benefits or seniority.  What a relief for me to know I'll get some extra time with my baby as 'hopefully' (cross our fingers) we are settling into a new area to live.