God of the rubbish heap.

The last 7 months have not really been kind to the Gaithersburg Newells.  December started the downward spiral, and the hill that you so look forward to going over in the rollercoaster turned pretty bad, in fact, as many of you know, January saw the roller coaster jump track as J was in the Hospital and was not given a very great prognosis.  Fast forward a few months and I still have my wife, only to find that her mom, who has been one of the strongest people I know and who gave several years of her life to take care of someone she cared for now has Cancer.  Not just a little bit either, if reports are accurate we have been told that J's mom doesn't have a lot of time to do the things she has always wanted.

J is of course devastated as am I, to make matters worse having just started working makes it impossible for me to be there physically through all of this.  J is so strong and I love her but wow are the fear sensors going into overdrive for me.  The masses removed from my mother in law remind me of the mass that still needs to be removed from her.  I really hate this.

The title of the post is God of the rubbish heap.  Why you ask?   Simple I feel like we have not just been chucked into the rubbish heap, I feel like we are the rubbish heap.  The things that I know and that I have studied and learned my entire life, the things that I have belived are systematically being reduced to cliche and plattitudes. 

People say look at all that God has given you, a job, and you have J back, and you have two wonderful girls. 

While I can acknowledge that these are good things, I have to try and figure out I have to have a reason, any reason at all that it would seem possible or good for us to have to shoulder yet anohter issue.  Summer always suck for us.  That seems to be the way it is but this time summer started in December and when we finally get to the end will be tragic in ways that I can not begin to fathom. 

I dont even want to bang my fists against the doors of Heaven.  I dont want to pray I don't want to feel God's presence.  I want Him to leave my family alone for a while.  I dont want to learn anytihng, I dont want to grow, I dont want to have patience worked in my life or my families life.  I dont want to talk to God.  I would never put myself on the same level as Job, there was a man who was amazing, and you know what I am not really able to.  I would love it to be diffferent but I'm not so sure I would be ablet o say can we take good from God and not expect bad things as well.  No I dont have that kind of faith. 

I have never been a name it and claim it, super emotional follower of Christ.  I dont "ride the waves of the spirit" as it were.  I have always been one fo those Christians who has valued not just faith in God but also the brain that was put into us by our creator.  So when I look at Job I make assumptions and conclusions, the first and foremost of wich is that Job had it all, he was rich. Second people want to blame satan for what happened, they say that see the devil did all these things to Job, not so fast, yes the devil did, however lets remember that before the devil could even touch Job a man who God pointed out as a great man as a follower of his, as a person that God loved and cared about, before the devil could touch him he had to get permission to do so.  See the devil didn't do it, God allowed it.  God said sure the only thing satan wasn't allowed to do was take Job's life.  Job had a faith that I can only imagine that I can only look at and envy and also look at and question.  A faith that said hey it's not God's fault, and even then Job got mad and questioned God.  And what was God's answer, as I read God's reply to Job I find myself still having the question of why.  

Which brings me back dear reader to where I am and to the title.  God may still be the God of the rubbish heap that is my life... but I must admit that there are times lately that I wonder if...

Day 2

Yesterday was quite the experience.

After 2 plus years of not having a full time job, after countless resume’s and wondering if there was anything. After spending most of my week with Z, reading to her, playing with her, coloring with her, watching her movies and having her climb up into my lap and say “daddy I love you.” I started work with Arbor Education and Training as the WEX coordinator. Big program that has not had a coordinator since November but that has needed one.

So here I sit day 2 on my lunch break updating the blog on my macbook. My computer is not installed yet but I am being told today.

I love working, I like the people, and I think I’m going to enjoy the job, but and hold on to your whatever it is you want to hold on to. I miss the daily daddy things that Z and I used to do. I miss coloring with her, and watching her movies and all that. She’s mad at me too, or at least it seems like she is. J and I each take a kid to school. I take Amberly and head to work strait from there because it works best that way but Z wants to be with me like she always has.

I know this is what I am doing and what I should be doing. I like that the door opened and I was able to walk through it, but wow who knew that all the things that were frustrating and annoying and that made me want to pull my hair out sometimes would be the very things I would miss the most.

Anyway things are going to be interesting, my boss is supposed to meet with me today but hasn’t, I don’t want to be a nuisance, but I really want to get going with things.

Anyway thats where things sit today. Lunch late, no computer in my office and waiting to see what’s next.

Second place... First place loser

        I have always felt this way. I know it’s twisted, I know it’s wrong, I know I shouldn’t feel like this. I just do. I feel like life is a game, and not the fun type of game that I play from time to time with friends and family I mean a very nasty game that has winners and losers. The winners are the ones that can be productive members of society and that can provide for the needs and wants of their families, the losers are the rest of us. Nothing degrades a person that has always tied his or her self worth to what they do, than to be the one that is just not good enough. What I mean by just not good enough is not what you may think. It’s like being “just a bit outside” in baseball. The pitcher lines up and just barely misses the strike zone. Thats what seems to happen with me. I interview at a place and everyone in the interview talks about how great I am and how I seem to have a good grasp on the situation and how I could be an asset, they may say that my experience teaching, or planning and implementing camps and retreats for large groups will really come in handy. They may even ask when I would be able to start... then nothing. I hear nothing back I am put off for weeks being told that they are waiting or the position is on hold or whatever it is, and when I finally do find out what they meant to say, what the truth of the matter is, I end up getting knocked back more and more.
        J and I have said that it seems when I start to get bummed something will open up to give me a glimmer of hope, the problem with that logic is that I can only take so many glimmers, there are only so many times that I can hear; “we really like you but.” I’m sick of that statement, I’m tired of hearing that I’m either over qualified, or that a job can’t pay me what I’m worth or that I have such great qualifications. I am tired of hearing that someone is going to be lucky to get me or that I’m not Methodist enough or whatever it is. I don’t want to hear “wait on God” I don’t want to be told to pray some more.
        I’m tired of telling Amberly that we will go to that movie or we will do such and such as soon as Daddy starts working. I am torn up over the fact that we can’t take the girls on a proper vacation, I hate that every time I get a bit of hope built up, it’s smashed and taken away. Enough is enough, there has to come a point that something in the year 2010 is good.
        Before you decide to get all self righteous and spiritual on me and tell me that God has given me so much, that I still have J and the girls, or that J is a miracle let me say this shut up. I hate the fact that J was sick in the first place, I don’t see any intrinsic value in that whole situation, I don’t see how it “worked for the good.” I’m to the point of walking, of just telling God he can keep to Himself and I’ll keep to myself.