On Life (At This Point In Time) and Contentment (At This Point In Time)

I work in retail.  I don't earn much working in retail.  I earn even less working in retail when my employer cuts my hours.  This last statement is ringing very true at this very moment in my life.  It's a very big challenge to go from working, on average, about 35-37 hours a week to working 21 hours a week, all the while earning a wage that's just a little more than minimum wage and working in a position that I don't like (there are other not so great issues that I'm dealing with at work, but I won't mention them here due to the internet not being the place to air out dirty laundry).  To say that I am a stressed out broke person would be a very good way to sum up my life at this point and it hurts me to know that this is my situation right now.  

The emotions that I feel are very mixed at this point in time.  I am stressed due to school yard politics and other certain circumstances at work; I am stressed over my pay rate and lack of hours that have I to work; I am stressed over that I cannot find a job elsewhere, despite my applying for so many different positions at so many different places.  

Yet, I am grateful for the job that I hate.

To a certain extent, it pains me to say this because I hate it.  I hate my job.  I hate the school yard politics that go on at my job.  But I am grateful for it because I have a job.  Am I stressed over if I'll be able to pay for rent and other bills at this point in time?  Yes.  Am I stressed out due to circumstances at work?  Yes.  There are a number of things at work that are causing me stress, but God is allowing me to work.  I will have you know that I'm crying while I type this because of how down and out I feel.  But there was a bit of encouragement that came my way over the past 24 hours and it came through in two different ways.  The first bit of encouragement came through something that I won, and what I won was a bouquet of flowers from a local floral shop.  Now I have a lovely bouquet sitting in my living room that will brighten up not only my life, but also the lives of my roommates.  The second came in the form of a text that I received from my mother.  She texted me this morning to say that she was praying for me (which I greatly appreciate) and also sent me some verses on contentment to look up (because she knew that it would be far more beneficial for me to look them up myself rather than her giving me the actual verses).  And the verses are these:

1 Timothy 6:6-8

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and[a] we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

At this point in time, these verses are both an encouragement and a little painful because I have been blessed with food and clothes, among other things, yet at the same time, it's hard because I'm in the position where I don't know if I'll be able to pay bills and I hate my job.  At this point, I'm really banking on God to provide because there is no way that I can make it on the hours, pay rate, circumstances, that I'm working at and in.

But seriously, in the end, God is good and I know that He is good and that He provides because I've seen Him do it in my life and in the lives of others.  Now to work on being content in the hard times (because it's so easy to be content in the good times).

Thoughts on Fears and Stresses.

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about fear and stress.  Some of it is my own, some of it is that of others.  What started my thinking about fear and stress were three different conversations that I have had with two of the preschoolers that attend the preschool I work at and a book that I'm currently reading.

During the month of April, two of these talks were with a boy at the preschool and these conversations happened within a week of each other.  The first conversation happened on picture day and he was stressed about having his picture taken because he wasn't sure about which smile he was supposed to use.  The next conversation that he and I had about fear/stress was the next week on Friday.  It was the Friday before Easter, so we the staff had set up an Easter egg hunt for the kids and this particular boy was stressed and afraid because he didn't want the the Easter Bunny to be there because he was afraid of the Easter Bunny.  The third and final conversation of fear and stress that I had with one of the preschoolers occurred last week.  One of the girls, she's three years old, came up to me during afternoon recess and she was in tears.  I asked her what was wrong and she said that she was scared of the big kids (the preschool I work at offers a before/after school program for the elementary school kids at the local elementary school).

Another reason why I have been thinking about stress and fear is because I recently started reading a book called How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough.  I'm not very far in the book, just the first chapter, but what I have read has been extremely interesting.  Why?  Because in the first part of the book, the author is explaining that the amount of stress a person experiences as a child will affect the person as an adult.  The person could be affected psychologically, mentally, and/or physically.

After my conversations with my preschoolers and after starting this particular book, I've got to thinking.  I've noticed that it's very easy for adults to dismiss the stresses and fears of children, because in our minds, these stresses and fears seem extremely trivial.  The shadows in the closet, the boogey man, the big kids, the Easter bunny.  To adults, these are meaningless fears and stresses, but the child, these are legitimate fears and stresses.

For the child, these are legitimate fears and stresses.

We adults need to start taking the children seriously because one day these children with "trivial" stresses will be adults with "untrivial" problems because their stresses and fears were ignored.  Now, I'm only using very basic examples of the fears and stresses that a child may experience, but the same truth applies.  If we take seriously the fear that the child is afraid of being hurt by family member or a teacher, then we need to take seriously that the child is afraid of the dark or afraid of the Easter Bunny.

Success and Failure

Today was a day of accomplishment and it was also a day of setback.  It wasn't neither my accomplishment, nor was it my setback, but the accomplishment and setback of a little girl who is now no longer in my care.  Many people within my little sphere of influence know, and many people may not know, that I work at a preschool as a Teacher's Assistant.  It is a position that is both glorious and tragic, amazing and gut wrenching, hilariously awesome and hair-pullingly (is that even proper English?) awful.  There are many other words that can be used to explain what it is like to work in childcare and education, but that is not the purpose of this post.  This post is about a little girl.

Before I begin explaining her accomplishment and setback, I will give a brief explanation of her history.  Her age is two years and a half (2.5 years), and for those of you who are parents and/or work with children, you will know that this is age where the parent(s) attempt(s) to put the child through potty training.  Now, this girl is in a bit of a predicament: she is in foster care and is not potty trained.  These two facts put those of us who work with her in a predicament that required some wondering: how long will she be with us and will we be able to potty train (even in the slightest sense of the term) her while not neglecting the other children in our care?  The reason I pose the question of how long she'll be with us is because foster children are not always in one home, they tend to bounce around from house to house, which puts them into a situation of not really knowing who they can trust and in a situation of possibly moving from school to school, daycare to daycare.

This is a very simple explanation an issue that is far more complex.  Back to our little girl.

At two years and half, she is not potty trained and her care-taker/foster parent was making no effort in training her, which is a major injustice to this little girl because she will have to learn at some point because this girl cannot live her whole life wearing diapers.  Anyhow, every single day this little girl would set foot into the preschool, without fail, she would have multiple accidents due to her not going to the bathroom on a toilet.  Every single teacher, every single teacher's assistant (TA) would try to take her to the bathroom only to be met with crying and wailing.  This little girl was stressed by the whole ordeal.  Every single time that I would take her to the bathroom, I would tell her that the reason why we would try to have her go to potty on the toilet was because we cared about her (which is the truth) and that we wanted the best for her.  I would also tell her that she could trust every single person who worked at the preschool because we all cared about her, so if she needed to go potty, then she could come to any teacher and ask them to take her to the bathroom before she had an accident.  Plus, if she went potty on the toilet, I would give her a treat.

I said this every single time I took her to go potty.

She kept having accidents and she would not say anything until after the fact.  Plus, whenever I took her to sit on a toilet, no matter how much I tried to bribe her with treats, the only things she would do were cry and refuse to go to the bathroom, resulting in her having an accident not even five minutes later.

She has been at the preschool for about a month and all of us who work at the school knew that this week was her last week, though most of us did not know when her last day was.  This morning, Monday the 21 of April, 2014, this little girl walked up to me during morning play time, grabbed my hand and pulled me to the bathroom while stating she needed to potty.  While this was happening, I was checking to see if her pants were wet because normally when she would say that she needed to potty, what she was really saying was that she had already had an accident and needed to be changed.  She had no wet pants and when we got to the bathroom, she walked into the stall, asked me to hold the door closed, and successfully went potty on the toilet without any crying or wailing.

She successfully went potty on the toilet without any crying or wailing.

This was her accomplishment.  This was her success.

Of course, I could not stop gushing how excited I was that she went potty on the toilet and how proud of her I was (which is the truth).  After hand washing, I gave her the treat that I had been promising her, which was a jelly bean.  I have never seen a jelly bean be gobbled down so quickly.

This evening after my co-workers and I finished our end-of-the-day duties, recollected how this little girl had successfully gone to the bathroom without having an accident, there was excitement in the room, though the excitement did not last for very long.  The assistant director of the preschool informed all of us that today was the last day that this little girl was to be with us.  This was it.  She ended her time with us on a good note, but how will she do in the next school?  Will she continue to push forward and continue to succeed?

This is her setback.  There is the possibility of her continued success, yet, there is also the possibility of her regressing back into failure.

Those of us who had worked with her as closely as we did knew that if she had stayed in our preschool, we knew that she would continue to progress.  The only thing I can do now is pray to God that she continues to succeed, for her time with me is done and the only thing that I can do is trust that God knows what's best for this little girl.

Stop and Look Out.

Have you ever stopped to take time to look out upon the horizon?

I think that in western culture, we become so focused on the best way to get from Point A to Point B in the quickest, most efficient way.  Because we have this mindset, we forget to stop, think, and re-calibrate plans and directions.  We just forget to stop.  Or is it we don't want to stop?  Are we trying to get from Point A to Point B so that we can then get from Point B to Point C as soon as possible?  Are we trying to over fill our schedules so that we can get as much done just for the sake of being busy?  Why do we do this to ourselves?  What are our reasons for working ourselves into the ground with Points and A's and B's and packing as many of these things into our lives as quickly as possible?  We think we're seeing so much and doing so much by packing our schedules to the brim, but how much are we missing out on because of it?  Have we ever thought to stop and look up and look out?  What are we missing?  Are we even going in the right direction?  Should we even go in the "right direction"?  How 'bout taking a detour to a high point with another person and ask them how they would find their way from Point A to Point B?  Who knows?  Taking the time to stop and talk through the process with someone else while looking out to the horizon might be beneficial to our trekking from one point to another.  Plus, it might also provide an opportunity for us to pause and take in the view and realize that there is a great big world out there with many interesting people that we would otherwise be missing out on seeing and meeting.

When was the last time you stopped to look out upon the horizon?  You'll enjoy the break, and the view, if you stop and look out.

These are the days.

These are the days.  These are very much the days of wonder, the days of wonder, excitement, and joy.

I enjoy the season of autumn because the weather becomes cooler, though I must admit that the season of winter brings a sense of wonder, excitement, and joy that are unparalleled by the other seasons of the year.  There is the sense of wonder set with the raising of Christmas lights and Christmas trees, the observations of Advent and Hanukkah and the lighting of Advent wreaths and Hanukkah Menorahs, among other things.  There is a sense of excitement of the first winter snow (which, for athletes, brings the excitement of being able to go snowboarding and skiing), the excitement of being able to sing Christmas carols, being able to see the luminarias in Old Town on Christmas Eve.  There is the joy of giving gifts to those we care about, the joy of seeing the eyes of children and foreign exchange students brighten with joy and awe of things that are new to them and the wonder of what it all means.

For those who believe in God, there is the wonder, excitement, and joy of the birth of Jesus the Christ and the expectation of Him returning to earth to usher His people into heaven.

In the midst of all of this, it's very easy to forget that there are people who, for whatever reason or reasons, are not experiencing these things, this wonder, excitement and joy.  There are people who are sick and in the hospital and do not have any family to visit them.  There are those who are new to town and do not have any family or acquaintances to spend the holiday with.  There are people who are wondering if they will be able to pay their bills, let alone pay for Christmas presents.  There are people who are homeless and wondering if they will survive the night.  For these people (and many others who are ailing in many other ways), these are not the days of wonder, excitement, and joy.  These people are vulnerable, they appear to be very strong on the outside, but are actually very frail.  If there is someone who could benefit from the wonder, excitement, and joy of Christmas, it would be someone from this group of hurting people.

It is easy to volunteer one's time at local homeless shelters, soup kitchens, visiting the elderly around the holidays (I am not bashing this by any means, doing this does help many people tremendously).  As I write this blog and as I think about this topic, I realize that volunteering at these places all throughout the year rather than just at the holidays will probably help create relationships between the visitor/volunteer and the person/organization that is being visited/helped, which then helps create the sense of wonder, excitement, and joy.  Thinking about this makes me realize that I need to do this more often than I have.  It is so easy to become so caught up in the wonder, excitement, and joy that I'm experiencing that I do not always share it with others who do not have it.  Not only should I share the wonder, excitement, and joy that God has given me with them, but I should be sharing it with them throughout the year so that they may possibly be able to share it with others.

Is it always easy to escape out of our little bubbles to share the wonder, excitement, and joy of the season and actually share it year round?  No, but it can be done.  For some, the silver lining around the moon is not always seen, but we can somehow impact the life a person with hope and joy.

As hard as it is, I really shouldn't be wallowing.

I'm sitting at a desk that has a college algebra book, two anatomy and physiology books (one for lecture and one for lab) and the corresponding notebooks and I'm just staring at these books.  I'm staring at them and wondering if I'm doing the right thing with my life by being in school.  Again.  All my life I have heard from people, whether I know them or not, that I should go to school and make something for myself, that I should find myself a good job that will help me become successful (whatever successful means).  Live in ease.

Now here I am, at the age of 26, and I don't know what I'm doing with my life.  I am at the age where I could easily have already received a Master's degree in something and already be working in that specific career area... but I haven't and I'm not.  I have been in and out of the local community college so many times as a student that it's just ridiculous.  I'm surprised they haven't told me to either stay put and do something with myself or leave and never come back.  So I decided to stay put long enough and got my Associate's Degree in Liberal Arts and I was quite proud of myself... until I figured out that a degree in Liberals Arts will do absolutely nothing for me when it comes to finding a job. 

I am now at the point of stressing out about finding a real job and whether or not I should continue this route of being in school and getting more classroom education and experience (in contrast to real life education and experience in the workforce).  I've submitted the job applications and I've submitted the resumes without very much feedback and I don't like it.  At all.

Am I wallowing?  Yes, I'm wallowing.  Though, I must admit that I have had two interviews recently, which is much better than no interview at all.  I have very easily been stuck in a negative light, focusing on me and what I'm not getting, focusing on the interviews that are not happening.  That's what's been happening rather than me focusing on God and who He is and looking on the fact that God has blessed me with the opportunities to have at least been called in to be interviewed and we'll see what happens.

Despite what God has blessed me with, I've been wallowing in self-pity like Pig-Pen from the comic strip "Peanuts".  Wallowing allows for many negative feelings and if there are any words to describe what I'm feeling, the words would be depressed and anxious.

Then earlier this week, the pastor of the church that I attend posted a bible verse on facebook.com that just stopped me in my tracks.  The verse that he posted was Philippians 4:6 and I have been thinking about it a lot over the past few days.  So here's the verse, plus the surrounding verses to give some extra context:

Philippians 4:4-9

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. ⁵ Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; ⁶ do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

⁸ Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ⁹ What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

After reading these verses, I realized that depressed and anxious are bound to happen in normal every day life.  Despite that fact, depressed and anxious aren't to be wallowed in and they aren't things that are true or honorable or pure or anything good, which means that I'm better of giving the depressed and anxious feelings to God.  In the end, I better be focused on God and talking with Him on a daily basis and asking Him to give me a daily reality check, because I'm not doing so well on my own.

Dear Mom: Little letters that I write that never make it to her.

I don't know if anyone else out there in the world are like me, but I'm the kind of person who tends to create a schedule for my day and/or week and then completely disregard that scheduled.  This is a really, really bad habit, I mean it's really bad.  I'm pretty sure that this really, really, ridiculously bad habit of mine causes much groaning and gnashing of teeth for my parents.  Now, no matter the situation, there have been times in my life where I have not said anything to my parents about the things that I've accomplished in the day, whether the accomplishment is big or small.  Some of the accomplishments may seem trivial to some people, maybe they are, but an accomplishment is an accomplishment.

So, here it goes, the little letters from different times of my life to my mother.


Dear Mom,

You may not have noticed, or maybe you did and couldn't say anything due to shock, but I actually made my bed today.


Dear Mom,

I made the chocolate chip cookies exactly the way you told me to.


Dear Mom,

You will be so proud of me.  When I was at school today, I was able to find a parking space where there was tree that provided plenty of shade to cover my entire car.


Dear Mom,

I went to school and actually went to my classes.


Dear Mom,

I washed and dried my clothes.


Dear Mom,

I folded my clothes.


Dear Mom,

I vacuumed my room (I haven't put my clothes away yet, but I'm working on it).


Dear Mom,

I put most of my shoes in my closet.


Dear Mom,

I washed my car.


Dear Mom,

I vacuumed my car.


Dear Mom,

I actually made the attempt to look feminine and wore make-up today, even though I had absolutely no reason to do so.


Dear Mom,

That guy that I think is really, really cute?  I actually attempted to talk to him (talk, as in saying something more substantial than, "hey, how's it goin'?").


Dear Mom,

Today, I wore make-up to try to look nice for that really, really cute guy.  I never saw him today.


Dear Mom,

I swept and mopped the kitchen floor and cleaned the kitchen counters and microwave as best I could after I made a really big mess when I was cooking (sorry for the areas that I missed, I really did try my best).


Dear Mom,

I'm really trying not to be a sensitive, self-centered, jerk-face anger ball; God's helping me realize that I'm more of one than I've been willing to admit to.


Dear Mom,

I didn't eat the rest of your Goldfish pretzels because I knew you might want them.


Dear Mom,

Even though this doesn't seem to happen a lot, I really do try to wake up, be out of bed, and cleaned up before 8am because I really don't like being unproductive.


Dear Mom,

A good day is when I say "I love you" to you and Dad and when we laugh about nothing.