Tag: dreams

Signs

I pray about things. And I do that both formally and informally. Sometimes, I sit and do the sign of the cross and address God, then say things to Him and, maybe, ask Him for things, and end ‘in His name, Amen.’

Most of the time, though, I pray more in an open prayer. That is, I turn to God, both physically and mentally, throughout the day, and interact with Him. I say things to Him either in my head or aloud – usually in my head, when others are around – and I listen for His replies. He always replies, but I don’t always understand at the time. One of my biggest prayers is for clarity in my next step with everything in my life. I pray that I want, pursue, and fulfill God’s will in all that I am and in all that I do, and I always ask for clarity as to how next to step in order to do just that. And, when it is time to do something other than what I’ve been doing lately, I receive some kind of clear sign – usually in the form of a strong and almost-sudden pull, desire, calling – and I can just feel that it is God’s will pulling me forward, showing me my next step on His desired path for me.

Lately, I have been in what has felt like a sort of limbo. I see not my path forward, and I have no idea how we are going to get to what comes next – because I can feel God’s promise of what is next, but just don’t yet see or know quite what or how it is to be – though I do see what I am to do for right now. He’s told me to do well by the kids – ‘Do a good job,’ He has told me, and I feel that He means for the students.

Naturally, I started stressing at how I’m not being a good enough teacher right now, as soon as I understood that to be His present will. So, I’m working on that.

However, there are so many directions life could go in the next six months, and I find myself getting scared and stressed about that. I cannot yet see where God is taking me, and it is scaring me a bit.

But, of course, now that I’m saying all of this, my obvious answer is, Well, that would be because you are not trusting in God. No duh, banana. No duh… So, I guess it is time to trust fully in God and to let go of the not knowing. He will make sure I know when it is time for me to know. And He will take care of me. All I need do presently is continue to choose Him every day and to do His will of doing a good job. And I do. And I will.

Okay, God. I let go. You can have back this fear I’ve been picking up, and turn it into something gloriously beautiful in a new form, please. Thank you for this life, and thank you for prayer. Thank you for being with me so much and for always being ready and able to listen and, also, to respond. Thank you for your guidance. Please, help me to see exactly how to proceed to create and to realize this amazing life you are offering to me. Help me always to pursue and to fulfill your will by my life. Heal those in need of healing, please. And let me know whatever I need to know, please. In your name, I pray in immense gratitude. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Nerd / Baseball

While I do enjoy watching a good – me sing active and well-played – baseball game, I certainly am not into it like the average person who watches professional sports is. I do not have a strong association with this group of people who are not from my town or neighborhood, often, even, country, and who are here merely to play a sport. I find nothing wrong with their doing that. But I only would have immense interest in their games if they were people either who came from the same exact background as I did, or if they were people I knew personally.

For example, when the hockey team plays well at school, I am very proud of them. I go willingly to their games. Why? Not just because they are at my school, but because I know several of the players. Same for cross country. Yet it changes every year. I once cared a lot about the football games, because my students played in them. This year, not a single one plays football, and I haven’t made it to more than about twenty minutes or so of the first game of the season. I don’t know the players this year. But I do know members of the hockey and cross country and water polo teams, and so I watch their season with interest and enjoy attending their events when I can.

Anyway, all this is to say that, though I don’t exactly go wild for watching professional baseball, I really do enjoy the part where it often brings family and friends together just to sit around and be together for several hours at a time. It is truly a great pastime, and I appreciate and am grateful for it.

(And I still don’t support people being angry or mean in any way regarding sports rivalries. Not a chance. Grow up. Be a kind human being. Period. Support your team, and stop being nasty to others just because you support one team in particular and they don’t.)

Okay, and the nerd part is that I got an A on my Mandarin oral quiz! And I didn’t even have the full amount of time to prepare for it. So, extra-cool! Yay!

Thank you, God, for my success and for this opportunity. In your name, I pray in gratitude. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

God’s plans

A few years ago, I started participating in a Japanese practice called Kakizome. On January second, one creates one’s kakizome, “first writing”, of the year. This first writing is a single word or phrase that is one’s goal and intention for the year as a whole. It is intended that we put our kakizome somewhere visible, so we see it regularly and consistently throughout the year. Since participating in this practice, I have found that my own kakizome has, unintentionally, and without my even noticing, been the challenge I end up facing consistently through ought that year. And, by facing that challenge again and again, I have overcome some big hurdle in my life and have become powerfully more the person I long to be and am called to be by God. Put differently, I have become a better version of myself in a significant way each year, after facing trial after trial of my kakizome for that year. And it was never on purpose – it just came up over and over again. One year was confidence in myself and heart (when I healed a lot of emotional and psychological wounds from some rather terrible abuse, and started writing wonderful songs and sharing myself with the world in a beautiful and loving and confident self-expression). Another was embodiment (that’s when I physically hit all my goals of fitness, felt the most beautiful I ever have been, met the man of my life, and became the person who prays whom I had longed to be). This year’s… well, we’ll get to that.

Now, sometimes, it is really hard to see and to understand God’s plans for us. Perhaps that is how He wants it to be. Perhaps that is how He needs it to be. Perhaps that is how we need it to be in order for everything to work out as God has planned so beautifully.

Whatever the case, it often is not very easy to be calm and easygoing when things seem impossible. When God has granted me these longings, these wishes, these dreams towards which to strive, and everything seems finally so close to fulfilling on those dreams, yet starts to pull away from that pathway… it can be extremely difficult to trust in God and His oh-so-unclear plans… When the labyrinth of God’s love and plans takes the route closest to the inside, and then swerves to the outermost path… faith gets tested, to be sure.

And that is, basically, my every day right now… and that kind of really sucks…

What is ironic – and, possibly, perfect and relieving – about it all, though, is that my kakizome for this year is “faith in God”, in the sense of trusting in Him, having confidence in Him – ‘Jesus, I trust in you.’ Like that.

So, I guess, it really is no wonder that I am having such massive experiences of having to trust in God this year, and on a whole ‘nother level from the usual trust I have to put in Him. Usually, it is for much smaller things and not all too often. This year, however, it has been for massive thing after massive thing. I have been hit with so many impossible-feeling situations, that the only consistency I have felt this year is a sense of everything being up on the air and unknown. I have handed thing after things up to God – here, God, I entrust this fully to you, has been a norm for me this year. I have even given Him some intense stuff that I would like to let go from my life entirely, demons that I have asked Him to take away from me fully… there is not much this year where I haven’t given it all up to God and entrusted it to Him and His judgement. But it seems there is plenty more to go still…

I’m genuinely laughing and crying right now. It is comical in its irony.

Okay, God, have it all. I am so scared, and I am trusting you, anyway, even with my fear – have that, too. I am hear to love you and to be your love in the world. You know best how to make that happen. So, though it terrifies you, I hand myself and my whole life you to. Please, take good care of us. We love you. I love you, Abba. I give up fighting you. I give up not trusting you wholly. Please, help me to find peace, even in my unknowing. Help my man to find peace in it all, too, please. And, if it be your will, please, grant us both these spectacular wishes and desires for the future that you have given to us both, with you at their center. Thank you for this life. In your name, I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

A prayer for work

Dear Lord, please, help my man to find relief and fulfillment in his work. If this is not the job for him, help him to find clearly what he must do now and next, and when next is. Please, make his every step clear for us both, that we may pursue and fulfill your will through his work. Grant him ease and confidence, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Talk about mysterious…

All I will say for now is that today started out very differently than how it turned out. Note this exchange between a friend of mine from college and me from just after midday today (though, morning still for the friend).

J: How are things with trying to find work?
H: Iffy
H: I had a clear message from God to do other things while waiting for a reply for this one particular job interview. But it has been a few weeks now with no follow-up after the second interview.
J: Ahhh that’s hard to wait through. His timing can certainly be mysterious.
H: Yes!!

Fast forward to 18:45, and I sent that same friend the following message:

H: What did you start this morning?????

Suffice it to say for now that my prayers and understanding of God’s guidance proved true, and to an extreme. He kept telling me that I would understand and know how to proceed once they reached out to me, meaning the school where I had applied for the IT position. He didn’t say anything about whether I’d get the job or even that their reaching out had to do with that job – just that I would understand after talking with them when they reached out. And I had started getting antsy just the past two days, like it was getting close, whatever it was…

And, boy… what an unexpected conversation – two conversations – I had with them this evening when they reached out. God led me truly and clearly, that’s for sure. I have at least one more conversation to have tomorrow morning, but this much of a turn of events was certainly unexpected, though not unbelievable. God truly works in mysterious ways and with mysterious timing. To put it simply, though vaguely, God has just offered me almost exactly what I asked to have several years ago, but that I likely wouldn’t have been able to manage and handle at the time I first wished for it. Now that I say that, I’m not sure I ever prayed and asked for it directly, though I certainly wished it were possible and could and would happen. Man… what a wow-filled evening…

Thank you, God. Help me to act according to your will and to see clearly, especially tomorrow. Help me also to speak clearly and to have the words that make the best difference, tomorrow and always. Thank you for this blessing of an offer. Please, heal all those in need of healing, and help them to feel your love clearly. Thank you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Lacking a goal

Lacking a goal can be one of the toughest times. I found a great one to have today, and I accomplished much and was very grateful for the accomplishments. Tomorrow shall be another such day in which I must create a specific goal, for I presently have none, and it is already becoming difficult.

Sure, I have the long-term goals. But I am at a small get significant crossroads right now. Perhaps this is the perfect time for me to do the things I’ve been putting off. (Meaning that it definitely is the time for that! Haha)

God, help me, please, to be my best self and to pursue and fulfill your will. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

So far, so right

I got an interview today. It was short and sweet and to the point, and I very much enjoyed it. It seems to have gone well. We shall see what comes next.

But I know things would have been different for me today with this interview if I hadn’t stood my ground yesterday (and, possibly, earlier this week).

Thank you, God, for helping me to trust in you. Please, continue to do so – continue to make it clear for me which way you are calling me in each moment. Help me to pursue you and your will as also my own. Help me to love and to be loved, with and through you always. Thank you for this life. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

P.S. I really would like to get this job, just so we’re all clear.

Pulled

God is calling me, encouraging me to take a stand, yet something, too – the devil, perhaps? – is pulling me to feel guilty at this desire to stand for myself, to stand my ground, to stick with what feels right, though it may seem selfish at a glance.

I cannot explain it any other way right now, but it feels like God is calling me to be here right now.

Ironically, I was just sharing Sunday how I’ve determined that I need to trust wholly whatever call I feel from God right now, as that will lead me to where I need to be. And now, mere days later, I am having to do just that in a very difficult way, and I almost didn’t stand up for it.

Post-a-day 2023

Not good enough yet

I will be good enough after more learning and experience, but I’m not good enough for the dream jobs yet.

And that’s okay. It makes perfect sense, given that I’m only just learning even how to do the basics for this new career direction I want to pursue. I feel no shame for it. A touch of sadness, perhaps, due to the need to have some patience as I learn and improve, but no wrongness about it, no, ‘I suck,’ about it all.

But for how many other parts of my life do I not allow myself to experience this same scenario in such a way? How many other places do I expect to be better than I am, further along than I am, even though I haven’t yet had the learning and experience within that ‘role’ in order to be a master of it, to be exactly who and how I want to be in that realm? How much strain and stress and shame am I giving myself, when I have no true reason to expect myself to be any better than I am at certain things in this very moment? Relationships with others, with self? Working out solo instead of in group classes? Cooking for two? CLEANING for two? And a dog? Laundry for two? (To be clear, I still suck quite badly at the full laundry process for myself, and have been working slowly on that in recent years. Yet I expect myself to be able to ah for it flawlessly for two people suddenly??) Supporting a house? Paying for life in a house? Supporting a family financially? Managing prayer life for a family? Figuring out things not on my own? Keeping a sleep schedule that is drastically different from someone else in the same house?

I was not a great teacher when I first started teaching. Yes, I was good, especially for a new teacher. I had great instincts and great ideas. I had very good relationships and rapport with students. But I wasn’t a great teacher. It took me a long time to turn a lesson idea into an actually good lesson, let alone great lesson. My overall subject-area effectiveness was somewhere just above the middle, possibly a bit higher. Sure, I encouraged and empowered students to pursue their lives fully. But they didn’t necessarily learn their subject all that well. Now, however, things that took forever or never happened come easily for me. It takes little effort to turn a crap lesson – IN THE MOMENT – into a great and effective And fun lesson (for not just be students, but also for me). I put just as much effort into teaching, but the results are monumentally greater, and in all ways. I love teaching, and I have become a great teacher. But I wasn’t always a great teacher. Just because I was good and I was good enough to become great didn’t make me great then. It only made me great now, down the road of experience and effort and desire – not merely the desire to be great.

That being said, perhaps I could chill a bit on being so harsh on myself and my life for not being better already. Sure, I may be great at much. But that doesn’t mean I have to be amazing at things I have almost no experience or practice actually doing. It’s okay to suck at those things. That’s the point of a neophyte. And I am the one (in my shoes). (And yes, I’m a total nerd and a bit of an idiot, too. Please, enjoy the terrible pun. 😛 )

Post-a-day 2023

Uh-oh…

I have already felt like out chicken coop doesn’t quite have enough space for the chickens to stay locked up together during the daytime. Them’s chickens ‘s bigger th’n I ‘spected!

Yet, today, we were offered a few free chickens to add to our collection. And, of course, they are a breed that looks really cool, and of course I want them now… (Barred Rock is the breed, in case you want to Google them).

Not only does the coop not have enough grass area for them to stay locked up daytime already, but these new ones supposedly end up even bigger than most chickens, making them need even more space per chicken…

So, more money and more project time for my man to expand that coop, if we’re going to accept the chickens…

And I have a very strong feeling that we are…

The next days shall reveal!

Help us to see clearly, God. Please. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023