Category Archives: God

>Moving On…and on…and on…

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It’s crazy to think that I haven’t posted a new blog since May 3rd…MAY 3RD! That’s just too long, and I apologize. If your only contact with me has been through my blog, then we have a lot of catching up to do! Buckle up…

Graduation

Matt graduated with his Masters Degree in Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary on Saturday, May 19th. It was a great day. We had lots of friends and family there, and we had a great party to celebrate Matt. The one bad thing about that day? Matt didn’t have a job lined up for after graduation. Most of April and May was pretty tense at our house. We had a church we were talking to, but it seemed to take forever for them to make their decision! And then…

The Church

At the end of May, we FINALLY heard an answer from the church. Matt is now the Associate Pastor of Youth and Discipleship at Emmanuel United Methodist Church in Noblesville, Indiana (http://www.emmanuelumc.org/). This was exactly what we wanted! Our good friends and mentors, Jeff & Julie Buck, are in ministry there, and we have always thought it would be awesome to work with them. A few years ago, after a visit with the Bucks, we left the church, and I said something like this, “Wouldn’t it be awesome to work with them? Ohmygosh…it would be even better if the missionaries in parsonage moved out, and they let us live there!” Well…

The House

We now live in a parsonage! It’s our first parsonage ever, and I’m really happy with it. It has four bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a huge living room, a sitting room, a big kitchen, a nice dining room and a two car garage. It was definitely neat to move all our stuff from a one bedroom basement apartment to a four bedroom house! The church let us paint inside too, so it’s pretty much exactly how we want it. We moved in on June 23rd.

The Space in Between

We left Wilmore on June 1st. We moved to the parsonage on June 23rd. Where did we stay in between? My sister and her hubby are amazing…Kelly and Brandon opened their home to us, and let us live in their spare bedroom (rent free!) for the month of June. I am so thankful for them! They really are great hosts, and we felt right at home. I think Kelly was happy to have someone cook for them. I was happy to get to spend so much time with my sister, who I had missed terribly for the past 5 years! Plus, getting to play with Kamryn nearly every day was a complete bonus. Thanks Alyeas!

My Job

I started my job as the Administrative Assistant to the Indianapolis East District Superintendent of the United Methodist Church on June 4th. It has definitely been an adjustment from working in Admissions at Asbury. I’m WAY younger than everyone in the office (by at least 25 years or so), and it’s definitely less fun than Admissions was. I have been completely spoiled by working for Janelle! My new boss is great though, and he has made this transition much easier than I thought it would be. The other two Administrative Assistants in the office have been here 30 and 21 years, so they have been really helpful also. So far, my favorite tasks have been to send out the weekly e-newsletter to everyone in the Indianapolis East and Indianapolis West districts and to create and edit the bi-monthly newsletter for the area. I have spent a lot of time getting my stuff organized too. The person who worked here before me had a very different filing system than I could ever want! This is turning out to be a great job though. I like it more all the time.

The Cars

When we left Wilmore, we had one car: our little, gold Mitsubishi Galant. It’s a great car, but now that we live in Noblesville, and I work in Indianapolis (a 17 mile commute every day), we need a second car! The day we pulled into town from Wilmore, we went to our Honda dealership in Indy, and bought a green Honda CR-V. I love it! It’s exactly what I wanted (except for the color – I would have rather had red…oh well). The payment is quite a bit more than our little Galant payment was, but it’s working out just fine.

Emmanuel

We love our new church! Everyone there has been so fantastic. The kids in our youth group are fun and generally well-behaved (which is a huge change from the youth group we were a part of in high school!). Matt and Jeff are working really well together, and Matt is doing a great job with all his responsibilities. He has said numerous times that it doesn’t even feel like a job! I am waiting a bit before I get too involved, although I am going to start going to a bible study with some other women in the church tonight. I’m looking forward to getting to know some people my age. Don’t get me wrong – the kids in youth group are awesome and fun, but I do think I need some older friends too.

Buster Bluth

Since we are finally living somewhere that will let us have pets, we got a kitty our first week in Noblesville. We went to the Hamilton County Humane Society with every intention of bringing home a kitten, but when we got there and saw all the adult cats that hadn’t been adopted, my heart just broke! I wanted to bring them ALL home! Matt wouldn’t let me (thankfully), so we looked and looked and looked until we found the one we thought was perfect. He’s a two-year old, orange tabby cat with big golden/orange eyes who we named Buster Bluth. Buster’s name was inspired by one of the characters from Arrested Development, our new favorite TV series. (Side note: if you have never seen Arrested Development, go out right now and rent it, buy it, or borrow it. It’s three seasons of the most hilarious TV you will ever watch!) He’s a great cat! He loved to cuddle and have his tummy rubbed, and he really loves chasing lights from our laser pointer and hunting his toys. He will lay in bed with us every night, and usually likes to be touching both of us while he’s laying there. He’ll place himself right between us and meow in protest if we ever move and squish him. He’s too much fun…

I think that’s about it. Family is good. Friends are good. Life is GOOD! I hope to be updating this blog more frequently now. I have been putting it off knowing that I would have the huge task of updating our past 3 months. Now that it’s done, I can move on! Peace out.

>The Waiting

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>Here are four words that will give you a glimpse into my life: I love Tom Petty.

Simple.

There are some who will argue with my taste (Mike), but to those people, I say, “Back off!” I love Tom Petty.

Matt and I were recently in Cleveland to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Let me tell you something: the Rock Hall is amazing! It’s worth the trip to Cleveland just to go. When we were there, they had a big special exhibit just for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I cried. Seriously. I love Tom Petty.

My parents are musicians (did you know that?). I had a pretty fun childhood. While most of you were being rocked to sleep by the sounds of Brahms’s Lullaby, I was being lulled into dreamland by the sounds of The Beatles and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. When I was about 4 or 5 my favorite song was “The Waiting” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. For my fifth birthday I got to go to their concert. I don’t remember much, but I do remember reddish stage lights and Tom Petty looking down at me and smiling. Awesome. I love Tom Petty.

“The Waiting” is still my favorite Tom Petty song. I can’t tell you why. It’s definitely not his most accomplished piece of music, but for some reason I can’t help but love this song. It makes me feel younger, and it reminds me of a much simpler time when my parents were still faultless and heroic and my biggest problems in life happened when I tried to decide which Barbie to play with. I love Tom Petty.

Mom and I were talking on the phone today about my current life situation. For those who haven’t been keeping up, here’s the scoop: Matt is graduating in 24 days, and we have no idea where we will be going after that. Yeah. It’s a little crazy. Okay…it’s a lot crazy! We’re dealing. We do have something in the works that might pan out, but that is yet to be seen. Besides the job mess, we are also experiencing some fertility issues. I have been on some wacky fertility drugs for the past 4 months or so, and we’ve had no luck. (On a side note, I think I’m going to stop the drugs for a little bit. Just until we get settled somewhere…) Needless to say, most of my conversations these days end up being some variation of this: “Hi! Oh, no…we don’t know where we’re going yet. Yeah, we are going a little crazy. No, we’re trying not to be worried. Why? Do you think we should be worried? What’s that? Oh, no we’re not pregnant yet either. Yeah, I’m sure it will happen in God’s timing. Huh? I’m pouring sweat? No, it’s not hot in here. My drugs give me hot flashes. Yeah – it’s hilarious. You can stop laughing now. Seriously…”

I was having one of these conversations with Mom today when she began doing what she does best – saying encouraging things to try to make me feel better. They usually do make me feel better, and today they did not disappoint. In the midst of this encouraging pep talk, she sighed and said, “You know, the waiting IS the hardest part.” Huh? Mom loves Tom Petty too, it seems.

She then began to note the prophetic meaning behind me loving “The Waiting”. She reminded me that I have had to do a lot of waiting in my young life. I knew at the age of 19 that God wanted me to marry Matt. We got engaged soon after that, but didn’t marry until I was almost 22. For almost 3 years I waited to marry him while he was away at college. We’re trying to have a baby. Since January of last year I have been waiting for that little miracle to happen. I’m still waiting, but I hear from mothers that the waiting, at least in this instance, definitely will NOT be the hardest part. Now I find myself waiting to hear about our life after Asbury. It’s been an exciting experience so far, but I think I’m ready for it to be over. I find myself waking up in the middle of the night wondering where we will be, where we will live, where we will work, etc. I dream of a bigger home where we might get another bathroom, a garage, an office. Where we will be able to have pets and hopefully bring home our first of many children. The waiting has definitely been hard here.

So, what do I learn from all of this? Well, I’m sure God wants me to learn a bit of patience, but maybe even more than that He wants me to remember that in all of these situations he has cared for me, provided for me and never left me hanging. To God the waiting is not the hardest part. He sees beyond the waiting and beckons me to trust that He still has our best in mind.

I do love Tom Petty. Who knew when I was 5 that the song I was dancing and singing to would be a song that encouraged me throughout my life? God did. I love Him too.

“The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part”
-Tom Petty

>A Brief Extolment of Memory Verses…

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>Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
-Philippians 4:6-7

I have a friend who can spout this (and many other scriptures) by memory at the drop of a hat. She regurgitates it frequently and with such speed that you almost don’t understand what she has said. I have never really understood why she does that. Seriously – how much time in her life has she spent memorizing scripture? Probably more time than I have spent shopping for shoes and handbags…speaking of, I got new shoes last week. So fab! But I digress…

I never really gave her scriptures much thought – until this week. It’s been a rough week around here. Let me try to give you the short version:

Matt is currently 50-some days away from graduation. That’s right – our time here at Asbury is coming to a close. After 4 years of butt-busting, exhausting, sometimes-tedious, often-wonderful work, Matt is graduating. We have spent the last few years thinking that, around this time, we would get a call from our District Superintendent telling us what church we would be appointed to.* Simple, right? Wrong.

Because of a bunch of bureaucratic stuff, Matt is not getting commissioned at this year’s Annual Conference. He was assured, though, that he would have no problem obtaining a full-time appointment as a Licensed Local Pastor, and that he would be up for commissioning at the 2008 Annual Conference. Fine. We were a little perturbed at the time, but we soon got used to the idea. No biggie.

A couple weeks ago Matt received an e-mail from our District Superintendent saying that it was “highly unlikely” that there would be a full-time placement available for us this year. WHAT?

Oh my goodness. I freaked out. Literally. FREAKED OUT! For the past few weeks, we have been in a serious state of uncertainty about our very near future. Cabinet meetings were held this week, and we were promised a call from our DS about our placement options. It is Sunday, and we still have not received such a call. I have not felt this stressed out in a very long time! I’m so anxious about all that might happen. I have been driving Matt crazy! We’re both a little on-edge lately – especially these last few days. We don’t go anywhere without our phone!

We have quite a few options available to us. Two of those options involve the conference. Our DS could very well call us in the next few days to tell us that we have a full-time or part-time appointment. I think either one of those would be preferred, since Matt really needs to get in the conference and get his career started there. The DS could also tell us that there is no placement available for us, and that we are on our own for a year. We know of a few ministry jobs that are available in the conference that we could apply for, but then again, those aren’t certain either. Another option would be to not worry about getting a ministry position this year. We would move back to the south-side of Indianapolis and live and work for a year. The scary part about that option is that it’s a lot more expensive to live in Indy than it is to live in Wilmore! Besides the higher cost-of-living, we’re also going to be coming out of deferment for student loans, and will have to start paying those this summer. I really feel crazy right now. We have been looking online for apartments in Indy that we can afford, jobs that would pay us enough to sustain us, etc. I’m grasping for any control I can get over my life!

Today I finally became exhausted from anxiety. My stomach has been a wreck this week, I haven’t been sleeping well, I’ve been easily agitated, etc. A few moments ago I took some time to put new music on my MP3 player, and listened to some Jason Upton as I was doing it. This guy’s music really ministers to my spirit. There’s a song on this album (Faith) called I Will Wait that I just love. It has been the song on my MySpace profile once in the past, and has taken that spot once again today. I won’t put the lyrics here. Just go to my profile ( www.myspace.com/mrsswish ) and have a listen.

As I sat and took in this song again, I heard my friend’s voice rattling off that Philippians passage in my mind. Now I understand why she spent so much time committing those words to memory. Between that scripture and Jason Upton’s music, I have been so convicted this evening. I really need to have faith that God has a place for us – that He will continue to provide for us. He has never given me a reason to doubt Him.

*For those who aren’t familiar with the United Methodist system, I’ll give you my “I don’t know much, but my husband is going to be a pastor” version. The UM church is split up into conferences, and we are members of the South Indiana Conference. Our conference is split up into 9 different districts – our home church is in the Indy West district. Elders in the UM church are appointed, which means they don’t get to pick where they serve. They are at the mercy of the system. To get into this system, it has been a harrowing series of red-tape requirements including, but not limited to, psychological exams, physical exams, meetings with different boards, paperwork, etc. Once you are approved by the Board of Ordained Ministry, you are commissioned in the Conference and you become a probationary member of the Conference. Your probationary period lasts for three years, then you can be a full member. It sounds like it sucks, but the UM church really takes care of its pastors, so I’m hoping it’s worth it. I hope I got that all right. Don’t tell me if I’m wrong.