[not] doing great

I have had a rough week. I think I am hanging on to too much and have been on the verge of tears every day. I have so over-loaded myself that I haven’t been very positive. And now along with being sad, I am also angry.

FK talked to me a lot about being more positive. Starting with small, good things that are going on. But I feel so hopeless that I am having a hard time pulling myself out of it. And I feel like a failure that I am not more positive. I feel the weight of Frank’s disappointment in me for not being more positive. And my family’s disappointment. And then I spiral. I lump all of this disappointment in me for my lack of positivity in the face of a lot of crap, right on top of all of my other failures (too emotional, too insensitive, not available, not nice, too nice, too serious, not an attentive wife/friend/sister).

I want to go to God with this – all of the things on my heart and mind, but as I told my dear friend Dorothy, I am scared that God’s response is “You need to do this, too.” I don’t want to DO anything else. I don’t want another thing about myself to fix. I am so tired! And I have a horrible feeling that I will look back on this time of my life and think, “Well, that was nothing! That was easy!”

And I guess the other part of it is that I have recently been challenged in how I think of God. I don’t think I ever really thought of God being a benevolent father-type who set up a trust fund and doesn’t want me to ever have to lift a finger. I have had to re-examine what it means to believe that God is sovereign and Lord of my life. I have had to re-examine what it means to fear the Lord. To respectfully fear the Lord – not to be afraid. So I don’t even know how to take this to Him. Before, I had a kinder (easier) -incorrect – vision of God. Maybe it was wrong – I’m not sure yet. But Frank was telling me on the phone that I needed to discipline myself and work on changing my attitude. He is right. He is totally right. But it just felt like another thing to put on my to-do list. The list that never seems to end.

Regardless of how I think about God, I know that I have to lay all of these concerns down at His feet.

I can’t change a lot of things right now without losing things that are important. I can’t distance myself from my family because I know that there is work to be done there – that my family is a mission field in a lot of ways still. I have to fight the good fight and have the difficult conversations – this is part of discipline. If I walk away, I will be giving up ground. Important ground.

My job is my mission field right now, too. Even though it is difficult, what needs to change is not my job at the moment, but my attitude about it. And my approach to it.

This fertility issue. I need to change my perspective about it. I need to find peace in this waiting time. I need to enjoy my husband when he is around and enjoy my time alone when he is gone.

I need to address that I am angry on the inside. Angry can sometimes be good when it motivates people to do the right thing. And angry can sometimes be bad when it bends and breaks you. This time, I think it is bad. I think that this is because my soul is mis-aligned. Normal, Christian souls are probably supposed to walk vertical and upright ::pointing to fake x-ray of a soul’s spine::, so all souls point to the glory of God. But because I’ve been carrying around the weight of all of these other things – my soul is bent, sort of like an “S” and is pointing in all sorts of directions.

I am sure that this re-alignment can be accomplished by spending more time reading the Bible and being with God. It’s so simple, but it is so difficult! And it requires discipline. It is my only option.

Thank you, God, for being so gracious and kind as to see me through these times. Thank you, Father, for my husband, my family and my friends – all of whome are so precious to me. Thank you, Lord, for providing for me before I even know what I need. Thank you, dear Friend, for holding me even when I am throwing a temper tantrum.

1Peter: ³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.⁶In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, ⁷so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; ⁸and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, ⁹obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

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Q1 Review + April

We are now in the fifth month of the year and I thought that there was appropriate distance between us and the first three months of the year.

So what happened in January, February and March?

Snow. That was pretty annoying. I did not enjoy shoveling, and fortunately Frank was so kind as to shovel most of the time.

We also received confirmation that Frank was invited to go back to AirTran with the rest of the 200 pilots who had a long, unpaid vacation starting in September of last year. To say that Frank was giddy about going back would be an understatement! He couldn’t get started studying and retraining fast enough.

We had just started trying to get pregnant and I was noticing some significant physiological changes, but not sure what to do about them.

My company laid off four of the thirteen people working at our office. That was a sad day at work – and not just for the people leaving. We were said to see our coworkers go, and then overwhelmed at the thought of what we were going to have to accomplish without them. It hasn’t necessarily gotten better, either.

Frank’s mom and Julia had their birthdays in January. Frank and I both got wicked colds right after that, but I had to work through it because we were in the midst of major budget revisions at work. Mr. Obama was sworn into office and has been trying desperately to change things in the country – but I am realizing that I don’t think that what he’s doing is going to work and the long-term implications might be scarier than our short term cash issues as a country. How much more money can we possibly owe to China??

In April we drove Frank down to Atlanta. I was stranded down there as a result of some flight cancellations. Frank passed all of his tests and was home more in April than I expected, which was wonderful.

So here we are in May. I think things are improving for the K’s. Yes, we have this fertility thing to take care of, but at least we have a plan. If only my body would cooperate 🙂

Q1 Grade: B+ (yes, held on to our jobs and are employed, but health needs improvement)
April Grade: A- (FK’s job rocks and we are working on our health)

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Missin’ FK.

So, the planner/doer in me is kind of happy that Frank is back to flying. I get a lot more done when he isn’t home. I multi-task (ie. sobbing while folding laundry) and I go out with girlfriends. I talk on the phone for a remarkable amount of time (yesterday: about 1 hour with my mentor LH and about 1 hour with my sisterinlaw KK). I can fill my time and my life with lots more stuff and I stretch myself to the max. I plan to do five or six things in one day – something that FK would wisely stop me from doing! – and then I race around town.

But all the “stuff” that I think I need to do, doesn’t replace hanging with FK. When he is home, he graciously does a lot (makes dinner, does laundry, cleans the house…) for me. So I squeeze in phone calls on my way home from work, I email during lunch, I shop online. And what do we do when he is home? Sure, we still hang out with friends and we watch movies and we do all kinds of things together, but we do a more reasonable amount of things. We pick one or two things instead of ten. We take snuggle breaks. We watch TV on the Internet. And my soul is happy.

So I don’t think that I am bored when he is gone, because I have many wonderful friends who keep me occupied. It’s just that I would gladly trade in some of the fluff (do I realllly need to make a salsa garden? really??) to take a snuggle break with FK.

Hurry home, FK! We’ve got lots of snuggling to do!

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