Maybe I'm Crazy, Maybe It's God

Well I am still looking for a job in Chattanooga.  I just got back actually from my second interview with a jewelry company down there.  There has yet to be an actual offer but it is looking promising.  Courtney, the manager who interviewed me said she would call me next Monday to let me know whether I got the job or not.  She is currently at a week long managers conference so now the waiting game ensues.  With all that said, this is probably going to be a really shocking to a lot of you especially as you consider the economy and job market.

I just turned in my 2 weeks notice to Liberty University.  Yes, I know you are probably yelling at the computer screen right now, "What the heck were you thinking?!"  "Where you thinking at all?!" You are probably thinking that I just made a big mistake and that I am stupid for giving up a perfectly decent job when I have nothing secured elsewhere.  Maybe I am crazy.  I swear there is a method to my madness though.  Allow me to explain...

If you have asked me how work is going in the last few weeks then you might have already gotten the idea that it has been stressful.  Well recently that stress took a turn for the worse.  **Please note this section is not to defame Liberty, to drag it through the mud, trash it, or to change your view of the school.  I am NOT trying to attack Liberty in any way shape or form nor do I support spreading rumors or gossip.  That being said I will do my very best to say only what I know to be completely true and share details only as it pertains to my situation and is relevant to why I did what I did.  After working at Liberty for 2 years and particularly in the last several months of being a full time employee I have witnessed some business practices and decisions of ethics from the Administration (I will not go into detail), that for my own convictions, I cannot support and would not like my name associated with as designer or draftsman.  I DO NOT believe that the Falwell's are the anti-Christ.  But I do feel that I cannot continue to support their particular decisions and leadership on a professional level especially when it comes to construction and planning of building projects, which as you know is the department that I worked in and with closely.  I do not know them personally so I cannot speak to their personal lives and practices.  All I know is that they are human and as such, sinners in need of grace just like me and everyone else.  

All that being said I recently have found myself in an ethical quandary.  Do I stay and turn a blind eye to what I feel is wrong and possibly risk being called into question myself for doing what I was told? Or do I remove myself from the situation for my reputation, convictions, and careers sake?  When you look at those two options the decision seems easy.  But with each of those comes its own problem.  Obviously the former has negative repercussions.  The latter has negatives as well.  If I resigned, I would run the risk of being without a job for an indefinite period of time, as I still have no concrete offers.  In today's job market I could be cutting off my nose to spite my face.  Interior design is a luxury service and the current economy has not been good to that profession.  You can see my dilemma.  As the weeks went on, I became more concerned and my consciences became more bothered.  I started getting sick every morning before work and sometimes even at work.  I dreaded going in every morning for fear of what new issue would develop.  

As it so happened when all of these issues began to arise I had just started reading Genesis for my personal devotions.  Reading a chapter a night, I began working through and seeking solace and comfort in the scriptures as I tried to decide what I should do.  I prayed a lot, I sought wise council, and I prayed some more.  I thought and worried and debated and prayed even more.  As each day came more concerns and stresses arose until finally it all came to a head last Thursday.  I knew I couldn't work here anymore.  I knew I had to give my 2 week notice on Monday (today).  I knew that I had an interview scheduled for Saturday at 10:30am in Chattanooga so there was some hope but no guarantee.  And trust me all the thoughts that you had as your initial reaction to my announcement, I can assure you I thought of.  How will I support myself?  Am I really going to run the risk of living off of my parents and losing all of the independence that I grown accustom to and love?  What am I supposed to do if I resign?  Am I making a mistake?  How can this be wise?  How can I do anything but resign?  All of these questions and fears and doubts are running through my head as I wash my face and brush my teeth.  I don my pajamas and crawl into bed, my mind whirling.  I grab my Bible and send up a quick prayer that was really all I could utter,"Oh boy."  I open my Bible to where my ribbon was marked in Genesis.  I was up to chapter 12.  I sigh and settled in and began reading.  Genesis 12:1 -  "The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you..."  No way. I read it again. “The LORD had said to Abram, "Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you..." Now I am not one to believe in omens.  But I also don't believe in coincidences.    What I do believe is that God uses His word to speak into His children's lives when they need it most.  Something like that has never happened to me before.  God knew and planned exactly what verse I would be at when I was struggling with this decision.  I let out a laugh.  Peace and a resolute will settle themselves in me.  I know that this is indeed what I am supposed to do.  I know that God just told me through His command to Abraham thousands of years ago.  How could I ignore that?  

The next day, I pack up and head to Chattanooga.  I go to my interview fully expecting to be offered something.  The interview goes well and ends on a positive note but with no offer.  As I walk back to my car I am a little confused and doubt starts creeping in.  Maybe it was just a coincidence after all.  Maybe I am being crazy.  I continued to reflect on my situation and also on Abraham's.  He probably thought the exact same things I was thinking.  "I am supposed to leave everything that I know and everyone that I love except for a few and I am just supposed to go out without knowing where I am going; without knowing how I will feed my family?  Am I just supposed wander around till you tell me to stop?  What if all there is out there is desert?" And all God says is "I will show you."  But Abraham obeyed.  I am sure he got flack for it too.  I am sure his family and friends said, "Have you lost your mind?" "What are you thinking?" "Are you even thinking at all?" "There is security here. You can't just go out wandering around out there!"  "You don't have a plan, you don't have a map.  You are just going off what 'God told you'?"  Abraham had no idea what he was doing either.  He had no idea if he was going to be lead to a fertile land or a desert.  He had no idea what the future held for him and his family.  

Now, I am not saying that Chattanooga is the land flowing of milk and honey or that I am like Abraham and will have to change my name and I will have more descendants then can be counted.  All I know is that I need to obey.  This is God's will as far as He has revealed it to me through His word.  But I am choosing and have chosen to trust Him and rely on His provision.  So this morning without any job or back up plan I submitted my 2 weeks notice.  I have no idea what the future holds. But I am trusting God to fill in the blanks.  

So call me crazy, but that's whats going on.  Please be praying for me! 

TTFN

Rach

Happily Ever After

I must apologize to you, my dear reader, because I have been terribly remiss in posting this last month.  I have been incredibly busy and posting just kept slipping my mind.  The last few weeks have been full to say the least.  It seems like I say this every post these days but there has been a lot of growing and a lot of stress and laughter and sadness.  Sadness especially has left his mark.  He was like the unwelcome party guest that no one could figure out how he got an invitation or even heard about the party, yet there he was inserting himself into any conversation and generally making his presence known.  How does one come to terms with him?  How does one deal with his unwelcome and painful existence?  This is a question that I have been asking myself time and time again.

I was recently watching TV with my mother.  A preview came on for a new movie that was now coming to DVD.  I was explaining to Mama how I had enjoyed the movie even though it was a sad story.  It had ended happily but there was still a sad beginning and middle.  She said, "I thought you didn't like sad stories."  If you know me at all I am sure you have heard me say at some point that I only like movies that have happy endings.  My theory is that the cinema is supposed to be an escape from the pressures and stresses and sadness of the day.  You should be able to walk into a theater or sit down on your couch and get lost even if for only 105 minutes and forget yourself and your troubles for a moment. So in response to my mother's question I said, "I don't like sad movies if they end that way.  But as long as it has a happy ending the beginning and middle can still be sad. If I know it has a happy ending I can get through it."

A few days ago I was driving home from worship team practice.  I was thinking about the frustrations I had been going through at work; the disappointment that I still had yet to find a job in Chattanooga; and on several other heartbreaking developments for me and my family.  As you can imagine I was pretty downhearted.  There was just so much sadness.  It seems the older I get the worse everything is.  Suddenly, God brought a quote to my mind.  It was from the last book of "The Lord of the Rings" series "Return of the King" when Sam Gamgee comes to after being saved with his master and friend Frodo by the eagles and Gandalf.  Sam wakes up and sees Gandalf and exclaims, "Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead. Is everything sad going to come untrue?" In the quiet of my car driving home in the darkness those words struck a chord. God reminded me in answer to Sam's question that yes, one day everything sad is going to come untrue.  Life is a mirror of my favorite type of movie.  Our lives have been sprinkled with a generous dose of sadness.  That is sin's effect.  We will always have times of sadness.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace."

Nothing is new under the sun.  But one day, after this fleeting life of ours has ended, everything sad will come untrue.  God will wipe every tear from our eye.  There will be no anxiety; there will be no disappointment; there will be no heartbreak.  Everything sad will come untrue and we as Christians will have our happy ending.  Happily ever after is not a myth for Christians because Christ has come and paid our debt and we can live in peace and hope that no matter how sad of a beginning or middle our time here on earth has our happily ever after is coming. 

Romans 8: 14-25 "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

So hang on, Christian.  Hang onto the hope that is awaiting you and live your life to the fullest knowing that come what may everything sad will come untrue. 

Dream Small by James K. A. Smith

Commencement Address | King College | Bristol, TN | 7 May 2011

Catch for us the foxes , the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, 

our vineyards that are in bloom. (Song of Solomon 2:15)

Mr. President, Esteemed Faculty, Family and Friends of the graduates, and, most importantly, Graduating Class of 2011,

I'm guessing the faculty and admissions counselors of this fine institution lured you here with some hefty promises and big talk - that a King College education would equip you to transform culture, turn the world upside down, and become leaders in your field, all while roller skating backwards, juggling flaming chainsaws, and battling poverty in rural Alabama! (Been there, done that.)  On the way in here, you were encouraged to "dream big."

On your way out there I have a different exhortation for you: "Dream small."  Now I want you to understand that exhortation.  I'm not suggesting you shouldn't dream big.  And without question, your King College education has well equipped you to do whatever God might be calling you to in his broken-but-blessed world - to be a veritable Tornado of grace and accomplishment, cutting a swath through this world that will leave behind a wake of compassion and achievement.

So I have every expectation that you will continue to dream big.  Indeed, I think that all comes rather naturally for us.  We inhabit a culture that resounds with messages and covert rituals that all subtly encourage us to pursue the bigger, the better, the mega.  Even the church has been emboldened of late with big plans for transforming culture, newly confident in our ability to redeem the world.  You have been told your whole life that you can do whatever you put your mind to.  So "dreaming big" has sort of become second nature for us. We are so constantly expending our horizons, enlarging our territories, and looking toward a bright, shiny future of accomplishment that it's hard for us to see all the little stuff right in front of us.

So you don't need me to tell you to dream big.  But I do hope you'll hear me when I encourage you to also dream small.  Because that might be what really matters.  And it might be where your education really pays off.

There is a curious little passage buried in the Song of Solomon that is germane to this point.  (If you know your Bible, and you know the Song of Solomon, then you're now hoping I'm going to talk about sex.  I'll see what I can do.)  The poetry invokes a concern with the little things through a viticultural metaphor of fruit-bearing.  It goes like this:

"Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that 

are in bloom." (Song of Solomon 2:15).

It's the little foxes that ruin the vineyard.  If you're always dreaming big - surveying your vineyard, plotting the next acquisition of the vineyard down the road, dreaming about all your plans for the estate - in other words, if you tend to always look beyond the vineyard and don't enjoy actually caring for the vines, you'll miss the pesky little foxes that are ruining what's right in front of you.  You'll never be able to enjoy the wine of the vineyard if you ignore the little foxes.  You won't enjoy the fruit of the vine if you don't tend to the nitty gritty, down-and dirty work of viticulture.

And here's what you might not yet realize: that real joy is found right there in the dirt, in the ho-hum task of tending the plant, in cultivating the terroir that will nourish the vines that yield the fruit.  While you're imagining all of the outcomes of the vineyard and all the benefits to be reaped, what might be hard for you to imagine is that some of your best days - when you feel like all is right with the universe and what you're doing means something and you know why you're here and your heart swells in gratitude and joy -- well, those will be days when you're mucking about in the vineyard, tending to the little foxes.

Alright, let's come back from the metaphor for a minute.  Please don't hear this as some moralismcan!  We're sending you out of here with the ticket to success.  But it can be just that "success" that will feel hollow and deflated unless you learn to dream small.

Talk to all kinds of people who have achieved everything they set out to do in this life, who made it to the top of their professional heap, and what you'll often here is this: "It's not what I thought it would be."  What it turns out to be, even at the height of accomplishment, is boring as hell.  Just when you've spent a life climbing to that fabled "top," where you thought having it all would mean everything, you get there only to discover that it doesn't mean all that much.  This is why tedium and emnui are the demons of modernity.  And the only way to exorcise them is gratitude for the mundane.  The bacchanalian delights of the wine are going to have diminishing returns; you need to find joy in actually tending the vineyard, in concern for "the little foxes."

here a parable comes to mind: the parable of Lester Burnham as told in the film, American Beauty.  You might recall Lester, played so well by Kevin Spacey, mired in the boredom and placid emptiness of what was supposed to be a "successful" American life.  He is finally awoken from his suburban slumber by fantasizing about Angela, who he thinks is the girl of his dreams (his wife Carolyn notwithstanding!).  So Lester falls into the trap of thinking that happiness is to be found in the fantastic, in a dream-world that is something other than his mundane, workaday existence.  But just when he is about to attain his dream, he realizes that what he's wanted has been right in front of him this whole time.  It's just that his fantasies and dreams blinded him to the all the delights enfolded in his own little world.  And so the film closes with this moving, post-mortem soliloquy:

I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die.  

First of all, that one second isn't a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time... 

For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars... And yellow leaves,

from the maple trees, that lined our street... Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin

seemed like paper... And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird... And Janie... 

And Janie... And... Carolyn.

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, 

when there's so much beauty in the world.  Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and 

it's too much, and my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember

 to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't 

feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea 

what I'm talking about, I'm sure.  But don't worry... you will someday.

Graduates, I'm trying to plant a little seed that can sprout for you on that "someday."

The measure of your King education is not what you know, but what you love.  And as Saint Augustine never tired of saying, what you love is what you enjoy.  Your teachers have tried not to just inform you about the world; they've tried to pass on to you a love for corners of God's world that you perhaps never saw before.  They have invited you into the nooks and crannies of God's creation - into the fascinating complexity of the brain or the mournful cadences of Bach, in the play of poetry or the dazzle of digital media.  You've been invited to wonder, to be perplexed, to puzzle, to discern, to critique, to take delight.  To enjoy.  Your education hasn't just equipped you for a career, it has trained your joy.

Hopefully your education here at Kind has plucked strings you didn't even know you had, activated parts of you that were dormant.  In short, I hope your education has expanded your very self because it has taught you to love new things and find joy and meaning right in front of you.  Because it is precisely that capacity that will enable you to dream small - to bloom and flourish in the everyday.  It is precisely the baptized curiosity of a full-orbed Christian education - reflected in the core curriculum at the heart of your King degree - that will enable you to resist both the fantasy if big-dream happiness as well as the numbness and tedium of late modern life.  Your education has taught you how to care about what really matters because it has equipped you to see the world with new eyes, to engage the world with new commitments, to redeem the world with renewed passion.  And you can do that wherever you are.  This sort of holistic education deepens the mundane and enriches the quotidian - it enchants the everyday.  Believe me, you're going to need that.

You have been entrusted with a gift, you are now a steward of your education.  What will you do with it?  Dreaming big is easy.  The bigger challenge is to dream small - to draw on the gift of your education to deepen your embeddedness in the gritty realities of everyday life.  Your education has equipped you to pay attention to the little foxes.

Do you have grand visions of transforming the world economy?  Fantastic.  How about you start by moving to "the abandoned spaces of empire" - committing to live day-in and day-out in the vicinity of those who are crushed under foot by existing economic systems.  Your education has taught you why that is important and how it can be meaningful.  Can you dream small enough that you can find joy and significance in the texture of a neighborhood?  Are you willing to follow our incarnation God who also dreamt small - who, when he came to dwell in the neighborhood of humanity, did not relocate to Rome but moved to the other side of the tracks in tiny Nazareth?

Or do you fantasize about being the next social media guru, imagining hitherto-unthought ways to connect the world by digital links?  Marvelous.  Just don't forget to build friendships and relationships with people who have bodies, who are close by, who will sit with you in the valleys and drink with you on the mountaintops of your experience.  Don't forget the hard good work of being part of a congregation that worships God and feeds the poor, despite the fact that it frustrates you to no end.  Don't forget the hard good work of building marriages and families that are little microcosms of the coming Kingdom; it will be the hardest and the best thing you'll ever do.

Because it's in these mundane, workaday spaces that you'll find a meaning and a hope a joy that endures.  I know you're dreaming big dreams.  I know you're already imagining the heights you'll scale.  Please do.  I just want you to know that if you can also marshal the ability to dream small, you'll find what you're looking for in the most unexpected places.  In fact, let me close with a poem by Todd Boss.  It suggests that if you dream small enough, you might find this in the bathroom one morning.

This Morning in a Morning Voice

By Todd Boss

to beat the froggiest

of morning voices,

my son gets out of bed

and takes a lumpish song

along - a little lyric

learned in kindergarten,

something about a

boat. He's found it in

the bog of his throat

before his feet have hit

the ground, follows

its wonky melody down

the hall and into the loo

as if it were the most

natural thing for a little

boy to do, and lets it

loose awhile in there 

to a tinkling sound while

I lie still in bed, alive

like I've never been, in

love again with life,

afraid they'll find me

drowned here, drowned 

in more than my fair

share of joy.

Class of 2011: May God bless you with the same.

Growing Up

Looking back on the last year I am absolutely amazed at all the things that have been crammed into this one year.  The last 12 months have been packed with a lot of lessons, a lot of growing up I've had to do and a lot of people all glued together by tears and laughter.

I can honestly say that I have never cried so much in one year in my entire life.  Until this last year I was under the delusion that I was strong.  I thought I was a rock and could handle whatever was thrown at me.  I thought crying was for "girls" and although I was female I was no "girl".  I could take on the craziest of situations and come out on top because I was in control.  I had my stuff together.  I was in the maintenance stage of sanctification really...(I cringe to admit that).  

In one of my early posts I put a song up here called "I Asked The Lord".  As the song states I had no idea what I was getting myself into by praying that song.  I thought I was ready for what God would put me through.  Ha! Yeah right.  Over the last year my security blankets that I had thoughtfully piled around myself have been shredded and exposed as the filthy rags they are (Isaiah 64:4).  What is even more sickening is that even though they have been exposed for what they are I still mourn and weep over them.

So many things haven't gone my way this year.  It seems at every turn God has not answered my prayers the way I think He should.  My grand schemes and designs are foiled every single time.  I can't even tell you how many times this year I have railed against God and begged Him for an answer for His "cruelty".  It isn't cruelty though.  In fact, it is the exact opposite.  How would my life be if I had gotten everything that I have wanted and been refused?  . . . Oh that's awful!  I mean even in the lightest sense if I had married the first boy I had a crush on and wanted to marry when I was little, well let's face it, I would be married to my cousin . . . that is NOT ok.  Now of course that isn't really a serious example but you get my meaning.  If you really look back at all the things that you have wanted and prayed for over your life time don't you cringe a little bit thinking back on what your life would look like now had God's answer been different?

Even though I get hurt and disappointed God is proving Himself far wiser than I.  Even though in the moment I am angry and whiny and confused God shows His provision, maybe not right away but He does.  God is providing in the "Absolutely", the "Absolutely not", and the "Not now." And the beautiful thing about having everything stripped away is that you have no choice but to cling to God because He is all that is left.

So that is what God has been showing me in this last year.  Yes, it has been an incredibly difficult year.  Yes, I am still not sure why certain things that I pray for are not answered with "Absolutely".  No, I do not have everything figured out.  Yes, I am still a broken and filthy mess with a greater awareness of my sins within.  Yes, I still have so much to learn and so much more sin lurking deep down than I realize.  But yes, God is still working.  No, God has not left me to dig my own grave.  Yes, the Gospel is true and it is made more true to my heart and mind everyday I wake up and live life this side of heaven.  I am not the same person I was a year ago and that is a beautiful thing.

Even though life is kind of a jumbled mess I am actually happy.  I am not always smiling and chipper.  But I am happy.  For all those tears I have had, I have had just as much laughter.  So see God provides, even in the little things like laughter.

Well with that, Happy Birthday to me! Thank y'all for sticking with me through all the craziness and here is to another year of whatever God has planned.

Cheers!
Rach~

Psalm 103:10-12

¹⁰ He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. ¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; ¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

But What About Ministry?

It's been a few days now since I have posted.  Normally this would be due to busy-ness but lately it has been more of the fact that I have nothing to say that would be edifying for anyone.  The last week and a half have been pretty rough emotionally for me.  The whole job hunting process is pretty discouraging right now.  Granted there have been some leads but for some reason or another they always seem to fall throw which, is even worse then just not having any leads at all. It is very hard to fight off the pessimism and cynicism right now.

I was thinking and doing some real self examination last night trying to figure out what exactly makes this state of limbo, needing to be free to leave Lynchburg whenever the opportunity finally arrives, so torturous. Why is this so painful? I think I am beginning to understand. I have to live my life 2 weeks at a time really.  I can't really make promises or commitments more than 2 weeks in advance.  Now most would say yes it is the lack of security in my current situation that is bothering me and I would agree that is part of it but mainly I feel very limited in ministry.  I don't feel like I can commit to things like teaching Sunday school, nursery or small groups because I have to make sure that I am not leaving anybody in the lurch by taking on something long term (anything beyond 2 weeks) when I know full well that I am trying to be in Chattanooga 2 weeks from whatever the day happens to be at the time.  So what am I supposed to do?  We are supposed to be involved in ministry and service.  Those things are good but I currently feel like my hands are tied.  I can feel my Martha tendencies are being forced into a Mary mold:  

³⁸ As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”   ⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one.^[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42

I feel like I am Martha trying to do all these different things and God wants me to just sit and rest at the feet of Jesus and he is forcing me to do so by keeping me in limbo.  In my mind, that seems useless and wasteful when there is so much that needs to be done and that I am physically  and emotionally capable of.  I am useful so why is God not actively using me?  Why am I being forced to sit and rest?  Is that what is actually happening or is my control freak and analytical neurosis just grasping at straws trying to find something, anything that will give me some peace and purpose in my current struggle? Maybe I am getting worried and upset about many things when only a few things are needed.  Maybe I need to choose what is better and let Jesus do the talking for once.  

I don't know.  The only hope I have right now is that the Gospel is as true today as it was yesterday.  God is not leaving me alone to bop around in blissful ignorance (although to be honest, at times I wish he would, just for a couple of years at least). God is at work, whether I understand it and see it or not.  

Everyone said, "Why Chattanooga?"

For all those people out there who keep asking "Why, Chattanooga?"  Well I'll tell you!

# 1 ~ Great strolling...

Pedestrian Bridge - downtown

# 2 ~ Great scenery...

Rock City - overlooking the entire city

# 3 ~ Family friendly...

Coolidge Park - across the river

Tennessee Aquarium - downtown

# 4 ~ Unique attractions...

Riverboat Tours - on the river

# 5 ~ Cool restaurants...

Knowing how much I love food, this has to be a given...

Big River Brewing Co.

Bluewater Grille

Vaudeville Cafe

St. John's

Table 2 Restaurant

# 6 ~ Historical Restoration...

Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel - downtown

# 7 ~ Fun Community Events...

Ross's Landing - site of Riverbend Festival, Boat parades, 4th of July celebrations and more!

# 8 ~ My "Sister" Mandi...

There also is the matter of having my dear friend Mandi, whom I have known literally all of my life. Our parents were best friends and kind of shared raising rights with all four of us (me and my brother and her and her brother).  We grew up together; she babysat me for years; I was her mini-me and followed her everywhere she went and copied everything she did; when she got her ears pierced I wanted to get mine pierced, etc. She is really more like my sister then anything.  That title really is the only one that seems to fit our relationship.  Mandi and her husband, Greg, moved to Chattanooga right after they got married 7 years ago and it was really hard to see her go.  So being back near her makes Chattanooga look even better!  Man I miss that woman :) This brings me to...

# 9 ~ My "Niece" Caitrin... 

Mandi's precious daughter, Caitrin, who is turning 2 tomorrow! (Happy birthday Baby Girl! I love you!) This kid is literally the cutest thing you will ever see in your entire life and living in the same city as her and being able to have tea parties and play in the pool and watch birds outside with her whenever I want would be the coolest thing ever!!  Last but definitely not least...

# 10 ~ My "Niece" or "Nephew" on the way... 

Just this weekend Mandi announced to the whole family that she is pregnant!!! They say many hands make light the work and that being the case I want to be close to offer mine whenever they are needed.

There you go.  Now you see why Chattanooga is my favorite city ever!  So here's praying I find a job

TTFN

Rach~