Changing

This winter/spring it has snowed here three times. It's been snow that actually sticks. Enough of it to create snowmen and throw snowballs and mark the ground with snow angels. Today it is the second day of spring, it was freezing last night, and we got 2-3 inches of snow.

Things are just not the same around here.

John up and decided a couple weeks ago that he's going with a group of Baylor accounting students on their mission trip to Uganda in May. Since we would have to pay for me to go and I would be of absolutely no help whatsoever in doing accounting/small business-related projects, I will not be going on the trip. I can't imagine that three years ago I would have been OK with letting my husband go off to Africa without me for two weeks. Or that John would have just decided in a matter of a couple weeks to take a trip to Uganda that leaves in less than three months.

Things are just not the same around here.

Sometimes I wonder what will be happening a year or two or three from now that I would never have done or thought or been passionate about right now in 2010. I hope it's exciting.

I'm also aware that some things around here are not changing. Some things that should be different are just the same. Things like my heart and my attitude.

It's been almost exactly four months since we received our final negative pregnancy test result after doing our last infertility "treatment". While we decided not to continue going to a reproductive endocrinologist and I really am fine with that, I feel like I've just been kind of stuck since then. Sometimes I'm not sure what else to do to move on. Kids? Adoption? No kids? Moving? Changing jobs? Staying here? More ministry? Different volunteer work? Mission trips to other countries? Being more involved in our community?

Through the infertility Bible study I joined (again), I'm beginning to understand that I'm stuck because I'm afraid. I know in my head that to open up and be free to take hold of God's hand and go wherever He leads, even without knowing where that is yet, is ultimate joy and fulfillment. I'm just afraid that getting to that joy and fulfillment might bring more stress, more disappointment, more hurt, more pain, more discomfort...and I'm not sure I can handle any more right now.

And though it isn't exactly great being right here where I'm stuck, it feels safer than possibly moving on. So, there's one thing that I want to not be the same around here. And I hope the study I'm going through will get me through this stuck place. I want to be able to honestly say and believe Job 23:10-12:

"But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
My feet have closely followed his steps;
I have kept to his way without turning aside.
I have not departed from the commands of his lips;
I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread."