“You need to be around people.”
This is the thought that I believe God put on my heart late last fall while I was working on a web design project. I had been feeling frustrated with sitting at my computer all day trying to do a job I no longer enjoyed.
A couple of clients had backed out on me just prior to this, and the projects I was working on seemed to be taking me much longer than they should. I felt like I was spinning my wheels and, quite frankly, I didn’t care if I ever did another web design project as long as I lived.
The hours I was spending at this job I never planned to have were not bringing in enough money to compensate my time. While the little bit of extra money I earned helped out, I knew it was time to get out.
I began to think about what I could do instead. I loved blogging, but I had never really made any money at it. Plus, since starting to design websites, I had written so few posts I knew it would be hard to make it work as a business.
Something made me think about going back into teaching. With my youngest going to school in the fall I thought it would be a good fit.
So, I took some online classes to renew my teaching license, and I even added a new content area to make myself more marketable. Everything went so smoothly that I felt sure I must be following God’s plan for my life.
I thought I had it all under control but, as I wrote a few months ago in my last post, I should have been letting God be in control.
Right now I feel like my life has come full circle. Twenty years ago I was a college graduate searching for a teaching job. At that time, teaching jobs were very hard to come by in our area.
The first year I substitute taught. The next year I worked as an aide at an elementary school. Finally, two years after getting my teaching license, I got my own classroom.
The only difference between now and 20 years ago is that I actually have teaching experience but, since I have been home raising children for the past 14 years, it doesn’t seem to count.
On Wednesday, I was talking with my dad about not getting another job I had interviewed for, and I said something to him that I had never spoken aloud.
Through tears I said, “I just don’t know what I am going to do without someone to take care of all day long.”
I think that is the heart of the matter. I have been taking care of little ones for the past 17 years, and I really don’t know what I am going to do without someone needing me all day long.
When I gave birth to Janna a little over 5 years ago I felt a peace about our family size for the first time. God had given me the desires of my heart to have a house full of children. However, those five children are growing up. My oldest will be a senior, my youngest will be in Kindergarten, and my three boys fall in between.
Not knowing what this next chapter of my life will hold is harder than I thought it would be. Having a plan in place makes the unknown more manageable. However, as of now, I have no plan.
But, you know what? God does.
All of my planning and working towards what I thought was the right goal means nothing if it isn’t God’s plan.
So, while the answer to my question of what I will do now may still be unanswered, and I still don’t understand God’s plan, I will wait and trust that God will reveal His plan, my purpose in this life, to me.
While at first that seemed scary to me, I know that He will be with me every step of the way. This is just another lesson for me in trusting Him.
