Strange name for a blog post. But (hopefully) by the end of this post...it will make sense.
But first...the moment everyone has been waiting for...my BIG news!
I GOT A NEW JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know, this has been something that I've been praying about for some many weeks and months. I've had others praying about it too. And in my heart and in my soul, I have been feeling and knowing that somehow, sometime, God was going to do something HUGE. I just didn't know what. Or when. So now...here's the REST of the story...about how this came about (and eventually...I'll explain where the fish reference comes from).
As noted earlier in this blog...things have been quite hairy for a while. At the end of the 2013-2014 school year, I had finished working a job in Toledo as a 5th grade teacher. As seems to be the story of my life more recently...things didn't quite work out the way I wanted them to. Ever since entering college to become a teacher, I've always had the thought in my mind that I'd want to teach the upper elementary grades...4th or 5th...maybe 6th. In the state of Ohio, though, the only way to accomplish that (or at least back in 2007 when I entered college and declared a major) is to go into middle school...which covers grades 4-9. I never wanted to teach "middle school" just the upper elementary. Fifth grade in Toledo seemed about right. But I struggled through that position. By the end of that year, I was beat. I felt like I'd failed. I felt like somehow I must have missed all the big DON'T DO IT signs in my life through college. And with my hopes and dreams still in ESL and going back to Thailand, I made the assumption that maybe...that was God's sign that it was time for me to get OUT of the teaching field.
So I chased down my next dream. To go to grad school and work on that masters in ESL. Everything seemed perfect...if it just worked out my way. Well...as I said was my luck...things didn't go quite my way. I never found the full time job I was hoping to find that would help pay my way through grad school. I was able to afford the first semester from the money I'd saved while working my last teaching job. But...without a full time position...there was not much chance I'd be making the payment to continue in the spring. I applied for jobs last summer...and was met many times with the cruel luck that I'd get so far into an application process...sometimes even just a couple steps away from a life-changing position...and then it would fall apart. It happened several times. I finally took on a part time retail position to at least be able to pay my car payment and insurance. I gave myself the prayer that "if this is something God wants me to do...He'll provide the way". He didn't provide the way. A few days before I was to start my second class of the spring semester, I emailed my advisors at the college and told them I had to withdraw from my second class due to not having enough money to pay for the class.
With grad school now out of the question...I started getting more "creative" of sorts with my job search. In my mind...staying in NW Ohio to attend grad school was somewhat limiting my job possibilities. Without grad school in the picture...the majority of the rest of the US opened up as potential places to look for jobs. Desperately searching for ANYTHING (but trying to stay out of education...at least in the "normal" sense) I started applying. I had looked into a couple online masters programs...mostly in higher education. So...at first I started my search in colleges and universities. Nothing. Not even one interview offer. After giving up on that option, I started looking a little more directly into the missions field. I looked into several missions organizations...nothing. I emailed the director of Asia's Hope...the organization that helps run the orphanages that our church supports...some nice advice...but no job offers. I turned my attention to other states. My mom's sister still had offered to help house me if I found a job near her in Virginia...or I was pretty sure my grandfather would do the same thing in his area. Nothing. One job I even offered to come in for an interview during vacation. Never heard from them. Feeling a bit defeated...I turned to North Carolina and started applying for jobs there....assuming I didn't move back to Charlotte...I would be able to afford to move there. Again...nothing. THEN I got the great idea to start applying for jobs in the children's ministry area at several churches. Many of those positions required no more than a bachelor's degree and several years of experience. I had a bachelor's in education and had been attending Grace for more than 10 years. Surely...THAT would get me something? I did get offered one or two interviews. But in the end...nothing.
And all this job searching was going on while I was working a part time retail job. Some days not even sure if or how I'd be able to afford to pay my car payment or insurance. Money was tight. I know as a Christian that money shouldn't be that big of an issue. But I'm not sure where to look in the Bible to find the answers for a "26 year old with a 4-year degree, living in her parents basement".
At the end of July, we went on vacation. One extremely glorious vacation. You see...jealousy and I had become pretty good buds recently. Somehow, in the year 2015, my mom has managed to go traveling I think 4 times since this year began. Me? My last vacation was last July when I went to go visit my relatives on my own. For the last 365 days, I had not left Ohio. As mom went to Thailand, the Outer Banks, a cruise, and to Virginia...I was kind of jealous. As a part time retail employee...I don't really get a "vacation" time. Basically...I can take a vacation...but it goes completely unpaid. I just don't get paid for a week. So...don't want to do that too many times. But I was desparate to get out of Ohio. So...I requested off a week for vacation between the end of July and beginning of August to go to Virginia to visit relatives.
It was a fun trip. But every night...I was back at it with applying for jobs. I remember at one point, before heading to bed at my grandpa's house...ending the night in tears. It seemed like every job...in every state...that I looked up had nothing. In frustration...I started praying...telling God "I don't know what to do anymore. I'm tired of doing this my way. What could your way possibly be?"
In the car on the way back to Ohio from VA, I again was searching for jobs. And I came across a job on Indeed.com. It was a teaching position...at a Christian school in the same county I live in. The job was almost a month old, so I had no idea if they were still even hiring for that position. As much as I didn't really want to look again into teaching, I thought that maybe if I found a good school...or just a different school...that things would be different. However, before I could even apply for that position...I had another hurdle to jump. My teaching license had expired. I had looked it up earlier (before it expired) on what to do to renew my license. Long story short...for the teaching license that I have, my only option was to extend the license for free for one year...or spend $80 to extend it for 2 more years. Sitting in the car, using what was left of my phone's battery power, I put in my application to the DOE in Ohio to do the 2 year extension (finding out along the way that somehow I had a $20 credit...so it only cost me $60). My application was approved less than an hour later.
When I got home from vacation...I applied for the position. Nothing. But that began my search again into teaching again. As I told my sweet assistant manager later...I started wondering...what if a career switch never was God's intended plan for my life? What if that was just me trying to make my life a little more comfy? What if God had always intended for me to stay in the education field? So I began my teaching job search again.
After one not-so-great day, I ended up applying for 4 jobs in one night. 1 job was for another higher education position at a local college, 1 was for a charter school I had actually applied for the summer I moved home from NC, the last 2 was for the same family of schools...but 2 jobs at 2 different locations. The next day I had 3 voicemails. Both of the schools from the same family had called me for an interview. I scheduled one interview for that Thursday and one for that Friday. I felt pretty good about the one on Thursday. But the one on Friday I went in for the interview...and they offered me the job while I was there!
For the last 2 weeks, I have been working 2 jobs...working my last 2 weeks as a part time retail employee, and putting in as many hours as possible trying to get things ready for a new teaching position. The cool thing about this school is that it specializes in teaching children with disabilities. And...it is a co-teaching position. I have an Instructional Aide working with me to provide smaller group settings to give my students more personal attention.
As I go looking back on this past year...that may not have been what I thought it would be...I started wondering. WHY did that even happen? If I was never intended to leave teaching....WHY did God let me stray for so long...before handing me another job...yet again...in record time?
For the last year or so...I have found the story of Jonah quite encouraging. A couple years ago, after moving back from NC, I actually had the hopes and plans to speak at my college alma mater's Christian organization. When asked what I'd talk about...I had loosely come up with a slight parallel of my life to Jonah's. But now...it seems even more obvious to me than before.
Now, before I go on to my parallel between me and Jonah, I'd like to throw a disclaimer that I don't always have the BEST Biblical knowledge. So...some of my thoughts and ideas may be slightly off. Also...for some Biblical references...my best knowledge comes from VeggieTales or other children's lessons. So some of my information may be a little...juvenile?
So...for a recap...the Sunday School version of the story of Jonah goes something like this. God had asked Jonah to go to a certain city to teach. Jonah didn't like that city...and decided not to do that. And walked in the exact opposite direction. He eventually hopped on a boat...with plans on going in a completely different direction. But a storm came. To lighten the load, the people on the boat started throwing things over. When that didn't help, they decided that OBVIOUSLY...someone had made their god very mad and that's why they were in such a pickle of an issue. So they cast lots (I actually heard a story of this from Adventures in Odyssey while driving back from VA...casting lots is a really weird thing). Guess who..."won"? Jonah! And they tossed him over the side of the boat. God sent a big fish to swallow him and he stayed there for a few days. And after those days were over, the fish spit Jonah back up onto dry land. And this time when God told Jonah to go...he went where he was supposed to go.
I think in my life...I've experienced this same idea...but not a legit "fish". God has used some chapters in my life to redirect me. For example...I think that my year in North Carolina was a "fish". I don't really know if a future in North Carolina was ever the intentions for my life. I sometimes wonder if I was so desperate for a job...that when the opportunity arose to also move FAR FAR AWAY from Ohio...I jumped on it. I sometimes wonder if I hadn't taken that job in NC and just stayed in Ohio...how things would be different? I turned away, I tried, I cast my lots...and lost...and 365 days later...God plopped me right back into the middle of NW Ohio.
But really...I think this past year was another time of redirection. This time...literally...I think I turned my back on what God had asked. I have the wonderful spiritual gift of teaching...and after a couple failed attempts...decided to do something else. My "boat" I hopped on...was grad school. I cast my lots about staying in grad school...and lost my own bet. But in a strange way...God sent this sweet little retail job as my "fish". And after several months...where did I get "spit" back up to...teaching!
In my own way...I believe that just as God sent a legit fish to keep Jonah safe...He's also used NC and now this retail job for the last year...as "fish" in my life. There are a few lessons I've learned from these two experiences...that I think Jonah also experienced while in the fish.
Here are my "Lessons from Inside the Fish":
1. It's Safe.
Jonah was in a fish while in the middle of a sea. He was safe. In North Carolina, I was in my own "sea"...of trying to figure out what to do about a job. But I was safe within the sweet people that God had put in my life at the time...my life group. And in this past year...again...I was in a "sea" of financial and career-related uncertainties...but I was safe. When life was going crazy, I was in a safe place that God had strategically placed me in.
2. It May Stink.
For Jonah...literally. I don't really even like to eat fish...let alone live inside one for a few days. In both North Carolina...and this last year...I've been in some "stinky" situations between jobs and finances. Things seemed kind of stinky.
3. It Won't Last Forever
For Jonah...it was 3 days. For me...it was a year (each time). But out of 26 years of life...that isn't too bad. And it wasn't forever.
4. It Will Eventually Lead Back to God's Plan
Probably one of the biggest things I've learned over the last few years is trusting in God's plan. Everything happens for a reason...because God has it all under control. Why did I have to move 600 miles away from home, completely uproot myself...even find a new church....just to come right back a year later? Couldn't there have been an easier way for God to redirect me? Probably. But that was all part of God's plan. And why did God let me walk away from teaching, take on a retail job...just to plop me back into the teaching world again? Why couldn't I have just gotten a new teaching job last summer and skipped this past year? Not sure...but it was still all part of God's plan.
Friends, let me leave you with some words of encouragement. No matter what you may be going through...if it's what you thought you'd be doing or not...is not happening by chance. God has a bigger plan. Things will get better...this time won't last forever. And it's all part of His plan. It may stink...but you're safe where you are. Take some lessons from Jonah as he was sitting all alone in a fish. Perhaps the situation God has you in now...was the only way he was able to get your attention to redirect your path? Chin up, buttercup...God has you RIGHT where he wants you.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Sunday, August 16, 2015
When History Repeats
I've always had a knack for history, especially family history. And over the last few weeks, I've gotten to get a nice peak at how sweet history can be.
Within my family, extended family has always been an interesting topic to discuss. My dad is originally from New Mexico. My mom is originally from Virginia. We live in Ohio. Growing up, I didn't have the "traditional" grandparent experience that many of my classmates and friends had. While many were able to go to grandma's house whenever...sometimes grandma even lived next door or down the street...traveling to visit my grandparents was a LONG excursion...that we liked to call "vacation"! Getting together with relatives normally only happens during the summer months...unless some kind of event warrants the family getting together at another time.
Even with the distances between families, it seemed like we were much better at getting together with my mom's side of the family than we were with getting together with dad's side of the family. I don't know why that was...personally I'm going to blame it on the fact that my mom is a twin...so they have one of those freaky twin genes...which basically means they are NOT able to be separated for more than like 2 weeks at a time (before the use of cell phones and text messaging...they would call each other every weekend to chat...taking turns doing the calling so that no one was paying more for the long distance call than the other).
Whatever the reasoning, I've always been a little closer to my mom's side of the family than to my dad's. We'd see my mom's family pretty much every summer when we traveled to Virginia to visit them, and then again around Christmas when her sister's family would come up to enjoy the snow-covered wonderland called Ohio.
My mom's mom passed away in 1996 when I was only 7 years old. Much of the last few years of her life, I only remember seeing her in a hospital bed in her house battling cancer. But, as family photo albums and old stories go...my grandmother lived an amazing life. When my mom was in school, my grandparents owned a florist in their hometown. After closing the florist (don't know when that was), as a retirement job, my grandmother took on a job at Colonial Williamsburg as a costumed re-enactor. Re-enactors are the costumed people that go around those historical venues dressed and acting to portray life in the specified time period. Nana (as we called her) played the tavern keeper Jane Vobe at the King's Arms Tavern in Williamsburg.
I don't really remember much about it. I remember making trips to Williamsburg as a kid...we have the family photos in albums to prove that. Nana loved that job and playing her role of Jane Vobe. Even to today, though, as a 26 year old, I enjoy going to Williamsburg and exploring a place where my grandmother was once employed.
My grandmother's death in 1996 was, I believe, the first family death I had been through in my life. Nana had been sick and in a hospital bed for many months (possibly years...my measurement of time at age 7 was not always the most reliable). I remember that that summer, when we went to Virginia for our annual vacation, something was different. My mom was pretty sure that my grandmother would not be living much longer. So, part of our packing for that particular trip included black clothes. She was anticipating that (assuming God's timing would be convenient for us), Nana would pass away sometime while we were there on vacation. We may have needed to miss the first day or two of the new school year, but that would be okay. We spent probably a good week or so in Virginia...and she remained alive. Surprisingly, I don't think that was much of a relief to my mom. My first memory of one of my parents crying was on the way home from Virginia that year. I remember being somewhere in I think West Virginia (there were lots of mountains around us) when I looked over to see my mom crying.
We got home from that trip, and went to the first day of school a day or two later. The morning of our second day of school, as we were getting ready to head out the door, my uncle called...to tell my mom that my grandmother had passed away that morning. We went to school that day...and mom picked us up while I was at recess...and headed BACK to Virginia for the funeral. I don't remember crying that much. But I remember my brother being a complete wreck. It was such a sad time.
But the story doesn't end there.
Several years later (I think it was like 5 years), sometime around Christmas, my mom's sister's family was in Ohio visiting for their annual holiday visit. We were in Toledo at the local Barnes and Noble store. My cousin had dragged me to the children's area so she could ask the clerk to look up a specific series of book (that the clerk had NO IDEA what she was talking about). Trying to kill time while the clerk searched the store's computer system, I found a book to look at. I was a HUGE fan of the American Girl series. Ironically...as mentioned before...my mom is from Virginia and my dad is from New Mexico. Well...of the original American Girls, Felicity's story takes place in 1774 in Williamsburg, Virginia...and Josefina's story takes place in New Mexico! I was very interested in both of those dolls...and looked at everything that AG put out. While I was standing at the children's counter with my cousin, there was a new Felicity book on display that I was interested in. So...I picked it up and starting flipping through it. The book was called "Welcome to Felicity's World: Life in Colonial Williamsburg in 1774"...or something like that.
Now, you have to understand something. When I say I flipped through the book...that's exactly what I did. I don't believe in the whole "judge a book by its cover"...so instead...I flip a book open to a random page and look...then skip another 50 or so pages and look...to determine if the words are too big or too little, to take notice of the number of pictures...and overall, how the book looks. I started flipping through the book in my normal manner. My second flip got me to page 36 (again...something like that). And I stopped. This book had a bunch of "real life" pictures from Williamsburg. The page I was on was talking about tavern keepers and other jobs in Williamsburg. At the bottom corner of the page was a picture. And I thought...huh...that lady in that picture kinda looks like my grandmother (though I wasn't completely sure...her death had been years ago. And really, I didn't know if ALL people that portrayed Jane Vobe looked like my grandmother). I left my cousin....who was still asking the Barnes and Noble clerk to look up her wanted book series...and went to find my mom. Opening the book to the page, I said "Look mom!" and held up the open page of the book. I was going to finish that sentence with something like "...this lady looks like Nana!"...but before I could get another word out of my mouth after my "Look mom!"...my mom stopped, stared, and said "Oh my gosh...it's mom". She then took the book, found her sister and showed her. Before leaving Barnes and Noble that day...we bought all 6 copies the store had of the book. My mom sent one copy back to Virginia with my aunt's family to give as a gift to my great aunt (my grandmother's sister who is still living). The book was wrapped with a post-it note that said "Turn to page 36." We got a picture in the mail a few days after New Years of my great aunt seeing the picture of her sister in that book. And I was congratulated on my great find (and I stood proud that maybe my flipping through book idea wasn't that stupid...still beats judging a book by the cover!)
That is still one of my favorite stories to tell. But in the last few years, I have gotten the urge to look for other ideas. Over the last year or two, I have done numerous Google searches of my grandmother. With this day in age being the age of the internet, I was hoping to find that picture that had appeared in the AG book and find a plethora of more like it. Surprisingly, though, I never really found where that picture originated from.
Earlier this year (2015), I re-tried my search. I came across several possible leads and started looking into them a bit more. In I think March, I found two different possible publications that, although didn't include pictures, had my grandmother's name in them. Before pursuing those any further, one day while my mom and I were in the car, I mentioned the find to her. Apparently I misunderstood what she was saying. I guess my grandfather had given my mom a lot of information or history of some sort. It seemed like these two publications were already known to my mom. My search stopped for a time...as those were the only leads I had found.
A couple months later, we were again in the car, and somehow ended up on the conversation about my grandmother's history with Colonial Williamsburg. I asked my mom is she remembered me telling her about the publications (she didn't). As I began to re-tell her about those publications, my mom wanted to know more...and to find copies of at least one publication. The publication I was telling her about was a novel that, in the Author's Note page of the novel, included an acknowledgement to my grandmother. The book had been published in 1992, went out of print, and then was re-released in 2012 as an e-book only. After doing a lot of searching, I could only find the book in e-book format. Mom sent information around to others in her family...and within about 24 hours, pretty much all of her family that was interested had downloaded the e-book onto their e-reading device. I tried to send the author an email through her website, hoping to locate a copy of the book in print, but didn't get anything back. And...just for fun...I friended her on Facebook.
Feeling quite accomplished, I looked again for the other publication (a magazine article she had written in the 1990's about Colonial Williamsburg and women's rights in the 1700's). I was a little discouraged that this publication was not as rare as the novel. My aunt already had a copy of the magazine on her shelf. Now we have one too!
A few months later, I was still bugged about the whole novel thing. Back in 1992, there was no such thing as an e-book. But I couldn't find a single TRACE of this book anywhere. I couldn't imagine how a book was published in the 90's with no trace...and now back out as an e-book. So...back to my old friend Google I went. After searching a few used books sites, I found one that had a few books listed by the same author of the novel I was looking for. This author didn't write very many books...and most of the books were the same I had already seen available through the e-books. But then I realized there was another title that I didn't recognize. After doing even more research, I discovered that when the author re-released the book in e-book form, she changed the title of the book. I ordered a copy of the book...just to make sure only the title had been changed...and the acknowledgements hadn't.
When the book arrived a few days later in the mail (which I had faithfully tracked all the way to my doorstep), I quickly flipped to the acknowledgements page...to see that her name was still one of the first acknowledgements in the book. I took a picture of it to send to my mom...and then just for fun...posted that picture on Facebook. The next day, while I was on my break at work, the author (who...remember...is my Facebook friend) commented on the picture...recognizing her book! After several comments, Facebook messages, and emails...the author sent me 2 additional copies of the book...signed with a sweet note. One book is intended for us, the other intended for my mom's sister (or at least for the Virginia folks).
But I couldn't just stop there! Since I was STILL on a roll of finding things about my grandmother, I still wanted to find those pictures! If nothing else...I wanted to find the picture that had started all of my searches...the one in the AG book. The only photo credit in the book was to Williamsburg itself. Not knowing how else to do it...I decided to attempt to send them a Facebook message. I explained how I had found her picture before, how she had died 19 years ago, but I was still finding publications and pictures about her and asked where I could locate those pictures. And pretty much decided I would probably never hear back from Williamsburg.
This past week, I got a Facebook message back from Williamsburg. After a little bit of technical difficulty, they sent me an email with 9 photos they had taken during a photo shoot of my grandmother in the early 90's. Apparently they searched through many slides and files to find the pictures. I forwarded the pictures to anyone I could think of on my mom's side of the family and just today downloaded them into my Dropbox account and posted them on Facebook.
Ironically...as I was just finishing this story, I remember how a history professor I had in college commented during our class one time about how much he HATED re-enactors. I was always a little offended about that...since he OBVIOUSLY had no idea how important one re-enactor was to me.
There is a lesson to be learned from all of this. What you do today...although maybe not obvious at the time...could have an affect in the future. I sometimes wonder if my grandmother was still living...what she would have said when I found these things with her picture and name in them. Would she have been embarrassed? Did she think that sitting down to give information to a young author or taking some pictures for a photo shoot would eventually become a treasure hunt for her granddaughter?
I think about some of the pictures and things I've said in my life, and start thinking of their affect. There are some things that I PRAY never resurface 19 years after I die! But...there are others that I wonder if anyone would remember me for.
The Bible says (somewhere) that what the devil intends for harm, God intends to help us.
Back in 2010, after my battles with birth control meds, I began seeing a "Christian" counselor. I put the word Christian in quotes because it took me a little while to eventually realize that there wasn't much Christian in the counseling I was receiving. I saw this counselor for about a year. My family doctor had told me that my depression was coming from the affects of the birth control, and I was immediately told to get off of the pill. Within the next few weeks, things started looking up. My counselor didn't see me as a "high priority" patient...so I only went to the counselor every other week. After a few months of counseling, I started getting irritated with the counselor. We were paying the counselor per session out of pocket (it wasn't covered by our health insurance). I started realizing that what was supposed to be "Christian" counseling....was lacking in use of the Bible. I started paying attention to my sessions. We'd pray before our session began and at the end. The counselor had her Bible in her lap...but there was NEVER any passages in the Bible shared. Another words...I realized we were paying a decent price for me to have a bi-weekly vent session with a stranger. It's free to have a vent session with God.:)
As my doubts about the counseling continued to grow, I began digging deeper into my own relationship with God, even occasionally sharing verses that I had come across with my counselor! Yet...somehow...we still never consulted the Bible for any answers. I finally stopped my sessions about a year after beginning them after having a weird session with my counselor.
There was a name to the therapy she was planning on doing...but I now don't remember what that was. Essentially, the goal of the therapy was that although I seemed to be doing better on the outside, there was still some kind of underlying cause to all my issues on the inside that needed to be dealt with. (I actually learned something about this in our Bible study at church a month or two ago. Unless you go to a Christian counselor who uses the Bible as their main source of answers, apparently in modern psychology, there's this belief that there is some underlying reason for everything we go through. Counselors will continue to take your money and have you come to a session so they can keep searching for this reason...never really reaching that answer).
Basically, as my counselor described it, our job was going to be to summon the Holy Spirit, and have the Holy Spirit come show ME where all my problems were. Now...keep in mind...the only issues I had really ever talked to my counselor about were broken relationships and fractured friendships from my incessent clingy-ness from being on the birth control. Somehow...we were going to have the Holy Spirit reveal the reason I was having so many friends issues (a thought I'd been trying to figure out my whole life). The counselor went on to explain the process.
So...during my next session, we did this "therapy". The counselor prayed to ask the Holy Spirit to join us. I felt pretty uncomfortable. A lifetime of going to church and learning about the Trinity didn't make any sense to ask the Holy Spirit to join us. It was my belief that as a Christian, the Spirit was already there...living in my heart. Why were we asking it/him to come? It's like telling the guests in your house to come on in. After the counselor felt that the Spirit was with us...she asked it/him to reveal to me where my problems were. And we waited. And waited. I didn't know what was supposed to happen. Was a unicorn going to come down and whisper it in my ear? A few minutes later, the counselor asked me if the spirit had revealed anything to me yet. With the exception of my thoughts on what to have for dinner that night because I was hungry...I said no. So we waited longer. Apparently the Spirit would show it to me in it/his own way. Feeling even more uncomfortable and wanting to be done with this supposed "therapy"...I let my mind wander to the first thing I could think of. I told my counselor the Spirit had given me the answer and we stopped.
The only thing I could think of...was a picture I remember from 2nd grade. I remembered a few days after getting back to Ohio from Nana's funeral, being in my 2nd grade classroom. It was bad outside, so we had inside recess. I was still sad from my Nana's funeral and had my head down on my desk, sobbing. Two classmates came over with the teacher to ask if I was okay. I told them that my grandmother had died, put my head back down, and cried again as they walked away. Truth is...I don't know how I remember that from 2nd grade, but I do.
Before concluding our session, my counselor told me "so THAT is where all of this comes from. We will start digging into that at your next session". And prayed and ended the session.
Driving home from the session...I was mad. I had sought counseling because of broken relationships due to depression from a medication I had been on. Things that...at the time...had happened only in the past several months. And now supposedly that wasn't true and really my problems came from one experience of some 2nd graders not knowing how to comfort a classmate who had just lost a relative? How in the world could anyone even CLAIM that those two things were related? I had just started to heal from one set of wounds and now a counselor was getting ready to re-open other wounds that had finally healed years before.
I needed truth...so popped the CD of a local Christian band in my player in my car and began singing along. A couple days later, I told my mom I didn't really want to go back again to that counselor. When I called to cancel my next session with the counselor, I lied and said I'd decided to get counseling from one of the pastors at my church. Still concerned now that we'd "discovered" this root of the problems, she sent her well wishes and told me to make sure to tell the pastor what we had done.
I actually wonder now if it's from that counseling experience that spawned me to begin looking again for pictures and publications of my grandmother. I don't think it's the reason for any of my issues...but now it's a reason for my JOY.
Within my family, extended family has always been an interesting topic to discuss. My dad is originally from New Mexico. My mom is originally from Virginia. We live in Ohio. Growing up, I didn't have the "traditional" grandparent experience that many of my classmates and friends had. While many were able to go to grandma's house whenever...sometimes grandma even lived next door or down the street...traveling to visit my grandparents was a LONG excursion...that we liked to call "vacation"! Getting together with relatives normally only happens during the summer months...unless some kind of event warrants the family getting together at another time.
Even with the distances between families, it seemed like we were much better at getting together with my mom's side of the family than we were with getting together with dad's side of the family. I don't know why that was...personally I'm going to blame it on the fact that my mom is a twin...so they have one of those freaky twin genes...which basically means they are NOT able to be separated for more than like 2 weeks at a time (before the use of cell phones and text messaging...they would call each other every weekend to chat...taking turns doing the calling so that no one was paying more for the long distance call than the other).
Whatever the reasoning, I've always been a little closer to my mom's side of the family than to my dad's. We'd see my mom's family pretty much every summer when we traveled to Virginia to visit them, and then again around Christmas when her sister's family would come up to enjoy the snow-covered wonderland called Ohio.
My mom's mom passed away in 1996 when I was only 7 years old. Much of the last few years of her life, I only remember seeing her in a hospital bed in her house battling cancer. But, as family photo albums and old stories go...my grandmother lived an amazing life. When my mom was in school, my grandparents owned a florist in their hometown. After closing the florist (don't know when that was), as a retirement job, my grandmother took on a job at Colonial Williamsburg as a costumed re-enactor. Re-enactors are the costumed people that go around those historical venues dressed and acting to portray life in the specified time period. Nana (as we called her) played the tavern keeper Jane Vobe at the King's Arms Tavern in Williamsburg.
I don't really remember much about it. I remember making trips to Williamsburg as a kid...we have the family photos in albums to prove that. Nana loved that job and playing her role of Jane Vobe. Even to today, though, as a 26 year old, I enjoy going to Williamsburg and exploring a place where my grandmother was once employed.
My grandmother's death in 1996 was, I believe, the first family death I had been through in my life. Nana had been sick and in a hospital bed for many months (possibly years...my measurement of time at age 7 was not always the most reliable). I remember that that summer, when we went to Virginia for our annual vacation, something was different. My mom was pretty sure that my grandmother would not be living much longer. So, part of our packing for that particular trip included black clothes. She was anticipating that (assuming God's timing would be convenient for us), Nana would pass away sometime while we were there on vacation. We may have needed to miss the first day or two of the new school year, but that would be okay. We spent probably a good week or so in Virginia...and she remained alive. Surprisingly, I don't think that was much of a relief to my mom. My first memory of one of my parents crying was on the way home from Virginia that year. I remember being somewhere in I think West Virginia (there were lots of mountains around us) when I looked over to see my mom crying.
We got home from that trip, and went to the first day of school a day or two later. The morning of our second day of school, as we were getting ready to head out the door, my uncle called...to tell my mom that my grandmother had passed away that morning. We went to school that day...and mom picked us up while I was at recess...and headed BACK to Virginia for the funeral. I don't remember crying that much. But I remember my brother being a complete wreck. It was such a sad time.
But the story doesn't end there.
Several years later (I think it was like 5 years), sometime around Christmas, my mom's sister's family was in Ohio visiting for their annual holiday visit. We were in Toledo at the local Barnes and Noble store. My cousin had dragged me to the children's area so she could ask the clerk to look up a specific series of book (that the clerk had NO IDEA what she was talking about). Trying to kill time while the clerk searched the store's computer system, I found a book to look at. I was a HUGE fan of the American Girl series. Ironically...as mentioned before...my mom is from Virginia and my dad is from New Mexico. Well...of the original American Girls, Felicity's story takes place in 1774 in Williamsburg, Virginia...and Josefina's story takes place in New Mexico! I was very interested in both of those dolls...and looked at everything that AG put out. While I was standing at the children's counter with my cousin, there was a new Felicity book on display that I was interested in. So...I picked it up and starting flipping through it. The book was called "Welcome to Felicity's World: Life in Colonial Williamsburg in 1774"...or something like that.
Now, you have to understand something. When I say I flipped through the book...that's exactly what I did. I don't believe in the whole "judge a book by its cover"...so instead...I flip a book open to a random page and look...then skip another 50 or so pages and look...to determine if the words are too big or too little, to take notice of the number of pictures...and overall, how the book looks. I started flipping through the book in my normal manner. My second flip got me to page 36 (again...something like that). And I stopped. This book had a bunch of "real life" pictures from Williamsburg. The page I was on was talking about tavern keepers and other jobs in Williamsburg. At the bottom corner of the page was a picture. And I thought...huh...that lady in that picture kinda looks like my grandmother (though I wasn't completely sure...her death had been years ago. And really, I didn't know if ALL people that portrayed Jane Vobe looked like my grandmother). I left my cousin....who was still asking the Barnes and Noble clerk to look up her wanted book series...and went to find my mom. Opening the book to the page, I said "Look mom!" and held up the open page of the book. I was going to finish that sentence with something like "...this lady looks like Nana!"...but before I could get another word out of my mouth after my "Look mom!"...my mom stopped, stared, and said "Oh my gosh...it's mom". She then took the book, found her sister and showed her. Before leaving Barnes and Noble that day...we bought all 6 copies the store had of the book. My mom sent one copy back to Virginia with my aunt's family to give as a gift to my great aunt (my grandmother's sister who is still living). The book was wrapped with a post-it note that said "Turn to page 36." We got a picture in the mail a few days after New Years of my great aunt seeing the picture of her sister in that book. And I was congratulated on my great find (and I stood proud that maybe my flipping through book idea wasn't that stupid...still beats judging a book by the cover!)
That is still one of my favorite stories to tell. But in the last few years, I have gotten the urge to look for other ideas. Over the last year or two, I have done numerous Google searches of my grandmother. With this day in age being the age of the internet, I was hoping to find that picture that had appeared in the AG book and find a plethora of more like it. Surprisingly, though, I never really found where that picture originated from.
Earlier this year (2015), I re-tried my search. I came across several possible leads and started looking into them a bit more. In I think March, I found two different possible publications that, although didn't include pictures, had my grandmother's name in them. Before pursuing those any further, one day while my mom and I were in the car, I mentioned the find to her. Apparently I misunderstood what she was saying. I guess my grandfather had given my mom a lot of information or history of some sort. It seemed like these two publications were already known to my mom. My search stopped for a time...as those were the only leads I had found.
A couple months later, we were again in the car, and somehow ended up on the conversation about my grandmother's history with Colonial Williamsburg. I asked my mom is she remembered me telling her about the publications (she didn't). As I began to re-tell her about those publications, my mom wanted to know more...and to find copies of at least one publication. The publication I was telling her about was a novel that, in the Author's Note page of the novel, included an acknowledgement to my grandmother. The book had been published in 1992, went out of print, and then was re-released in 2012 as an e-book only. After doing a lot of searching, I could only find the book in e-book format. Mom sent information around to others in her family...and within about 24 hours, pretty much all of her family that was interested had downloaded the e-book onto their e-reading device. I tried to send the author an email through her website, hoping to locate a copy of the book in print, but didn't get anything back. And...just for fun...I friended her on Facebook.
Feeling quite accomplished, I looked again for the other publication (a magazine article she had written in the 1990's about Colonial Williamsburg and women's rights in the 1700's). I was a little discouraged that this publication was not as rare as the novel. My aunt already had a copy of the magazine on her shelf. Now we have one too!
A few months later, I was still bugged about the whole novel thing. Back in 1992, there was no such thing as an e-book. But I couldn't find a single TRACE of this book anywhere. I couldn't imagine how a book was published in the 90's with no trace...and now back out as an e-book. So...back to my old friend Google I went. After searching a few used books sites, I found one that had a few books listed by the same author of the novel I was looking for. This author didn't write very many books...and most of the books were the same I had already seen available through the e-books. But then I realized there was another title that I didn't recognize. After doing even more research, I discovered that when the author re-released the book in e-book form, she changed the title of the book. I ordered a copy of the book...just to make sure only the title had been changed...and the acknowledgements hadn't.
When the book arrived a few days later in the mail (which I had faithfully tracked all the way to my doorstep), I quickly flipped to the acknowledgements page...to see that her name was still one of the first acknowledgements in the book. I took a picture of it to send to my mom...and then just for fun...posted that picture on Facebook. The next day, while I was on my break at work, the author (who...remember...is my Facebook friend) commented on the picture...recognizing her book! After several comments, Facebook messages, and emails...the author sent me 2 additional copies of the book...signed with a sweet note. One book is intended for us, the other intended for my mom's sister (or at least for the Virginia folks).
But I couldn't just stop there! Since I was STILL on a roll of finding things about my grandmother, I still wanted to find those pictures! If nothing else...I wanted to find the picture that had started all of my searches...the one in the AG book. The only photo credit in the book was to Williamsburg itself. Not knowing how else to do it...I decided to attempt to send them a Facebook message. I explained how I had found her picture before, how she had died 19 years ago, but I was still finding publications and pictures about her and asked where I could locate those pictures. And pretty much decided I would probably never hear back from Williamsburg.
This past week, I got a Facebook message back from Williamsburg. After a little bit of technical difficulty, they sent me an email with 9 photos they had taken during a photo shoot of my grandmother in the early 90's. Apparently they searched through many slides and files to find the pictures. I forwarded the pictures to anyone I could think of on my mom's side of the family and just today downloaded them into my Dropbox account and posted them on Facebook.
Ironically...as I was just finishing this story, I remember how a history professor I had in college commented during our class one time about how much he HATED re-enactors. I was always a little offended about that...since he OBVIOUSLY had no idea how important one re-enactor was to me.
There is a lesson to be learned from all of this. What you do today...although maybe not obvious at the time...could have an affect in the future. I sometimes wonder if my grandmother was still living...what she would have said when I found these things with her picture and name in them. Would she have been embarrassed? Did she think that sitting down to give information to a young author or taking some pictures for a photo shoot would eventually become a treasure hunt for her granddaughter?
I think about some of the pictures and things I've said in my life, and start thinking of their affect. There are some things that I PRAY never resurface 19 years after I die! But...there are others that I wonder if anyone would remember me for.
The Bible says (somewhere) that what the devil intends for harm, God intends to help us.
Back in 2010, after my battles with birth control meds, I began seeing a "Christian" counselor. I put the word Christian in quotes because it took me a little while to eventually realize that there wasn't much Christian in the counseling I was receiving. I saw this counselor for about a year. My family doctor had told me that my depression was coming from the affects of the birth control, and I was immediately told to get off of the pill. Within the next few weeks, things started looking up. My counselor didn't see me as a "high priority" patient...so I only went to the counselor every other week. After a few months of counseling, I started getting irritated with the counselor. We were paying the counselor per session out of pocket (it wasn't covered by our health insurance). I started realizing that what was supposed to be "Christian" counseling....was lacking in use of the Bible. I started paying attention to my sessions. We'd pray before our session began and at the end. The counselor had her Bible in her lap...but there was NEVER any passages in the Bible shared. Another words...I realized we were paying a decent price for me to have a bi-weekly vent session with a stranger. It's free to have a vent session with God.:)
As my doubts about the counseling continued to grow, I began digging deeper into my own relationship with God, even occasionally sharing verses that I had come across with my counselor! Yet...somehow...we still never consulted the Bible for any answers. I finally stopped my sessions about a year after beginning them after having a weird session with my counselor.
There was a name to the therapy she was planning on doing...but I now don't remember what that was. Essentially, the goal of the therapy was that although I seemed to be doing better on the outside, there was still some kind of underlying cause to all my issues on the inside that needed to be dealt with. (I actually learned something about this in our Bible study at church a month or two ago. Unless you go to a Christian counselor who uses the Bible as their main source of answers, apparently in modern psychology, there's this belief that there is some underlying reason for everything we go through. Counselors will continue to take your money and have you come to a session so they can keep searching for this reason...never really reaching that answer).
Basically, as my counselor described it, our job was going to be to summon the Holy Spirit, and have the Holy Spirit come show ME where all my problems were. Now...keep in mind...the only issues I had really ever talked to my counselor about were broken relationships and fractured friendships from my incessent clingy-ness from being on the birth control. Somehow...we were going to have the Holy Spirit reveal the reason I was having so many friends issues (a thought I'd been trying to figure out my whole life). The counselor went on to explain the process.
So...during my next session, we did this "therapy". The counselor prayed to ask the Holy Spirit to join us. I felt pretty uncomfortable. A lifetime of going to church and learning about the Trinity didn't make any sense to ask the Holy Spirit to join us. It was my belief that as a Christian, the Spirit was already there...living in my heart. Why were we asking it/him to come? It's like telling the guests in your house to come on in. After the counselor felt that the Spirit was with us...she asked it/him to reveal to me where my problems were. And we waited. And waited. I didn't know what was supposed to happen. Was a unicorn going to come down and whisper it in my ear? A few minutes later, the counselor asked me if the spirit had revealed anything to me yet. With the exception of my thoughts on what to have for dinner that night because I was hungry...I said no. So we waited longer. Apparently the Spirit would show it to me in it/his own way. Feeling even more uncomfortable and wanting to be done with this supposed "therapy"...I let my mind wander to the first thing I could think of. I told my counselor the Spirit had given me the answer and we stopped.
The only thing I could think of...was a picture I remember from 2nd grade. I remembered a few days after getting back to Ohio from Nana's funeral, being in my 2nd grade classroom. It was bad outside, so we had inside recess. I was still sad from my Nana's funeral and had my head down on my desk, sobbing. Two classmates came over with the teacher to ask if I was okay. I told them that my grandmother had died, put my head back down, and cried again as they walked away. Truth is...I don't know how I remember that from 2nd grade, but I do.
Before concluding our session, my counselor told me "so THAT is where all of this comes from. We will start digging into that at your next session". And prayed and ended the session.
Driving home from the session...I was mad. I had sought counseling because of broken relationships due to depression from a medication I had been on. Things that...at the time...had happened only in the past several months. And now supposedly that wasn't true and really my problems came from one experience of some 2nd graders not knowing how to comfort a classmate who had just lost a relative? How in the world could anyone even CLAIM that those two things were related? I had just started to heal from one set of wounds and now a counselor was getting ready to re-open other wounds that had finally healed years before.
I needed truth...so popped the CD of a local Christian band in my player in my car and began singing along. A couple days later, I told my mom I didn't really want to go back again to that counselor. When I called to cancel my next session with the counselor, I lied and said I'd decided to get counseling from one of the pastors at my church. Still concerned now that we'd "discovered" this root of the problems, she sent her well wishes and told me to make sure to tell the pastor what we had done.
I actually wonder now if it's from that counseling experience that spawned me to begin looking again for pictures and publications of my grandmother. I don't think it's the reason for any of my issues...but now it's a reason for my JOY.
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