Part Two - And the Story Continues...

Before I begin part two of my story, I need to apologize for the insertion of this overly wordy introduction. You’ll also need to be patient with my lack of writing skills, as I am going to try my best not to, but cannot guarantee there won’t be a lot of rambling, hurried subject changes, and/or other feelings of disconnectedness inside this post and future posts. You may have noticed that my very first post was edited and revised in big and small ways about 47 times, AFTER I INITIALLY POSTED IT! I’m sure this one will be no different. Anyway, back on track to my wordy introduction. If you are reading this post and do not know me well, I am normally pretty quiet around people. I like to listen and offer support and advice when needed, but I rarely use my own story to be the teaching point for someone else’s. I guess I’m sort of like, who am I?? So I rarely share my stories. I used to think I was just being polite and letting others talk about themselves, and I LOVE HEARING OTHER PEOPLE’S STORIES. Just being polite, right? Maybe not. Recently, I realized that I might have just been scared. I learned a truth recently-- fully understood it for the first time. I learned that telling MY story, sharing who I am in Christ, is a big part of why I’m here. It’s why we are all here. There is a fundamental problem with this realization, however, because God created me as an introvert. I have always been not so great at reaching out and communicating with people. I used to be much better at it a few years ago than I have been lately, I think. A recent season of sadness and pain intensified my worst character flaws and made this particular personal problem so much worse. I became a person who never called, never texted, and I didn’t even reach out on Facebook very often. Facebook might be part of the problem. I get on Facebook, probably too much. I use it as a tool to creep on people rather than connect with people. I’m always creeping on the people I love, because I AM interested in their lives! Honest. See, it has nothing to do with my not wanting to reach out to the people I love, it’s simply that I enjoy time to myself (excuse) and (truthfully) I was feeling very scared and broken. I was feeling ashamed.

**Side note: I did fail to mention that I am married to the most extroverted human being on the planet. He keeps my social calendar pretty full! We have managed pretty well to merge our individual lists of “top most important people” that you prioritize spending your free time with (one of my all-time favorite authors, Shauna Niequist calls this the “home team”), but there are always a few of my special humans who aren’t on David’s list at that present moment, and I selfishly take what little free time David leaves in our calendar for myself.**

I needed to lick my wounds. I didn’t want to burden anybody with me.

I would end up realizing there were (at any given moment) about 5-10 people, whom I love dearly, that I hadn’t spoken to in MONTHS. Sometimes it was more than a year, y’all. I’m not proud of this. I am fully aware I needn’t rely on my husband to make initial contact with the people I love. Thank you God for David, because if it weren’t for him, I may not have connected with many people at all! I knew Facebook wasn’t enough. I will probably say more about Facebook later, but enough for now.

One lesson I learned in my twenties after losing my dear grandmothers and Great Aunt Marguerite, is that the more time you can spend with your “people” in this life, the better your life will be. And you really never know when you will run out of opportunities to spend time with these people. (The cliché “live every day like it’s your last” takes on a whole new meaning.) God gives us our people to love us and teach us things. As one of His people, it is your first calling in life to love others and teach them things. Sometimes the only way to teach the thing you need to teach is to get over your pride and be vulnerable and authentic. When two people share a mutual love for each other, respect for one another, and are both willing to learn from the mistakes of the other, I think true human connection occurs. Unfortunately, it seems as if this kind of spirit-centered connection is becoming more and more rare. I feel connecting with your people is where true happiness is found. Loving each other, hearing each other’s stories and learning from them in deep, meaningful ways is why we are all here. Mirroring our Father’s unseen love in physical, tangible ways as the body of Christ is why we are all here. Everything else is just secondary. I’ve also learned recently that connecting with people through happy, joyous moments is wonderful and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But when we choose to share our stories of pain, weakness, and vulnerability, we are able to connect with people on a supernatural level. These are the moments when we feel very much a part of something bigger than ourselves and we feel the power of a love everlasting. The love of our God.

This is how I know God wants me to share my story.

So just over two years ago, I found myself entering a dark and stormy season of life that caused the above mentioned character flaws to run rampant in my life. This particular season’s weather conditions included countless doctors appointments and blood draws, personality altering fertility medications, miscarriages, surgery, and intense physical pain that didn’t even come close to mirroring the magnitude of the emotional pain being inflicted by a deep, deep sadness and longing. This was a season I was unable to walk through on my own. I needed navigators, forecasters, trusted people I could turn to for MY SURVIVAL.

Luckily, I have an amazing flock of rock-solid humans that surrounded me in the storm and loved me through it, despite my lack of relationship skills. God knows all my weaknesses and loves me anyway. He loves me enough to strategically place people in my life who also know my weaknesses and love me anyway. Also, they are strong in those same areas I am so weak. He gave me people who are willing to reach out to me even when I am too selfish and scared to reach out to them. This is how God loves us.

So. Two years ago. Part one of my story left off just before this part began. I took the parapro job, a little bit bitter and resentful the entire year. Okay, I was a lot bitter and resentful. I felt I had made huge sacrifices to get to this point and it’s what God wanted me to do. Why didn’t He reward me with a job? Instead, I felt like I was being punished with more financial strain in my marriage. I was being punished by having to work in a classroom right next door to the teacher who was hired instead of me. She seemed…well, not so good at her job. Later, I heard that she didn’t even interview. I did. And my interview was BRUTAL. I was so mad about that. (Much, much later, I heard that this particular teacher is doing a wonderful job and that she, herself, was going through a very difficult time personally. I felt so guilty for judging her abilities and allowing myself to feel superior to her in that moment.) My bitterness and resentment toward God grew and grew as the teacher I was working with began going through her own personal struggles causing her to be absent a lot, adding to my responsibilities in that classroom. I was getting paid pennies. I sure didn’t want to have to work any harder than I had to. This was so not fair. I was teaching, lesson planning, all the headaches that actual teachers don’t get paid enough to do and I was getting paid the salary of a parapro to do them. This was the moment that I began to turn my back to God a little. I didn’t understand how He would allow this to happen. I took matters into my own hands and acquired a deep sense of determination. When jobs were posted that spring, I wrote and re-wrote cover letters, perfectly tweaking them all to ensure I got the job I’d been dreaming of. I didn’t want to admit it then, but my selectiveness was pretty severe. I really only had my sights set on ONE SCHOOL. I had two or three plan B schools I would have settled with, but there was really only one dream job for me. I wanted to teach at Chase Street School. I didn’t even really have words to describe why, I just knew that was the best school for me.

Jobs were posted a bit earlier than they had been the previous year and sure enough, there was one posting for Chase Street. I applied with the best cover letter around, but very little hope. You see, getting a job in this county had been difficult PERIOD, much less at the highest ranked school in the district! I knew no one at the school and knew that every teacher in the county probably wanted to teach there too. I didn’t think I would even get an interview. But I did. Lucky for me, David and I had been renting a tiny little house in the same neighborhood as the recently retired assistant principal of Chase Street. We had met about a year earlier at a block party. She was so kind and encouraging to me as I shared with her my job search story and how much I thought of Chase Street School. I’m pretty certain she got me that interview. God used her kindness and influence to get me that interview. I interviewed with two of the smartest, kindest individuals I had ever met. The principal and new assistant principal of Chase Street. I felt immediately connected with them and the whole school. I was hired on April 29, 2014 to teach second grade at my dream school. April 29 is mine and David’s anniversary y’all. What an incredible anniversary gift from God! I was feeling so encouraged but still needed to finish the current school year as a parapro. The teacher I was working with had given me the sweetest recommendation to the principal of Chase Street, playing an important part in my getting the job. I was humbled down to an incredible level by this, because I had spent the majority of the year blaming her, being frustrated with her for my having to work hard. She finished the year strong and showed me so much gratitude for helping her through such a difficult year. I’m realizing just how important it is to realize that my story is not the only story playing out right now. Every single one of us have such incredible stories of hope and perseverance. I wasn’t hired for this parapro position until a few weeks after the school year had started. The parapro I would be replacing had been working with this teacher for sixteen years and had been diagnosed with cancer the previous year. She worked until she couldn’t anymore, but insurance requirements prevented the school from hiring a permanent replacement until her short-term disability ran out and long-term kicked in. This sweet lady missed her job and would visit the classroom often to draw energy from the kids she had spent her life serving. She went home to be with Jesus later that year, but not before sharing the most incredible macaroni and cheese recipe with me. It warms my heart to think of her. The teacher I was working with barely processed her grief when she lost her beloved partner--I think because she had recently lost her own father, broken her arm needing to have surgery, and was supporting her teenage daughter through an unexpected pregnancy. That’s a tough year, folks. I can’t believe I was so selfish to only be thinking of myself during that time. I am so so thankful I was able to be there for her, even in the small way of her having peace-of-mind that her students were still getting a quality education in her absence. At the end of the year, she thanked me in the sweetest way. That helped balance out the bitterness still lingering in my mouth. Sweet things tend to do that. Through all this, I was really beginning to taste the sweet flavor of finally FINALLY being ready to expand our family. It kind of felt like crossing a finish line. I had no idea that the marathon of my life was only just beginning.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”                                                                    Hebrews 12:1-3

Our Story - Part One

I’m a 2nd grade teacher who recently made the decision to go to graduate school. I didn’t make this decision because I hate my job and want a new one or need a higher salary in order for my job to be “worth it.” I made this decision for an opposite reason entirely. I absolutely adore teaching second grade. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am right where God wants me to be. You’ll rarely hear me complaining about how hard my job is. Don’t get me wrong-- it takes me all the way to the edges of my human limits on the regular. In fact, I would go as far as to say it pushes me to those limits most of the time. It’s not for the faint of heart. But I love my job. I love spending my days with sharp, witty, inspirational little humans every day. I love seeing their eyes light up when they finally understand. I love to understand new things too, and I connect with them in deep ways in those moments. I love the process of learning. I’m getting my masters degree in Instructional Technology because I love teaching and I love learning and well, we are learning in the very digital twenty-first century. My very first class is taking us back to review some of the most basic scientific theories on human behavior and learning. I’m eating it up. The learning process is really quite simple when it comes right down to it. First, we hear or observe new information. This happens to us all day long, every day of our lives. Next, we either connect it to something else in our life and remember it, or we fail to connect it with anything, in which case the information becomes meaningless and we forget . If we make that connection and find meaning, one of two things will happen: It will either get buried in our memory forever, eventually getting wiped out, OR we will recall the information while it’s still in short-term memory and apply it to a new scenario until we finally understand. The more opportunities we have to practice and apply a new concept, the better we understand it and understanding is learning. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3 (and 4). Hear/observe, connect, practice and apply, understand. So easy.

Right?

I see it play out in my classroom every day. Over and over and over again, numerous times a day.

But what happens when our ears are covered and our eyes are closed tight? What happens when we fail to make the connection? What happens when our own short-sightedness causes us to miss the big picture? What happens when we are so busy pitching a fit about not getting what we want, when we want it that we miss the whole point of the lesson? What happens when the information is eternally important and actually concerns our eternity and we miss the whole point?

It happened to me recently. And I know it will happen again. And it happens to you! Do you know how to make sure you’re listening when our Greatest Teacher is trying to teach a lesson? I’m not sure I can single-handedly impart this skill to any of you, but what I can do is tell you my story. I’ve felt it necessary to begin writing down the story of my learning breakdown. The details of my story are just too big to be limited within the confines of my own heart. It needs to be shared. It’s a matter of conscience. So without further ado, here I go…

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Betsy NeSmith and I live in Athens, Georgia with my husband, David, and golden retriever, Oliver. I’m 31 years old and have been teaching second grade for two years now. Teaching is my second, but without a doubt my final, career choice. I can’t even call it a career, because I feel so called by God to do what I do everyday. I am so incredibly blessed to be living out God’s purpose for my life. I may not have discovered it before or even during my college years, but I discovered it. To me, this felt like a major, top-of-the-bucket-list accomplishment. It felt miraculous.  Many of us make it all the way to the end of our time here on earth without ever discovering our true calling, or using the spiritual gifts God has given us. I feel like I could write an entire post on this topic, so maybe I’ll do that so I can get back to my story.

David and I met eleven years ago in the spring of 2005. David had recently graduated from college and was looking for his first apartment in the Atlanta area. I (at the tender age of 19) had recently begun my first career in real estate by way of the property management industry. I leased and managed class A apartment homes, and unbeknownst to me at the time, David can and will sniff out the best of the best for himself. The man knows what he wants out of life and that usually consists of the finest quality everything. I’ve learned to simultaneously love this about him and roll my eyes all at the same time. Anyway, David walked into my leasing office and basically demanded I give him my number. I put up a good fight, but in the end, he won me over, moved into the apartment directly below mine and the rest, as they say, is history! We knew almost immediately that God would bless our life together and David popped the question just six months into our relationship. Rightfully so, this completely freaked out my parents. I was a 20 year-old leasing consultant who didn’t have a college degree and was trying to get married to a man who did have a degree but didn’t have a JOB. (He was fired a bunch, but that’s his story to tell, not mine.) After some screaming matches and a whole lot of convincing, my parents gave their blessings (and entire bank account) for our union, and we were married on a chilly and overcast spring day in 2006. The backdrop of our wedding was so, so perfect. I’m not sure how many of you reading this knows about or has visited Lake Burton, but I encourage each and every one of you to find a way to do so. It is becoming increasingly difficult to visit, however, as the level of exclusivity presently surrounding the tiny Northeast Georgia Mountain lake is kind of mind-boggling. Movie stars, champion football coaches, and grammy-winning country music stars are just a few of the latest homebuyers. In contrast, our wedding was utterly simple and inexpensive. It had to be no-frills, as my parents have always had limited resources, but I would have had it no other way. With a backdrop as breathtakingly beautiful as Lake Burton, what more do you need? The reason this venue was chosen was because of the special meaning and spiritual significance it had in David’s story up-to-that-point, and still does in so many ways. Although today our visits there look and feel much different than they did ten years ago.

Ten years.

Ten years ago our journey together as husband and wife began. We had such big plans for ourselves as individuals and as a couple. I would continue pursuing a career in real estate and David would finally land on a profession for himself --home building. He would build the finest, fanciest of homes. (Imagine that.)  (I wish I had the laughing emoji or better yet, the squinty eyed, tongue-out one to insert here.) He knocked it out of the park, y’all. He is so, so talented at designing and building exactly what he dreams up in his creative mind. He worked as a superintendent for a spec builder in Atlanta for a while and felt immediate success. I worked as an assistant property manager at an apartment community in the vicinity.

Because of amazing mentoring, one thing David and I found crucially important before getting married was deciding on a church family to become a part of. While living in Atlanta, we became very involved in Buckhead Church of North Point Ministries. (Is it even okay to drop a shameless shout-out on here?) Being so plugged-in to such a wonderful church was a huge blessing and a big part of our story as a newlywed couple. The church is very much so credited for facilitating the work David and I did to lay a strong foundation rooted in Christ for our marriage. We were baptized together there, led a small group there, and served special-needs children together there.

We were doing important work, but we were the definition of the term blissfully wed. No storms, no hiccups, just pure joy filled our lives. Before long, we grew bored I guess, and we decided to move full-time to the Lake Burton area in Rabun County (Lord knows we couldn’t afford to buy a place on the actual lake, although that was the dream at the time). Neither David nor I have ever struggled in the area of self-confidence so we both felt ready to each respectively pursue self-employment. We had big, big dreams for ourselves, y’all. From this moment, our plans were to have David build fancy lake homes while I listed and sold them, making us THE Lake Burton power couple and would become millionaires in no time! We pursued this plan for about a year before God began ever-so-slowly redirecting our path. David will tell you the next part of our story was HIS first big learning opportunity from God, but again, I’ll let his story be his to tell. Long story short, the housing market crashed, leaving the fancy-pants builder and inexperienced real estate agent high and dry with no income to speak of. Consider our earth shaken. But the storms were only just beginning for us. Literally and figuratively. Let me continue.

David was busy building his first house on Lake Burton, and although he will tell you he should have been payed more for that first job, he was thrilled to have his foot in the door and super motivated to continue pursuing his dreams, undeterred by the panic ensuing in the bigger cities concerning the housing market. I, on the other hand, was not staying busy in Real Estate. We now lived in a very political small mountain town. I knew this going in, so logically, I decided to volunteer myself for everything to build up my political reputation. I volunteered as the chairman of the Christmas Tour of Homes committee. This was a huge fundraising effort that the Board of Realtors held every Christmas to raise money for a local organization providing financial assistance to underprivileged families. We raised over $20,000 the year I presided over the organizing committee and I definitely stayed busy during those months leading up. I also volunteered as member and secretary for the local Junior Women’s Club. This was fun and rewarding, as all of our fundraising efforts were dedicated to sending local deserving girls to college. I absolutely loved the feeling of contributing to a child’s education. Speaking of education, I was also volunteering as a mentor at the local middle school. I absolutely loved every moment of being in that school environment. Real Estate? What Real Estate? I was busy, but I was feeling like I was losing my direction and my sense of purpose. I didn’t like the feeling at all.

Then, just like that, a light bulb came on.

David and I were on our way home from going to see a movie with a friend. The theater was 25 minutes away, so we had carpooled with our friend and were having pleasant conversation on the car ride home. This “friend” was actually a friend’s mother who had a home on the lake and was just as dear to us as her daughter was. Her opinion mattered to us. She was a retired teacher, herself, and said simply, “Betsy, you should go back to school to be a teacher.” That’s when the light clicked on. It was like God, Himself, had spoken the words to me. Ironically enough, I had been told that my entire life. Both my parents were in education and I was given this advice countless times but proudly rejected the counsel, having seen firsthand the behind-the-scenes life of a teacher and I wanted none of that for myself. I was going to work smarter, not harder, and make much more money than a teacher ever could. But this time was so different. It felt like a brand new suggestion. I knew immediately it was the right thing for me to do.

So in July 2009, super last-minute, I enrolled for fall semester at UGA. This was following a very important, albeit brief, discussion with David about what this meant for our future. We had been married four and a half years and were beginning to feel like we may want children soon. Going back to get my degree would mean putting this off another four years at least. We decided together that it was the right decision and just like that, I was about to be a 25 year-old college freshman. I kept my real estate license active for a time and even tried to do school and real estate simultaneously, but quickly lost interest in the latter. I commuted to Athens two or three days a week for the first three semesters, an hour and a half drive. Then spring semester 2011 happened. During registration for this semester, I discovered I was going to have to tackle 18 hours of coursework if I was to finish all my prerequisites and be ready to enter my Early Childhood program the following fall as planned. I would no longer be able to commute from home unless I was interested in 15 hours in the car each week. No thank you. I would need to find a place to stay in Athens Monday thru Friday. We had been married for almost five years and this was the most foreign of concepts. This would be our biggest test of faith up-to-that-point. Trusting God when deciding to move to the mountains was a small test of faith. Trusting God in going back to school to be a teacher was a slightly bigger test of faith. Living apart from your husband five days a week for four months? Much bigger deal.

Okay, God, we’ve got this.

Boot straps were pulled up and we hunkered down and made it through. It was hard though. There were tense moments. David endured winter months in the mountains all by himself (which are brutal and depressing, even with a companion) and there were days and weeks I knew he struggled with resentment. I’ll never forget my feelings of excitement and relief as I spent a Wednesday evening in late April writing a final paper for a history class and studying for a final in another class. The semester was over for me on Friday and I would be getting home just in time to celebrate our five year anniversary. This Wednesday evening, I was half-listening to the TV, half-focused on my schoolwork. Earlier that day, a professor had emailed our class to tell us to watch a system of storms that were moving into the southeast. The class we were in was a science prerequisite and we had just completed a unit on weather patterns. She had explained that this particular storm system had all the characteristics of a superstorm and would be one going into the record books and that we wouldn’t want to miss the action. As I worked on my paper, I kept hearing about storm damage in Alabama. Apparently, this particular weather system had produced a powerful EF4 tornado that would completely destroy many parts of Tuscaloosa. I saw the pictures on the TV screen. I remember feeling scared for the people who had just lost everything. I said a quick prayer and then muted my TV so I could focus. I couldn’t focus. I kept looking back up to my muted TV, pausing when radar images and storm paths were displayed. The storms were entering Georgia now and not getting weaker. I turned my volume up slightly and kept working on my paper. It was beginning to get dark and my paper was nowhere near finished and due in hours first thing the next morning. I needed to focus. That’s when I heard some scary words from the meteorologist- Spalding County and Northeast Georgia. The worst of the storms were heading straight toward all the people I love most in this world. This would prove to be a very long and frightening night for me. I immediately called my family in Griffin. I think it was late-ish, maybe around 9PM. I told them all I loved them and to please be safe and keep me updated. I then called David. He was living temporarily in a friend’s lake house while we secured another place to live.

Y’all. Telling your story pared-down enough not to be long and boring is hard. I left out a part! Let me back up for just a second. When we initially moved up to Rabun County, we lived with David’s parents in their gorgeous, newly-built lake house. We lived with them for about six months while David built a precious three-stall horse barn for his mother on a tract of land she had owned for a while with the hopes of eventually putting her horses there. The agreement was for David to build the 2-story barn with an apartment on the top floor, and we would rent the space from her and help care for her horses. Well, David’s father had recently developed some condominiums in the area and when the housing market crashed, the condos stopped selling and he lost the development AND their lake house to the bank. (The difficult part for David to wrestle with was that the lake house had been paid for free and clear until the condos stopped selling. His father decided to lien his personal home to pay interest, hence why it was taken by the bank too.) David had moved us out of the barn and into a friend’s lake house temporarily the week before so his parents could move into the barn. Okay, back to the story.

I called David. I kept him on the phone as I watched this monstrous storm cell move closer and closer to his precise location on the radar map. I begged him to leave the house he was in and go to his parents’, well it was soon to be the bank’s, lake house. It was bigger and stronger. It would easily be able to stand up to the storm. The house David was in was really old. It leaned and creaked and felt structurally unsound when you were in it. I definitely would NOT want to be there during a strong storm. I urged him to get in his truck and flee the scene immediately. He could even put his truck in the garage to protect it from falling limbs and hail damage. He disregarded my suggestion and asked to hang up so he could go on to bed. He said the storms wouldn’t be that bad and he’d talk to me in the morning. I stayed up until well-after midnight watching the radar and checking on my people. David never answered another phone call that night. I was so scared. I prayed harder that night than I had ever prayed before. And I hurried to finish my paper.

When my alarm sounded the following morning to wake me for class, I quickly turned it off and tried calling David. He didn’t answer. I called my parents and my brother who lived in Griffin and confirmed they were all okay, although there was pretty sever damage just miles from their homes and a couple of tornadoes had actually touched down. I grabbed for my computer which was in arm’s reach before ever getting out of bed. I searched for evidence of storm damage in the Lake Burton area and stumbled upon some raw helicopter footage that had already been posted online. It was so bad, y’all. After watching the footage two or three times, I recognized one of the properties that had been destroyed. It was David’s parents’ home. In that moment, I knew it had been God, and not David’s stubbornness, that had kept him from listening to my suggestions. 

Here is a before pic of their beautiful home:

And here is the after:

It was an EF3 tornado. The exact same tornado that had hit Tuscaloosa earlier that day and had only weakened slightly. Our world was quite literally shaken. David eventually called me back. He was safe, but crying uncontrollably. He had just seen firsthand the pure devastation that had occurred the night before. When he woke up, he had tried leaving in his truck to go help some friends who were trapped at their house. He quickly found out that he was pretty stuck as well. Trees were down everywhere blocking all the roads that led away from where he was staying. So he got on his boat and began to survey the damage to his beloved lake. He was devastated and entered into a long period of sadness in his life. The sadness would be intensified just a few short weeks later when his father informed him he would be leaving his mother and filing for divorce.

What was happening?? All of a sudden, our neat and tidy life seemed so scary and uncertain. I moved back to Rabun, David and I quickly found a permanent place to live and we spent the summer licking our wounds. David had finished building the house and was having trouble finding more work. Everyone, including the potential investor, was waiting for things to become a little more stable in the housing market. I brought up the topic of moving to Athens to David. I had absolutely loved my semester there, aside from missing my husband, and felt like David and I could have a wonderful life there together. Understandably so, David was having none of it. He was probably feeling like his beloved lake, the one place he has felt closest to God for his entire life, was being ripped away from him and he felt desperate to hold on to it for as long as he could. David decided to start a new business that summer and we decided I would find another place to rent in Athens M-F for fall semester. I found a place, moved-in in early August 2011, and wished David luck as he set out to grow a brand new business in Rabun called All Clear Windows & Gutters. He was offering exterior home maintenance services to people on the lake, cleaning windows and gutters and pressure washing. David discovered almost immediately how difficult finding work in the fall would prove to be in the very seasonal vacation home market. On a weekday in early September, David called me and said he was ready to move to Athens.

So that’s the story of how we landed in Athens. Again, I could write an entire post on how much I love my town. I might do that eventually, but for now I’ll spare you and get to the good part. David and I moved to our first home in Athens with just enough money for a deposit and first month’s rent. I was in school full time and not making any income for our family so the weight of that burden fell entirely on David and he was starting from scratch. No customers, no savings, no nothing. Looking back I don’t even know how he did it, but he worked harder than any human being I have ever met, and he made sure our bills were paid and we had food to eat. This is just one of the many reasons why he is my hero. Because of financial strains and my inability to adequately supplement our income, our marriage experienced a growing tension that reached a peak just before I graduated. I vividly remember heated arguments that I saw no way out of except choosing between staying in school and staying married. David was growing weary and desperately needed my financial support. We were both praying desperately for my graduation to HURRY UP AND GET HERE ALREADY. Well, finally it did. We used a bunch of money we had no business spending and we threw a big back-yard party. I cooked the food-- authentic Cuban black beans and rice with all the fixings and we invited every single person we knew. It stormed about half-way through the meal, sending all of our guests scurrying into our TINY house, but we didn’t let that spoil the mood of the evening. It felt absolutely incredible to finally be finished with that season of our life. Now all I needed to do was secure a teaching job. Poor David would end up having to support us for an entire year longer, because I might have been overly selective about where I wanted to work and I wasn’t hired anywhere that summer.  I took a job as a parapro in a kindergarten classroom at a school I was hoping to get hired at as a homeroom teacher. I made next to nothing, but we finally had decent health benefits. A few things were realized at this time- First, David would continue feeling the heaviness of being our sole income provider. Second, after that long four-year journey through school and waiting to have kids, we would have to wait another year longer. Third, my pride and my self-confidence were going to need some repair work, because I had never, ever had any trouble getting or keeping a job.  This was a lot to process, but process it I did. 

However, I was so looking forward to the spring. That would be the moment I would finally find my dream job and we would finally begin the process of expanding our family. We would finally get to our “happily ever after.”I just knew our hardships would be ending very, very soon.

The Big Things in Life

{When my Free Will Affects God’s Will For My Life}

A few days ago, I posted a status update on Facebook about how I’ve learned to love my wait to becoming a mother. I have so much to say about this, I’m not even sure where to begin!

I guess I’ll start with talking about the BIG THINGS of life. Before I begin talking about the Big Things that are happening in OUR life, I want to first say that becoming a parent is by far the Biggest Thing, next to accepting a personal relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. Very few life events can be categorized with this particular Big Thing. In fact, since I have not yet become a parent, I feel highly unqualified to even talk about how Big this Thing is! I do have parents. I’ve seen physical, emotional, even spiritual representations of how much they both love me (and my other siblings). It’s a love that employs every fiber of their being. They are both retired now and my siblings and I are all (almost) in our thirties, which I consider to be the beginning of the busiest years of a person’s life, nurturing careers and young children. It has been quite amusing to see this shift take place inside our family. You know... the shift where children become busier than their parents. Endless group text messages from my father are just a tiny example of the entertainment I’m talking about here. Just one of the many symbols of his love for us!

I digress.

Anyway, I don’t know firsthand what it feels like to be a parent, but I’m pretty certain becoming one is absolutely one of the Biggest Things that can happen to a person. What I’ve discovered just recently, however, is that other Big Things happen too. Things that are Really Big. Huge. For me it has been:

1.      Following my husband to many different homes and towns so he can discover who he is professionally.

2.     Beginning one career for myself (of my own choosing) and then discovering 5 years in that God has actually called me to do something completely different.

3.     Making the decision to go back (for FOUR years) and finish my undergrad. as a married lady in order to claim this new career as mine.

4.     Supporting my husband, and allowing him to support me, as we grow and blossom professionally.

5.     Falling head over heels in love with a career that only God could have imagined for me and realizing that I will never actually be a stay-at-home-mom. (I used to think I needed to consider this option, and I have nothing but love and immense respect for all my SAHM friends!)

6.     Realizing that God is using this career (I mold young minds as a 2nd grade teacher, but more on this later) to transform my thinking completely — Turn it completely on its head. (The day you realize that, as smart and capable as you think you are, without God you are nothing, but with Him, you are everything?? Big Thing, y’all, Big Thing. Hard to swallow initially, but once it’s down, it’s the most nourishing, life-giving Thing ever.)

7.     Watching my husband fulfill God’s will for his own life. This includes: starting a small business all by himself; working harder than I’ve ever actually seen a human being work before; feeling so. much. love. knowing he is working this hard for the betterment of our family; and standing in amazement as he turns his small business into a not-so-small business by giving of himself in countless, selfless ways. He is an incredible mentor to his staff, the younger generation, and everyone else in his life, really. He amazes me every. single. day.

8.     Wanting to be a mother SO BAD and feeling like I am SO READY, but being told to wait.

9.     Hearing a still, small voice tell me to “be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28) RIGHT NOW, despite not being pregnant. Huh?!?

10.    Realizing that “be fruitful and multiply” has more than one meaning, and it’s the "other" definition God wants from me right now.

I know I subtitled this post “When My Free Will Affects God’s Will For My Life,” and I’m getting there. But what I actually should have called it is, "When God's Will Affects My Free Will and I Pitch a Fit About It, But Realize In the End, It's What's Best For Me." In all seriousness, all these Big Things that have been going on in my life lately (4-10, I am referring to specifically), I believe, have been choices David and I have made with our own free will as a result of wanting to follow Jesus. We very easily could have chosen to stay in the North Georgia Mountains instead of moving to Athens so David could continue pursuing a career as a builder of fancy lake houses. I would have continued selling real estate, and I bet we would have carved out a pretty nice living up there for ourselves. (We are both extremely hard workers and are both as stubborn as they come.) I believe that we would have started trying for children many years sooner, had this been the direction we chose for our life. I also believe that God would have rewarded us with children many years sooner, despite us missing the callings he had laid out for us previously. I think people miss God’s callings all the time. I am sure I have missed some along the way. (Don’t think for a second I think I am holier than you just because I picked up ONE OF THE MANY crosses Jesus has presented for me to carry.) 

Children are a gift, a reward. Scripture tells us so. I believe God wants good things for his children, even when they don’t follow Him every opportunity they are given to do so. I believe one of those Good Things is the conception of children and the birth of babies.

But here’s the thing — We chose to follow Him. We made choices that were unbelievably difficult like going back to school, moving an entire business and starting it all over again from scratch. We chose this path. I realized recently that because of these choices, parenthood has to wait. One of the reasons I listed all of those Big Things earlier was for my own benefit. I need to read through them every time I am having a bad day. I have to remind myself that I have enough Big Things going on in my life right now and that God is using all of those Big Things to shape me to be more like Him. He is shaping me into a better wife, friend, sister and daughter. He is shaping me into a better mother! For this I am so so grateful! I can’t even adequately put it into words just how grateful I am that our future children get to be immediately blessed with parents who have experienced this kind of spiritual growth! I already love my future children with a mother’s love. I kind of already tasted it, as I have been pregnant three times now. (More about our infertility journey later.) The moment a woman knows she is carrying her child in her womb, she immediately begins sacrificing her own desires for the sake of her child. She sacrifices so much without even batting an eyelash or even realizing she's doing it! It's an instinctual kind of love that mirrors the love of our Heavenly Father for His children. It’s an incredible thing. God has shown me that this wait is going to make me a better mother. That if I focus on the Big Things already going on in my life (and it’s almost too much to keep up with at the moment), I am actually giving my future children the greatest gift I could ever give them — a more fruitful me.

*Thank you Jesus for helping me realize this path I am on is right where you want me. Thank you for being willing to explain it to me over and over again when my imperfect heart forgets it all so easily. Thank you for the unbelievable blessings being bestowed upon David and me and all the many answers to prayer. Thank you specifically for answering my prayer to become a mother. All I wanted was an answer and you did just that. You told me to wait. Knowing that answer came from you gives me so much peace. Thank you for that. Thank you for giving me the courage to write down my testimony so that I may “be fruitful and multiply” and produce more followers of you. In your precious name, Amen.*