Blessings

Sometimes, I am amazed by the ways God uses a bad situation to create a wonderful outcome. While I can't divulge too many details for confidentiality reasons, this happened last night at The Split at BRCC. The Split is a mentoring/counseling group for teens whose parents are going through divorce. Aaron's parents just separated about two weeks ago and God used that situation to break through the seriously fortified walls of one teen last night. It was really amazing since this particular student usually seems to retreat back to anger and last night's topic was forgiving our parents. It was quite a God victory! Some weeks are smooth sailing. Some weeks are extremely challenging, go-home-and-take-five-Advils rough. But last night- wow! And I almost didn't even go! I have been PMSing soooooooo bad for the last few days and I felt absolutely like crap yesterday. I felt angry, agitated, and just really unpleasant. But I'm really glad I went! :)

I also had a really good customer service experience today. Our dishwasher broke yesterday. It kept making this awful rattle noise and the dirty water wouldn't drain. I called the Lowe's by our house and they were completely rude and unprofessional. Transferred me to the wrong department twice. Kept me on hold for over 10 minutes. All that just to give me a 1-800 number to call. Ugh. So I called that number and got some guy whose English was so choppy I could barely understand him. He gave me a hard time about losing my receipt (two years later...). I asked why he couldn't look up our warranty (3 year plan) by the serial number or our address and he just kept saying, "I need the receipt. I need the receipt." So, he set up an appointment with George's Appliances that I was supposedly going to have to pay for unless it was a manufacturing defect causing the problem. In an attempt to be nice, I used a measuring cup and drained the nasty water for the repairman before he got here. His drill died half way into the project, so I let him use Aaron's. He had to tear the dishwasher apart to find the problem... a hard plastic part of a Claritin wrapper. Owner misuse. I started feeling depressed as I reached for my checkbook. To my very pleasant surprise, the man thanked me for emptying the water before he got here and told me he wouldn't charge me! I love free! Yay! But seriously, I will never shop at Lowe's again. Too bad since it's all of 1/2 a mile down our street.

Aaron has a "coffee interview" with someone on Sunday about a job at Liberty. We e-mailed this man Aaron's cover letter and resume today and he said he thinks Aaron sounds like he'd be a great match to the job, so he wants Aaron to have coffee with him Sunday at Blue Ridge to talk about the job. Yay! This job would be amazing for Aaron. He'd love it! And he really needs a new job... although his job with nTelos is temporarily full-time again. That's another praise.

And I haven't been sad about the infertility situation lately. Well, really not for months. There was a period of sadness about a month ago when my internship ended and I was bored and felt useless, but that's behind me. It's really not so terrible anymore. I used to think I had nothing left to live for and I dreaded the future because it wasn't going to happen the way I had always planned. But my worth and my hope are in God and I will not beat myself up over a situation I cannot control. I know it's kind of mean, but I had to laugh at someone earlier. I know a couple who's been trying for just a few months to get pregnant and she's all whining about it and feeling sorry for herself for absolutely no reason whatsoever. It's completely NORMAL for it to take up to a year to happen. Seriously, when you've been trying three years, give me a call, but until then, do you know who you're complaining to? lol From what I know about the situation, it's a classic case of idealizing life and pushing God out of the driver's seat. For me to laugh and not fly off the handle is progress, and progress is great :)