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2007-10-17 - 10.50pm previous entry next entry
He did it! And pictures of my laughing boys!
Well I have exactly 10 minutes before I should go to bed (a la FlyLady - who I love, cherish and adore - did I mention that lately?!), but I MUST write an update here tonight. I know I am 2 weeks behind on my pregnancy diary (all going well in that dept at 23.5 weeks, yay! I have an obvious bump and an increasingly busy baby! Energy pretty good, feeling well, etc. Excited about my third little boy! Already so happy that he's a BOY and not a girl, which is a lovely way to feel!), but hey ho. I will try to update there asap, but not tonight.
I had to update to say that Neil handed in his resignation at work today!!!! And he has no job in the pipeline, despite hours of searching each week for the last month or so. He is still on his 3-month probation period so that means he only has to give 2 weeks notice, not a whole month. So his last day at work will be October 30th.
Neil has been getting so depressed about the job he's doing. It just SUCKS. The people there are so negative and NEVER positive. They are critical and everyone apparently has some sort of superiority complex. Neil is making mistakes on pretty much every project he has taken on since starting, and that's NOT like him at all. He began to get nervous that he would fail his probation (many hints were dropped along the way these past couple of months by work colleages, but I think they were being more nasty than accurate about the situation). The pressure was huge on him and he couldn't even ask a question without someone rolling their eyes or something stupid. Anyway.
He couldn't just leave because he had no job to go to after that, and we have a mortgage to pay and bills and food and so on, and a few little people (including the one in the pipeline!). He started looking for just temporary stuff in our local area, stuff that he didn't WANT to do, but which would be a preferable place to go to work while he looked for The Job. Still nothing really came up. We prayed and prayed about it and got no particular sense of God's guidance one way or another. We did feel that God was WITH us in it all - obviously he is. It was frustrating not to hear from him about what to doooo though, when it seemed so pressing. Any local jobs that did come up did not pay nearly enough for us to pay our mortgage, let alone everything else, so he can't take just any job. It has to basically pay enough to cover our mortgage, bills and food. And (ugh) credit card repayments (which are not small, unfortunately).
Anyway. With his anxiety over failing probation, and there only being a few weeks left till it finished, we prayed about whether Neil should hand in his notice (so that he beat them to the punch as it were, instead of having it forever on his career record that he was fired from a job when he didn't want to stay there in any case!). We prayed and waited, listening to God for a long time, but just found silence.
Then yesterday evening Neil came home really depressed after an even worse day than usual, and as he told me about it, I thought how there was no point him staying even if he PASSED probation. I haven't got time tonight to go into that bit more, but anyway, suddenly my gut feeling was, "Never mind the financial panic and the house and family to provide for, just LEAVE that horrible oppressive job, and do it NOW." I shared that with Neil and he said he felt the same way, but was anxious (naturally) about the consequences. We decided to pray. We discussed it for like an hour and then put a CD on and just listened to a beautiful song (Child of God from the Vineyard "Hungry" CD) letting ourselves get into a place of worship before God. THEN we prayed. Neil prayed the most beautiful heartfelt prayer that I think I have ever heard him pray - he really poured out all his feelings and his whole heart in SIMPLE terms (rare for Neil, hehe!), and it was such a beautiful thing for me to hear. He has been so distant or closed or whatever, to God for most of our marriage, it seems. Anyway. The moment he finished praying I knew I did not need to even open my mouth, and I also KNEW God would speak to us. I could really sense his presence in the room with us and ohhhh it was just wonderful.
We waited. I think we must have prayed and waited and prayed again and then written down everything we had heard/felt, for the entire evening, about 3 hours or something. So wonderful, and so necessary and worthwhile!
We prayed a pretty clear-cut kind of prayer. We decided to tell God (what he already knew, obviously!) that we felt our hearts were being led towards Neil leaving that job, and that we thought that Neil would quit tomorrow, UNLESS God said no :) If he did, if we found that door closed in some way, or if we didn't feel it was the right thing to do, he would NOT quit his job. We were going to take silence as a cue to quit, and I guess we were asking God to speak to us if that was not his plan for us.
We both felt amazed because, after all this silence when we have prayed, God spoke to us. Not in the way that he was silent and that gave us our answer (which is what we sort of expected), but in that he did NOT say no, and he DID say pretty much GO FOR IT! I had an image in my mind of a diver (a freeze-frame image) in mid-dive off a diving board. I knew (KNEW) that Neil should quit. Who knows what is in the water or how deep it is, but it's an image of leaping off and leaving behind. And it's a leap of faith.
Before that, I had a sudden flash memory of a time when we were at Stoneleigh Bible Week, yeeears back, and at the offering evening there was a huge celebration (the offering evening was always my favourite evening!). Neil and I literally emptied our bank account, and the immense JOY and sense of freedom was just completely indescribable. I still can't put it into words all these years later. It was so exciting and freeing to be without and to know that God would provide. Of course, he did - we received back many times more than we gave, just weeks later.
That reminded me of the time recently when we gave more than we had to a family at church (I think I wrote about it here even) which I had forgotten about. I know that God will bless us for giving to that family - I knew it at the time, but I am more sure of it than ever now. Who knows when, but he will. These things made me feel like the leaning was towards Neil quitting (and God providing for us as we trust him to), and not God saying NO.
Then after we waited in silence for a while longer, a Bible verse suddenly popped into my head - just a snatch of one that I couldn't remember the reference for (I do not know my Bible like I wish I did), and it was about the lilies of the field not labouring but being clothed in more splendour than even Solomon, and we are more valuable to God than the lilies, so he will take even GREATER care of us in our need. He provides everything we need. At that moment there was no longer a cell in my body that felt ambivalous about the decision. I knew beyond my ability to know, that God was saying, "Quit the job. Trust in me. It's okay."
After a while Neil asked me if I had felt God saying anything and I said yes, but I wanted to hear what he felt first. He definitely did not hear a "No", and actually felt that God was saying it was okay to leave the job now. So I told him everything I had felt/seen during the prayer time. Both of us felt exactly the same - HUGE relief that Neil could hand in his notice the next day, and like it was TOTALLY the right thing to do. No anxiety was left, and there was only awe that God had spoken to us and showed us the way on a big decision, and excitement looking forward to this experience MAKING us lean our entire weight on God and learning to trust him more. I know it will bring us closer together in our marriage too.
So today, Neil quit!! Yippeeee! He has no job to go to. I am SO EXCITED!!! You might think I'm crazy. But I am so exhilarated at the prospect of having no way of managing, and thus when we DO, alllll the glory going to God for everyone to see. I think it will be hard, and scary. I got the feeling when we were praying that there would be a season where Neil is unemployed, not that he will find a job within the next two weeks and all will be dandy. We are actually thinking God called Neil out of his old job and into this new sucky one purely knowing that he would end up leaving and having NO job for a time, which would put us in a position of strengthening our faith in him IMMENSELY as we learn to lean on him through something like this. I know God values that kind of life experience FAR higher than anything piffly like actual careers! :) Which are still important, obviously, but an opportunity for a married couple to test their faith and be refined and changed, and equipped for his glory far outweighs the benefits of even an entire successful career. I really believe that. So I'm excited!
We wrote down 6 pages of everything that we saw, heard and felt during our prayer time, what we prayed and everything, so that we can read it every time we get anxious about the situation (I'm sure that will be plenty often!) and be reminded that God has assured us of his love for us and his ability and willingness to provide for our needs if we put our trust in him.
When we looked up the verse we found that it was part of a passage where Jesus is teaching about worry. I read the whole passage out to Neil and we both just kept stopping and gasping and staring at each other like excited children, because it was SO EXACTLY our situation, and it was like God was literally speaking into our situation with those verses. Those words were for us at this time, and we will hold them close to our hearts and stand firm on them. I want to post (copy/paste if I can find it online somewhere - quicker!) the whole passage here for reference. It's from Matthew 6:25-34...
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
I love my God! :) I will try to keep up with this stuff in my diary here, if I can. I really want to record what God is doing in our lives. I think this might be a "biggie" for us, spiritually. We are going to let a bunch of people at church know, tomorrow, about our decision and get their prayer support and so on. I'm so excited! My parents are being very supportive about the idea - they have been saying for ages that the job is too oppressive and if they were Neil they would have left long ago (well, Daddy is of that mind anyway! Mummy is a more cautious person, like Neil in many ways. I'm just like my daddy.). I am dreading telling my grandparents, but hey ho.
Okay, it's getting late, and I've written about the thing I wanted to write. But I took some photos of Arthur and Matthew today, and I know I already have LOADS to post from the last month that I'm behind on, but I just can't resist posting today's photos anyway! I'm trying to get more photos of the boys together, and it's been ages since they've sat still together in a camera frame for more than a split second (worse as Matthew has been getting less of a baby and more of a toddler, though Arthur is finally sitting still for me a little more now!). Today I got them to sit on the sofa and tried to take their picture, but that didn't work (they kept wiggling and looking the other way, etc), so eventually I tried making some very silly sounds from behind the camera. The result was a bunch of photos that I LOVE, but which are rather blurry, of my sweet little pair of boys laughing and laughing. I love to see or hear them laugh, so I know I will always cherish these photos! I'll post the ones that came before the laughing started first, and then a couple of Arthur afterwards, when Matthew had climbed down :)
They are the BEST of friends, and the cutest little buddies! It fills my heart to watch them. I was thinking about Arthur's birthday and whether we should have a little party for him. He doesn't have much of a circle of friends, though he plays with some kids his age at the church creche. His "favourite" friend seems to have been Josh (from church) so far, but that's just my presumption. Sometimes they just play alongside each other still, and aren't all that interested in each other really. So I figured I'd ask him who his best friend was, and ask that person over on his birthday, or something. I wasn't sure if he understood the concept of a best friend, but I asked him the other morning. He didn't hesitate for a second. I said, "Arthur, who is your BEST friend?" and he instantly replied, "Mashew." as matter-of-factly as if I'd asked him what colour the sky was and he'd said blue. They are really quite "joined at the hip" these days, and both are tearful and cross (!) if they wake up from sleep or a nap or something and the other isn't around. They LOVE each other, even if they frustrate each other sometimes. Anyway. A couple of the photos I took really show that, I think. They hug a lot (the cutest thing EVER, in the supermarket trolley side-by-side going round Tesco - two little boys twisted in their seats, locked in tight-but-loving embrace, both sighing, "Awww" at frequent intervals! I want to just lean weakly against the crates of loose baking potatoes and cry with the maternal squeezy goodness that overflows from my heart when that kind of thing happens!).
Oh my good golly, I am just about as BLESSED as anyone could be! My precious sweet baby boys - how I LOVE them! And God is good. No matter what. And my husband is leaving his horrible job, and I know we are going to get closer through it all. And - cherry on the top - there's another sweet baby boy on the way! I'm so happy and excited and awed at how God has blessed me.
And now I MUST go to bed! :)
P.S. I am SO rubbish at emails right now - Meg, pleeease do come and visit on any Friday you like! Yay! :)
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