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2008-07-07 - 11.00pm previous entry next entry
Yayness!!!
Neil got a job today!!!! :)
He has had quite a few interviews in the past month - how I wish I'd had time (and, more specifically, organised that time!) to write here about it as it happened. Oh well. So two of the jobs Neil applied for went to second interview stage, and last week he was waiting for both of those places to decide whether they wanted to give him the job or not! One was in London, and the other was in Hampshire, maybe an hour's commute from here. Both were great roles (same kind of data-related work he has been doing all along) and both were better pay than he's ever been on, and we were praying and praying every evening about it. We didn't know what we should do if he was offered both jobs. We didn't even know which to prefer! We eventually made a pro and con list and the one in Hampshire was a winner for us, using that method. Neil ended up really wanting that role over the other one.
Today the Hampshire people phoned to offer him the job!!! Yay! He starts 2 weeks from today, Monday 21st July, which is exactly the same Monday that he started the last job he had which only lasted 3 months (well, that was Monday 23rd, but still!). We have been without an income since October 23rd, so pretty much 9 months by the time Neil starts work. And God has been so incredibly faithful to us that whole time. We already had huge debts, and no savings. We should have gone under! But we never did.
My family have paid for groceries for months - I love them so much! They have been so supportive and generous. Neil's brother gave us �500 last month. Two of my diary-reading friends gave us some money many months back - even one from the States through Paypal! We are so thankful to God for their faithfulness and generosity.
A piece of our garden is about to be sold for many thousands of pounds - exactly what we need to cover the debts amassed for the first 6 months of Neil's time out of work! Amazing God.
Last month we ran right out of money. We had maxed out credit cards, no notes left in our pockets, and we exceeded our overdraft limit in the bank. Neil took Arthur to Tesco to buy groceries one day and found that he had nothing to pay with. He found a �10 note in his pocket and so came home with milk and bread. I somehow made a few individual portions of frozen leftovers into family meals for a few days, and we did not have to be hungry or thirsty or anything! Praise God!
We prayed so much over the money situation. I asked God to break through and provide us with a lump of money, or several little lumps, I did not know how, but just that he please WOULD, so that we would be able to pay the next mortgage payment and bills, and food and things. Right after that, Neil's brother gave us �500, my parents decided to give us �1500 (did I mention how much I love them?), and when we went to church that Sunday, a couple gave us an envelope with a cheque for �585.05 (exactly the amount that God had told them to give!).
We rejoiced heartily and praised God with thankful hearts, and Neil put the cheques in the bank. We had a few lean days while we waited for the cheques to clear, and then Neil again took Arthur to the supermarket to get money out from the cashpoint and buy a lot of groceries! When he came back (with a crazy amount of food!), he said yes, the money had cleared, but he was confused because it looked like we were quite a good way in the BLACK (which we never are, sad to say!) and he couldn't think why.
I immediately jumped onto my internet bank account and checked the statement. I saw the cheques that had been put in, and then noticed a big amount from somewhere else. It turns out that several months ago, Neil finally looked into getting Child Tax Credit (he is WAY behind on this - we have had kids for 3.5 years!!!). He spent ages on the phone to somebody official and then filled in forms and sent stuff off. We didn't know how much per month/week he would be eligible for, nor how much we'd be due as a backdated lump (they'll backdate 3 months from your application date). We were just amazed when found that, in the same few days that we'd been given lots of money after we prayed, Neil's Child Tax Credit payments had arrived in the bank - our backdated lump was �1,100!!!!! We also had 2 other payments from them totalling over �300 - the regular payments starting. We went from having nothing at all and crying out to God to please provide us with some money, to - within the space of 6 days - having over �3,500. Is not my God AWESOME?!?! It makes me so excited that I want to squeeeeeeeeeaaaal and do a happy dance and just praise God jumping up and down, hehe! :) He is so faithful to us and cares for us so tenderly and generously.
This time of trusting God and living by faith, in a way, has been wonderful for my walk with God. It has been like a workout for my faith muscles, and they feel gooooood like a muscle does (all zingy and fresh and flexible!) after a run of good workouts.
I am actually anxious that going back to the cushiness that is a regular income, bigger home, coupla cars, shoes for my little ones as they grow out of the old ones, etc, I am going to grow slack and flabby in those muscles again. I am all too prone to laziness if I'm not pushed, and this has been SO GOOD for me! For Neil and I both, as a couple too.
Right now we are thinking, what else can we turn TOTAL control over to God in our lives?!?! He should have it all, and it does us so much good. It's even fun! Though I know it's a testing time (and not always fun, therefore!) too.
Personally, I have been reading, researching, discussing, studying, praying, over a certain issue that I have been longing to blog about. More recently Neil and I have been discussing it and praying about it together. I have had to devote a lot of time to reading scriptures from the Bible about this, and reading them out to Neil.
I am personally 100% convicted that we need to be giving full control to God over our fertility and our family size. I know this is hugely contraversial, even amongst Christians. Neil agreed wholeheartedly after we studied, discussed and prayed over this about a week ago, but I felt wary of going too crazy with joy (unbridled people, unbridled) given that he's prone to acting on feelings more than faith (in general), and he gets understandably anxious about the possibility of having a huge bunch of children. So he's currently wavering on this. I am just praying about it. Neil needs to really read the Bible to find out what it says, and he hasn't had time yet since we started discussing it. Also we have not prayed about the issue enough. We mainly do a lot of yabbering and then pray a bit at the end! ;) We need to block off a good amount of time one evening to just come before God and pray, tell him evvverything that's on our hearts about it, and then spend time waiting on God.
If Neil says no to this, I will submit to him over it (total wrench to my self-centred being, mind you! I am not the naturally submitting type!), but pray pray pray that God will change his heart over it.
I also understand that if we give God control over our fertility and ask him to open and close my womb as he sees fit, then he may close it from this point on. That scares me, because I so want to have more babies, and the thought of having no more is just clutchy-cold at my throat! But God is sovereign and his will for my life and that of my family and my children, is perfect and good. I know the Bible says that he has plans to give us a hope and a future, and to prosper us and not to harm us.
The Bible also says:
"Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one�s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate."
(Psalm 127:3-5)
I have come across the term "quiver full" or "quiverful" in my studying and reading online, which seems to be some sort of Christian movement, especially in the States at the moment. I am not sure I want to label myself or join a "movement" of any sort - it makes me wary. I would go so far as to say that what my heart has become led to has brought me to be "quiverful-minded", in that I am pretty much on the same page as these folks, but perhaps not quite to the same extremes.
I do not want to use any form of contraception. I should not even TRY for a baby (waaaah, are my charting and TTC days over?! I love that part so much!). I just want to say, "Lord, I give you my womb! You know what's best for our family, each of our children, for Neil, for me, for any future babies we might have! Please take control! We gladly ask you to please open and close my womb in your perfect timing as you see fit! We eagerly accept any precious blessings that you bestow upon us, and if it does not please you to bless us with any more babies, since you are perfect and great in your wisdom, we thank you in that as well. Amen!" How incredibly FREEING it has felt for me to pray that kind of prayer. Though I know I can't really do it fully without Neil 100% on board, obviously. But I'm amazed at the sense of excitement and freedom from control-freakishness (!), from yearning and wanting to strive, from anxiety about whether we'll do the right thing for everybody involved, from the stress of figuring out the "best time" to have another baby, etc. God knows best. It's such a relief to give it all to him. If I get pregnant NOW then yikes! But wonderful - because God knows best and he would not have opened my womb if it was not good and pleasing to him.
Anyway, I have a ton more I could write about all that stuff at the moment! But I have waffled on long enough. I have joined MOMYS!!!! I'm sooo-diddly-ooo excited about that! MOMYS stands for Mothers Of Many Young Siblings. Oh the great advice and empathy I am discovering there already! I do not qualify as a "MOMY" until I have 4 children aged 8 and under, but I applied to be a "Not Quite MOMY", haha! I have three under four and we want another - and are open to the potential of quite a few more, perhaps quite close together. Many mamas there are Quiverful minded as well, and all are Christians. I really value the Christian input actually, on how to raise little ones, and lots of them at a time! Many of them also homeschool. Can you see why I'm so excited about this place?!?! There are crockpot recipes and everything! Wheee! ;)
I will also say that God has been moving our hearts through all this new openness to what his heart is for our family (as opposed to our own, which we've been going by thus far!), over a subject that has never really felt relevant to me before. Both of us are increasingly interested in adoption as part of "filling our quiver", so to speak. I was praying and I suddenly had this clear-as-day thought. I know it could mean nothing at all, and it was probably more linked to blogs I've been reading than anything else, but I suddenly thought that if God ever blessed us (and I do mean BLESSED us) with a Downs Syndrome baby, for me that would be an instant sign that we are to adopt another baby with Downs. I don't know if we ever would have a baby with Downs, but I guess if we do end up trusting God completely with our fertility, then I could potentially still be having babies into my 40s unless I menopause by then (as is the way with my family), and thus my chances of having a baby with Downs Syndrome would dramatically increase. The more this thought has hung around in my mind, the more excited (as well as scared!) I feel about the possibility. Neil is more anxious about the idea of adopting a baby or child with special needs, which is perfectly understandable.
Anyway. Such a lot of thoughts to splash out here all at once, and many of them still formulating really! I have not one single shred of doubt that my God will provide exactly what I need to deal with daily life with a lot of small children, and to homeschool them if that's what he calls us to do. Homeschooling is still the plan, but Neil has waverings over that as well. It frustrates the heck out of me because he has all these "waverings" over everything when it's plain as day to me that he isn't looking at God as he makes his decisions or thinks about the big things in life. Then again, he is perfectly able to pray with me and look to God and see things from that perspective. He just drops out of it soooo easily, and he always has done since I've known him. It's hard to keep up with, and right now my heart for God is just a child running into the wind in a biiiig grassy field on a beautiful spring day, with so much joy that she feels like she can never stop her legs running and running and running. If she had breath spare, she would be squealing and laughing and whooping and shouting, "YEAH!!" and other such things :)
For the first time, I'm not in a place where I'm on a high with God, like at a Bible week or something, the kind of high that inevitably fades (but is AWESOME while it lasts!). I feel more steady and mature in my joy with God than ever before, so much so that it's like a new feeling for me. I still feel sometimes like I'm still a new Christian, but the time has gone so fast and already it has been 12.5 years since I gave my heart to Jesus. It feels like just last year sometimes. This is why I value the past 8 months so very highly - this is the change it has brought about in me, and I LONG to dig deeper into that by giving more to God, more of my own control, more of my heart. His steadfast love and provision when proven, is just soul-changing. And more-ish! ;) I want more!
Anyway. It's getting late and I should wind this up.
I just wanted to update straight away to say that Neil has a job! I am understandably anxious about the fact that he'll be gone all day every day in 2 weeks time (which will flash by in a blink, I know it) on a permanent basis, and I need to somehow learn/manage to care for the three little ones and juggle everything, and for-goodness-sakes-do-SOMETHING-to-rescue-the-state-of-my-home! and oh, raise up three well-balanced, godly, educated and sociable men from scratch, and find time to spend with God (without whom I WILL fall heavily on my behind within the first hour of every day!), and somehow get myself to be an organised person who has a routine and creates order in her home for her husband and children. *breathe*
But...(and for my own reference if nothing else!)...
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippeans 4:13)
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)
"Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?... There is no-one like you, O Lord." (1 Chronicles 17:16+20)
"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9)
"Listen to me... you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and grey hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." (Isaiah 46:3-4)
There's so much more! But I must go to bed. I have a ton to write about the boys, as always! And photos! But, last week I took the boys (all 3!) in the garden for the afternoon to do water play (or roll and kick in the playpen on the grass, depending on age and ability level, hehe!) and eat a picnic lunch, and I took some photos, then had to settle Nathan upstairs for his nap, and start dinner, and get Nathan from his nap, and play with the boys outside again, and so on, and in the process of all this I seem to have completely lost my camera! We've searched the entire house and done a careful search of the garden. We quizzed the boys, but I am pretty sure it was put out of their reach when I went upstairs to put Nathan to bed. Neil cleared the table where the camera was while I was upstairs with Nathan but doesn't recall seeing or moving a camera :( So it is all but completely non-existant and I have no idea where else to look for it any more. I can't bear having NO CAMERA! There were some photos on it to be uploaded, but thankfully not tons of them. It simply has to turn up, but I'm missing stuff every day with the boys that I want to capture, and we went to Grandoug's 83rd birthday do on Saturday with my parents (yay!) and my brother and of course, little Thea! I hogged my mum's camera and took a million photos (it's nicer than mine!) and hopefully she'll send them via email so I can post some here. I don't know what to do about the no-camera situation!
Oh I forgot to say! Neil's job means that we plan to move to Hampshire. The town where he'll work is where his sister, Rosemary, lives! That is so exciting, because we'll be neighbours and the boys will have their cousin, Ella, to play with regularly! I have been so busy that I kept forgetting to update about Rosemary - she had her second baby 6 days before Ella and Matthew's birthdays (they were both June 14th!) - it's a girl! I have three neices now, and no nephews! Apparently we are "doing" the boys for the family, hehe! New baby girl is called Emily Frances and she weighed 8lbs something (how awful, I have forgotten exactly what already!). She was born in the bathroom after a 30 minute labour, delivered by daddy! Ella was a 2-hour labour (first baby!) so they knew it was a possibility, though they still planned a hospital birth. Needless to say, she did not need/have time to use the TENS machine I lent her! ;)
So it will be super exciting to live very close to them! Moving there is exciting because (other than living near family!), it's cheaper to buy a house there and we have discovered we can buy a good sized family home, definitely bigger than the 2-bedroom home we currently live in, and hopefully with a big garden too. Until we move, there is mercifully little pressure, because Neil can commute there within about an hour. It makes for a long day for him, and for me with the kiddos, and they won't see much of him before they're going to bed at night, but it's totally doable. I'm SO much more relaxed this time than when it was last summer and he was about to start a new job a similar distance from home. I tell you, I know a new peace in my soul that God has created in me, going through this difficult time with no income and trusting God. I am almost sad that it's coming to an end.
It's been SO MUCH FUN to put this verse into practise and see it proved true:
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." (Proverbs 3:5-6)
I also like the KJV translation for the last part - "and he shall direct thy paths." Sooooo true for us! God is so faithful!! :)
Okay I'm REALLY going now! ;) But I will finish with a couple of photos. The week after Matthew's birthday, we went to a big party for a 2-year-old at church. It was lots of fun! I baked a cake for it too, as her mother asked me if I would (not the actual birthday cake though!). Anyway, one of our good friends from church, David (who was an usher at our wedding, actually!), was taking photos and he asked if he could take a couple of family photos for us!!!! Could he?!?! We never get family photos, it is so hard to manage! So he took a couple of photos. Neither came out perfect (and I'm saying something or other in the first one, unfortunately!) but I still feel so happy to have photographic evidence of our little family of FIVE, for the first time! Here are the pics. I will update again soon! Thanks so much for all the comments after my last entry on Matthew's birthday! I'm so glad you all enjoyed the photos and video clips! :)
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