Don't Quit

I know sometimes we all get fed up with our our lives are going at one point or another. When we get in those times, we are only seeing one snapshot of our life. We aren't looking at the memories behind us and we can't see the future in front of us. We see only one time that seems tough and nothing is going quite right.

We want to give up, say nothing is obviously paying off, and who would even notice if we stopped all of our hard work. The whole problem with feeling that way is that when we looks back through our memories, we remember being frustrated throughout the process but when we see the end results, it's worth it. Just because we don't see immediate results doesn't mean that we won't see them in the long-run. We are so impatient and want our lives to be at the rate of fast food instead of a sit down restaurant.  When I stop and think about life, I would rather sit down and take my time rather than rush through it all. Yes, we get frustrated. Yes, we want to quit. If you quit, you are making all of your work a waste of time. It's a self-fulling prophecy. You cause yourself to fail when you quit. If we keep going, our hard work pays off, even if it isn't quite in the way we expect.

The payoff could be getting exactly what we want or it could be the realization that what we thought we wanted really isn't the path we want to take. When we get fed up with not getting what we think we want, we just give up. It's like the little kid who wants that ice cream cone and when he doesn't get it, he throws a temper tantrum kicking and screaming. He ends up pouting and being mad when in reality he didn't get that ice cream cone because it was right before dinner.

We don't know what is going to happen next, we don't see the big picture. God can, we can't. That's where trust comes in. Trust that He will lead you where you need to go, not where you want to go. We may want that ice cream cone, but we really find out later that a healthy dinner before dessert is exactly what we needed. We'll also find that what we needed is really what we want in the long run.

So, when we get frustrated and want to quit, we need to remember that we could be on the horizon of getting to where we need to be. If we hold on, then everything could work out to being more than we can ever hope for, way better than a little ice cream cone.

Growing Pains

I'm only 3 months away from graduation and needless to say, I'm relieved. At the end, you just want to be done. I am luckily already with an amazing job, one that has to do with my degree and with growth potential. I was hired on in July as a junior staff accountant, still working hourly until I graduate with the promise to be moved up to be a staff accountant and to be made a salaried worker. It is so much more than I could have hoped for before graduation.

One thing with being hired on in a sort of a conditional sort of way is the need to prove myself worthy. These past two months have been full of growing pains. There is another staff accountant so seeing where I could be and where I am has been difficult. Another issue is the fact that we are not fully staffed and I am doing the job of the accounts payable specialist who is out on medical leave, so I am only doing part of my job right now. I see what the other staff accountant is doing, which is more related to his position and it gets me impatient to move past this stage.

It reminds me of our engagement and our impatience to be married already. We were engaged for a year and three months and it dragged on, let me tell you. We were so impatient to be married and now that we are we wish we could replay it again to enjoy those special times again. We wish we could go through our wedding day again since it pretty much went by in a flash. We have some beautiful memories but there are always room for more.

While I'm not saying that I'll feel the same way with my job in a few months when I'm beyond this, I do think that these times are very important. In hindsight these are very important in between times. They make memories, set opinions, give first impressions, and more. They were instrumental for our marriage, our engagement gave us time to make decisions together about our life. Without those times we would have been thrown into something we may not have been able to handle. We would have been travelers in unfamiliar territory. We could have gotten lost in the obstacles of marriage. Instead, we were about to lay a tentative path for our marriage. We set goals financially, emotionally, and spiritually. If we hadn't used that planning time wisely the result could have been much different. We could have been deeply in debt, emotionally disconnected and not on par with our relationships with God. Yet, we are living within our means, saving like mad (because my husband is a biiiigggg saver). We purchased my new car last night and the first words out of Brian's mouth were about how we are still in super saving mode. Next is paying off our cars. I love that about him. Emotionally we are connected, growing and learning together, taking our obstacles as a team instead of trying to find our own way through them individually. Most importantly, our spiritual relationship is always growing. We pray together, go to church together and do a bible study as a often as possible. We know when something is getting put on the back burner and we work together to bring it back to the forefront. We know our priorities and that is a direct result of planning together. If we are on the same page then we are both moving forward in this marriage instead of one or both of us getting lost along the way. The beginning and planning is half of the battle in our case.

Our planning is not necessarily our way of saying God's plan is not in our life. It's the complete opposite. We talk about where we think God is leading us in life and plan accordingly. We pray for guidance and follow where we think he is leading. When I transferred jobs I knew I was taking a risk, I may not like it, the fit may not be right, etc. Yet we prayed and I felt like God needed me there. Turns out it was the best choice. It's given me crucial foundation for anywhere I go. I'm learning essential qualities and jobs that will help me wherever God takes me. We plan in a way that God can use. We save money for any emergencies, job changes, etc. We have a nest egg for when things don't go accordingly. I guess you could say we plan for the unexpected, since mostly that is what God's plan is, unexpected. So we don't begrudge those in between, growing pain times. In fact, they are crucial to our lives. Embrace growing pains, that's the only way those pains will turn to fruit in your life.