It’s been so long since I’ve written. Oh, it’s not that my heart hasn’t been here, but my life is so crazy at the moment. So very crazy……… Why did I think when I finally moved on the journey to a new house and a new chapter,  life would slow down and allow me more of the time I need?

Working at the university continues to take the majority of the week for me. On Mondays it’s been an 11 to 12 hour day.  Driving almost 180 miles to work (round trip total) is crazy, it really is! I know lot of people do it every day, but I’m not a lot of people.  I’m me and me isn’t crazy about spending so much time on the road.  Soon tho, it will come to an end.  This past Thursday was to be my last day but my boss begged me to please stay a bit longer.  Her mother passed away when I was in Florida the beginning of the month and I just felt I needed to be there.  Now I have submitted my letter of resignation and this coming Thursday, November 4 is to be my last day.  I mean it this time tho there has been a little bit of discussion that I may work one day a week until she hires someone. *sighs* 

This brings me to this journey of faith thing I am on. What’s next?  How scary to quit and not have an income coming in nor benefits. Dell can put me on his benefits, but all the same I’ve been so independent for so long…………..surely something is in the works for me.  I know it is.

I have had one call about a job. This is SO, SO, SO not me, BUT!  One of the school corporations about 15 minutes from me, in the actual downtown city area is desperate for bus drivers.  Okay, can you see ME as a school bus driver?  However, here is the part that gets my attention!  The hours are 6am – 8:30am, then 2:30pm – 4:30pm.  The pay is $3 more per hour than I am making now and offers FULL benefits.  I LOVE, LOVE working with high school kids and always  have!  This particular route would be for the high school. I’d have all holidays off, Christmas, Spring Break, etc. etc. and of course summers off.  When off at 8:30 I’d come home and my goal would be to write a few hours a day.  It all sounds so wonderful and perfect for me for a short time, huh?  But why doesn’t it feel right?  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something feels a bit amiss.

I applied for a couple secretarial openings as well with a few school corporations that did have openings.  My friend in the Lt. Governor’s office happened to call work this week. When he heard that I was interested in one job at a school corporation he promised he’d make a call to some higher up above person within the corporation.  That made my day!  I figure when you have the policy aid to the Lt. Governor calling a school corporation on someone’s behalf surely you’ll get an interview?  But as of now I still haven’t heard anything. I think that’s okay tho.  You know these days I’ve come to the place of understanding that what’s meant to be will, and what isn’t won’t, no matter if someone as high up as Obama made the call himself!  God is much bigger, knows what His plans are and well…………….that is what will be, and the truth is, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

And I will say that within my spirit and heart I get this feeling I am to take the next few months off, go back to that real deep place of prayer/meditation I am called into from time to time and write.  Is this finally the time God has set apart for me to complete my first book?  And why do I keep seeing it in my spirit? I see it, but now I have to bring it out.  Perhaps the next few months as winter comes and everything falls asleep I finally will find it is the time for me.  It needs to slow down!  I need to slow down.

I continue to LOVE, LOVE my new house. I have done so much in here that each and every day it becomes more me.  The energy of the house and I seem to be falling into one another and I am so grateful for this place.  As I drive away I ooh and awww over the house.  One day I will post videos of all I have done (just for Lise), but I am waiting to get it all done.  It’s coming Lise, I promise! J  At the moment I’m waiting for one more quote for the hardwood floors I will put in the downstairs.  What an ordeal and time constraint this has been!  I’ve narrowed it down to two different woods now and am just waiting for the 2^nd bid to come in.  I continue to wait for the bids to come in on the new master bedroom suite as well.  Because the master bedroom is upstairs I was insistent when I bought the house I had to have a main level master bedroom, but you know, the longer I am here the more I realize that the stairs don’t bother me as I thought they would. I may hold off on the addition till a year from now perhaps, depending on what $$ figure comes in once the contractors get them back to me.  I still want to have the in-ground pool put in next summer, but will get through winter before that happens.  I still don’t trust the economy and find myself doing the, “be still and listen to what the spirit is saying” before jumping way far ahead with all of my “wants.”  There truly is a difference between wants and needs, ya know?

So much has happened and yet there is no way for me to catch up on the past however many days it’s been since I’ve written so I think I’ll just catch up from today, which has been the most odd and God revealing day.

It began when I decided to fill out a credit card application on-line for this king-sized bed I’d like to buy. This company often has 1 and 2 – year free interest so I think it’s worth it to open the card.  When I applied it asked for social security number, driver’s license number, and address.  It was one of those things where it says you will have your answer in 60 seconds.  No sooner did I hit the submit button than it came back and said,  “Our information doesn’t match, in order to confirm this is you, please tell which county  XXXX (the street I lived on 27-years ago) is located, it then listed 7 different counties from around the state. I answered the question and another screen popped up,  “Your information doesn’t match ours, to make sure this is you, answer this question:”  Recently Joel XXXXX (my son’s last name) moved. To which city did Joel move?  Once again they listed 7 different cities and the one he moved to last April was listed, I marked it accordingly.  And once again another screen popped up,  “Your information doesn’t match ours, to make sure this is you, answer this question:”  How old is Jason XXXXX (my other son’s last name)?:  And they had 7 different answers. I answered it and this time a screen popped up that said,  “Congratulations!  You’ve been approved! Your credit card should arrive in the mail in the next 7-10 days.”  Oh wonderful, another credit card!  Although I will use it to buy my new bed, BUT, how scary is it that they know SO much about me?  (I figure the wrong information that didn’t match is my new address as apparently it isn’t in the national database, yet!)  Think about it tho! They know my sons, where they live, how old they are, they know where I lived 25 years ago, or whoever does these credit card approval forms!  I happen to be a bit freaked out that I am in some national computer data base where ALL of my personal information is stored.  This is scary of the worst kind! I am talking Bible prophecy stuff here, you know, at the end of the book!  Where the world leader knows everything about everybody?  Sci-Fi?  At one time I would have thought so, but THIS happened to me!  Scary stuff people! *deep breaths*

So I left to go do errands I had to do.  And once again, another very odd thing happened.  I told Dell later,  “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore!” Isn’t it funny, sometimes things happen that make you look back over how things lead up to where God really does prepare us for the oddest of things.  So here’s the story:  When I was staying with Jane earlier in the week we went to WalMart.  When I checked out I decided to get some cash as I tend to often not have cash with me, using my credit card for everything I do and then paying it off at the end of the month. But that night I suddenly decided I needed to carry a little cash. I went to get $20 but at the last minute I felt this urge to get $40 instead.  That was Wednesday night. I hadn’t touched any of the cash, and actually forgotten I had it. So today I go a different way than normal to do the errands I needed to do.  I spent some time in a department store, then left to take Dell lunch.  Suddenly I felt this unexplainable urge to put gas in my car. It was pouring down rain, I had ¼ tank of gas and had already decided to just wait to get to my little rural town after doing my errands to get the gas, but now I find myself pulling into BP for some reason that doesn’t even make sense to me.  I pull up to the pump. On the other side of the pump is a white van. I get out of the car when I see an African American guy open up the back and all this stuff fall out. I see a suit jacket, shoes, clothes.  I sense his frustration. I laugh,  “You just lost half your car!” I say to him as I get ready to swipe my card. He chuckles at me and before I know it he comes over to my side of the pump, “Excuse me, do you go to church?”  He asked me.  I’m a bit nervous as I realize I’m in the city now and this, “outgoing, don’t know a stranger” personality I have needs to not be quite as open.  “Yes, I do.” I say, still a bit nervous.  He reaches in his back pocket, pulls out his billfold, and says, “I just got out of prison a while back,” as he pulls out his prison ID card,  “We got into it with our landlord a few days ago and they kicked us out, we’ve been staying in a hotel room but we’re out of money and have no place to go, that’s why all the clothes are in the back.  I’m not trying to rob you, or I’m not going to buy drugs or alcohol, I wouldn’t even ask you for help, but I have two kids and my wife and we need money to try to get another room.  I lost my job a few weeks ago and unemployment hasn’t come. Please ma’am can you help me?”  I thought he was getting ready to pump gas too.  “Well, let me pray about it for a minute…” I said to him. As I did he grabbed my hand in his and said, “Let’s pray together, I’ll pray with you.”  Why did I get so uncomfortable at this point?  “No it’s okay……..” I knew in my heart what I had to do, even tho I still was a bit unnerved.   “Did you already get your gas?” I asked him.  “Yeah, I had just enough to put a little in.”  “Okay,” I began as I turned and got into my purse.  “I don’t have much, but here you go.” and handed him the money.  “God bless you ma’am, God bless you so much!”  I spoke a few words of life to him about how God always meets our needs.  He spoke a few words of life to me as I could see he was holding on for dear life to all the faith he could.  He turned around again and repeated the “God bless you.”  Hoped in his van where I could see his wife with her head laid back in the front seat and sped away.  Where to I have no idea, but I knew God was doing something with me in that moment. I felt so humble.  So unsure of all I was feeling. Half afraid, and yet that I was protected from harm. I also felt that God knows he can use me and finds a heart that is filled with compassion, because it is.  How blessed am I?  $20 to me is nothing…….and yet to someone else $20 is the difference between trying to keep your kids warm in a car and having a place to sleep. I drove away with such a different perspective from that gas station as I realized God DID send me into that station at just that moment.  Not only that, but it seemed to me He was already working this out Wednesday night at WalMart!  He knew that on Friday one of His children was going to be at the bottom and so in need, and He would send me at just the right moment to give the money He had me get for this man and his family.  Wow!  What a lesson for me, not to mention a faith builder of seeing how God does work way in advance.  In the process tho, I think I am also being shown that I do have to stop being so friendly and outgoing.  As I said, “I’m not in Kansas anymore!”  Lessons learned in the oddest of ways.

In my humble, almost speechless moment it was on to take Dell lunch then onto the furniture store.

Don’t ask me why but Pete and Lilly decided this past Monday that there was something in my sofa they smelled and wanted. They dug CLEAR to the springs in one section of the sofa!  This means a new sofa on top of EVERYTHING else! *sighs*  But, this too would prove to be more than a shopping trip for a new sofa!  Actually I had gone to this store, stumbling on it accidentally while looking for a different store last Tuesday. When I went in I was greeted by Debbie.  It was an IMMEDIATE connection and we became fast friends!  Have you ever just met someone and instantly loved them?  This was what happened between us.  Before I left that day she made me promise I’d call her for lunch, we HAD to do lunch because she had stories she wanted to tell me.  I promised her I would.  I’ve since shopped for sofas other places and like what she has the best. I took home the sample material to make sure it’d match in my living room.  I had to return the sample today and get a quote from her on the cost.  Well, today was no different than Tuesday!  We got to talking and 3 hours later (yes 3 hours) I discovered it was 5pm and I had to go!  Like me she is so very spiritual in nature and on some journey of which she is so unsure where it is all leading.  How AWEOSME it is for me to find someone I can spend hours talking spiritual stories with!  But come one, 3 hours?!!! LOL!  Yes, with me it is SO very possible!  As I was talking with her today I realized that she is one of those people I was meant to meet, and if you asked her, she’d say the same thing of me!  I even said this to her today,  “I knew when God moved me to this new area that there were people waiting that I was to meet, and you were one of those people!”  She agreed with me too. We began talking how tomorrow there will be more people waiting to meet us on this journey we are all walking.  It is so mind boggling to know that somewhere in my tomorrows are people I’m just waiting to meet.  Without a doubt, Debbie was one of those people.  And yes, I am probably going to be buying a sofa from her because it just feels right.

Which leads me to tonight. I was so ready to write tonight I just couldn’t hardly wait to light my lavender calendar, turn on my meditative music and reflect from the craziest of days. One where God just seemed to be opening my eyes to SO much around me!  And while this may not be a love and light thought, it is what it is and the world is sure getting darker and darker out there!  When you get on the internet and suddenly have pages popping up that seem to know all about you, well that’s prophecy of Biblical proportions!  And when you see families struggling as I saw today, I think I intuitively know this is only to get worse and worse.  Yet I ended the day knowing that God has the most synchronized plan for my life and no matter how dark it gets out there, if I look to Him, there will always be the most beautiful light to lead me on.

As the faith, love, and light lead me on.

Goodnight,

~Sunshine

GNTS:  It still remains.  I may be living my life and giving all I have on this journey to where I am called to be for here and now, but not a day goes by that I don’t think about you, and of course, everyday pray for you!  I once promised you I would always pray for you and that will never cease to be.  As time goes on why do I realize how fleeting this journey of life is?  Do I know if I will ever see you again?  In my heart I do know. *closes her eyes and sees the truth in her spirit* But without a doubt I do believe on the other side things will be so different than it is here. I know that is where our real home is……………and when we are finally there, perhaps we will sit and have coffee and discuss all we learned while apart on this journey of life.  And all will be well and we will realize why we did the things we did.  Replace tonight’s song’s name with yours and yeah, it’s yet another song about you. *winks*  Goodnight my special someone, so far away, so in love with another, and yet, a connection that never ceases to amaze me.  ~just me.