Teeth, Money, and a God Who Provides

not my actual mouth pictured here.....:o)

It was three weeks ago that I walked out of Dr. Tebbencamp’s office with a dental treatment plan that would cost just under a grand to complete. “And that’s if the one tooth doesn’t turn out to be a root canal,” he explained. I appreciated his forthrightness and no nonsense attitude, but still wished the prognosis had been slightly easier to take as well as the dollar amount expected as payment.

A week later I sat in the chair, braced for the root canal that was to come. “I’m going to ask you to hold on to the arms of your chair,” he said as he prepped the tortuous devices behind me, conveniently out of my line of sight, “Some people feel this and it surprises them.” My reply was to shift uncomfortably in the seat, grunt in disapproval, and shut my eyes, praying that I wouldn’t feel a thing. Luckily, there was no surprise of pain, and only moments later I heard, “well, that went well…want to see what a nerve looks like?” By the shake of my head I declined looking at the remains of my decayed tooth and within twenty minutes I was scheduling my follow up appointment, trying to talk through the numbness and stiffness radiating from the right side of my jaw.

Providentially, I had enough money in my account to pay the enormous fee of the morning, but my heart sank at the thought of more appointments and payments to come. We had only accomplished half of the "plan" and the root canal threw everything off. I worried about the deadline of my upcoming appointments, and with no upcoming employment....


But two weeks later...and I can pay it! Now obviously some other unforeseen wrench can get thrown in the plans, but as for now, as I go in to finish this root canal... the money is there. It came in such unique ways, a gift, a week of housesitting, an honorarium...it wasn't till I sat down with the numbers that I saw what was happening. God provided, in His way, and in His time.


Matthew 6 says, "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 than food, and the body more 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?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" I read this passage the other day, resting in its promise. God loves us, wants the best for us, and it doesn't simplify all of life into some sort of easy road where everything gets taken care of and we don't have to do anything. We are assured that in life there will be trouble, but that God will be right beside us. And so as I spend two days back in that painful chair with a dentist I haven't decided whether I actually like yet, I'm holding on to the greater plan, the greater timing....and hopefully will come out on the other side just above broke, with healthy teeth... :o)

Back to Springfield!!!

As officially as it gets in my life, as of this weekend, I will once again be a resident of Springfield, VA. This is by no means the long term plan, but to regroup, make some money, and start applying for jobs....of the more full time persuasion.  I'll be staying with friends of the family, back in the neighborhood I grew up in, and I hope to dig in with people I've known and met over the years.

The past couple of weeks have been constant movement and shifting with natural disasters, house sitting, my first ever worship seminar (I mean, I actually led it!) and tying up loose ends in Christiansburg (i.e. finishing a root canal!). I did have a chance to play in the old neighborhood in Roanoke where I lived back in 2007, staying with my longtime camp buddy Rebekah and her dog, Geronimo.  Wednesday I'll be headed back to Colonial Beach (but only if they have gotten their power back on!) and Friday I'll be making the drive to Springfield to settle in....

I'm excited that there are way more questions than answers, that I have no idea what even a week from now looks like... I'm prone to becoming independent and thinking I have it all figured out, but the way this summer is ending, I'm keeping a tight hold on the One who guides us all.... and this currently humble and grateful heart wants it no other way!

The Nomadic Life

I am very happy to say that the more often I move from place to place and pack/unpack my car, the more efficient and simplified I am getting.  Eighty percent of everything that I own or have fits in the green bullet, and what hasn't fit, is only because I've been holding onto a bed, dishes, scrapbooks, and a couple of pieces of furniture in hopes that one day I will once again have my own home to put them back into.  But for now my bed is being borrowed by my sister, and my few apartment accessories either grace the shed at Colonial Beach, or are boxed up in the attic there...at least I'm not paying for storage somewhere. :o)

Some interesting tidbits I've learned in the last week:

If you are housesitting and you need to iron something (well, I didn't NEED to iron anything, but I had some fabric and had gotten really inspired by this japanese quilting book and just HAD to try cutting up some pieces for patchwork) and you happen to break the ironing board...it's best just to leave it out in the open and declare it the only casualty of the week.... I mean, next to the dogs being alive and happy and the house still standing despite earthquakes, it looks like nothing went wrong....

If you also happen to be doing your first seminar ever and you have the brilliant idea to do a handout....but the printer you have been carrying in your trunk is on the fritz and won't connect to the computer unless both are online, you may have to go down to someplace where you have connections, like the neighborhood museum, to print your initial copy and then head over to Staples to make copies for the seminar.... got to love Franconia!

And if your parents happen to be in the process of selling the family home, try to spend as little time there as possible... your dinner may be delayed an hour and a half as your dad chats with some gutter estimate man about local sports.....and sounds will echo with the empty rooms and sooner or later it will hit you that you no longer have that home to come back to...bittersweet.

Maybe sometime I'll take this topic more seriously and post about how I keep my life organized in the green bullet...but that is saying that I am actually organized.....

NLSW Graduation

Recently I received the pictures from the graduation ceremony for the New Life School of Worship. Heart pangs for those faces I miss so dearly, but such sweetness in the reminder of just how far God brought me, to Colorado and back.

The graduating class of 2011!

My Team- the Humblebees...bzzzzz

My First Earthquake!!!

I love Virginia for its moderate weather. There is the occasional tornado, the yearly big snow, sometimes rainy weather or the weakened state of a hurricane coming up the coast. So an earthquake, certainly a 5.8, felt from North Carolina up to New England and Toronto, comes as a bit of a surprise.

I myself was sitting with my mom and grandmother, eating a lovely lunch of subway before Nana went to her hair appointment down the block. It's not uncommon for a building in Springfield to shake with the passing of a large truck, and that particular shopping center backs up to the highway.  So my own reaction was definitely delayed. It was only the continued strength and length of the shaking that gave the first hint. The second hint was the three employees of Subway running from behind the counter to get out of the building. It was then that my mom said, "we need to go outside," as my grandmother said, "let me just get my purse." I walked out holding my sandwich (I mean, why stop eating?) as we gathered with strangers in the parking lot watching other buildings empty and people mill around.  And then came the full blown realization that we had indeed, in safe and moderate Virginia, felt the ground shift and move beneath our feet.... we went back into Subway and kept eating.

And as we ate, we did our part to jam up the cell lines and periodically called family to check in. It was when I called Becky that the scope of the quake came into focus, she and Nate were woken up from napping by the house in Colonial Beach shaking.  She gave us the initial news report she had just watched...that the epicenter was from Mineral, VA, close to Fredericksburg.

As exciting as the afternoon was, it was highly entertaining to listen to the radio broadcasters on my slow chug back to Chantilly to check on the dogs I'm caring for. The normal 40 minute drive crept into almost two and a half hours as most people left work with buildings closed for the afternoon.  People called in and gave reports on the traffic and damage where they were, and the radio guys kept up a good banter. "The tweet that the Washington Monument is leaning is unconfirmed...I repeat, nothing has been reported as wrong with the Washington Monument." All in all, we each have stories to tell, and the damage was minimal....let's call it a good earthquake? 

I mean, it was the largest earthquake in Virginia since 1897!

My Little Family for the Week

Aspen

 I have the distinct pleasure of hanging out with the lovely Aspen and Vermont, two labradoodles of a friend who is on vacation this week.  I like having two shadows, definitely a change from Mitch.... these guys are certainly bigger!

Vermont

They are doing their best to be sad that their family is gone, even trying to remain strong and united on a hunger strike...too bad a little sour cream got both of them to eat their dinner last night and I heard Vermont crunching away this morning when I wasn't looking.... :o) And apparently their rawhide chew treats don't count under the constraints of the strike either..... maybe I'll be brave and try walking them later on.... wish me luck!

What IS Next?......

I get asked the "what is next" question a lot. As well I should, since my life has been one movement to another over the last year, school, summer camp....it's just this current stage is really hard to answer.

What I DO know is this. I'm still employed by Fairfax County as a substitute teacher. I'm pretty sure I have a place to stay in NOVA. And I know that this whole process of discernment into where God might be leading me to be a worship leader may take time, and multiple interviews...:o)

So the answer for now, is to get back into subbing, look towards a potential relocation, and start knocking on doors.  I joked with my mom this morning, "I'm a jill of some trades." For the next couple of months that means speaking at churches, leading worship at others, and working with kids...whatever opportunity opens, I am ready and willing to see it through.

A wise new friend the other day said to me, "We all need a healthy dose of fear."  I remember the panic that would grip me about Colorado the couple of weeks leading up to my departure. How afraid I was to get settled, find a home, leave my family, and make new friends. And a year later, I wouldn't trade Colorado or my last year for anything.  So I take the momentary questions and doubt in stride.  I thought at the end of the summer I was staying in Christiansburg. I told everyone I was staying in Christiansburg. But the longer I held that decision in my hands, the more I struggled to find peace with it. The only course of action was to find out what leaving felt like, would I struggle whether I stayed or left? And by no means was leaving easy, I find my heart attaches and settles in fast and I left behind deep, kinship friends.  But as I untangled my heart in the slower, disconnected pace of Colonial Beach, I began to feel ever so lighter, with the promise of what is to come. And last Friday, as I rode with my mom to meet some old friends from church for dinner, that peace came.  God's whisper was sweet and quiet and was merely, "keep on the course, I've got this."

I rest in that.  I find peace in that promise.  And so as I am house sitting this week in Chantilly with two sweet labradoodles who are currently sprawled across the floor, I am as ready as everyone else to find out...what is next.

Some Things are Just Awesome....

My life is in a constant flux of change of these days....I think I'm doing one thing and a reality punch sends me in a different direction. But even though I am unsettled and searching, a few things are constant....my love for this little kitty who has put on a few pounds with my grandma overfeeding him....and his ability to get in the way of whatever I am trying to accomplish....

Here I am trying to prep for a seminar I am giving at a church coming up in a couple of weeks and everytime I reach down to write a new idea.....he leans back in search of some loving....ridiculously awesome! I.love.my.cat.

Popes Creek

I love all things history. And I love that Westmoreland County is home to several great historical figures...namely George Washington, Robert E. Lee, James Madison....to name a few.  I have grown up visiting these homes and plantations, but as having been several years since my last visit, it was time to hit up George Washington's birthplace of Popes Creek.

While the actual house Washington was born in burned down, there is a house on site built to the standards of the 1770's. It wasn't until years after the "replica" house was built, that the foundation of the original house was found....which in no way even resembles the shape of the replica, but is at the very least, outlined on the ground.

The difference when you get out here in such open space, is the insane quiet...there are no city sounds, only the breeze through the trees, the coursing river, and an occasional bang from the onsite blacksmith.

I wish I had a reason to find a photographer and get some pictures in a place like this, whimsical with its dirt paths and tall trees.... After a year in Colorado I can't help but appreciate all the shade one can find in Virginia!

It was a gorgeous day for once in this normally oppressive and humid area. A quick stop to a coffee shop in Montross that was once an auto shop, and our beautiful morning was complete!

Colonial Beach Craziness

Rearranging, repacking, spending time with Mitch and the family, home cooked meals, evening thunderstorms, no internet but the library and McDonalds, seeing a throwdown/fight outside of the McDonalds while trying to get limited internet...this is life this week.... I promise details and updates to come, and to be completely honest... I don't really know what's coming next... oh the beauty in the questions!

Miss Sassy Pants

There is never a dull moment when you live, breathe, sleep, and work in a church for the summer.  There always seems to be new challenges arising, from overflowing toilets, to kids getting injured, to bad weather cramping a worksite's style.  Last week, I had to take my car across the street to get it state inspected. So Sunday night I headed out the door to my car.  I had seen our neighborhood skunk slink by the door earlier in the evening and purely as a precautionary measure I looked under the cars I had to pass to get to the green bullet.  Huddled under one car was the body of a small animal.... Just as I was convinced it was the skunk and I needed to steer clear, a loud and repetitive meow came from beneath the car and a very small, very young cat emerged in distress.  She came right up to me and started rubbing against my legs.  Remembering that someone was following me over in another car to bring me back from the shop, I unwillingly left the cat alone until I came back to the church.

And so entered into my life, Miss Sassy Pants, named because of her constant meow and desire for love and attention.  It looks like Miss Sassy was just dumped at or around the church, she clearly was not used to the outdoors and she was loving and gentle and friendly to everybody. I stayed with her as long as I could that first night, giving her a little bit of milk and bacon (the best our camp kitchen has to offer a feline!) and was devastated the next morning when I couldn't find her.

But the next night she was back, and she hung out quite calmly and comfortably as I chatted on the phone for a bit.

Miss Sassy was around for a few days, and I started to put out feelers to shelters around Virginia to find someone or someplace that could take her.  By Wednesday someone else from around the church had left a plate of cat food out for her and by that evening she was gone.

I'm pretty sure Miss Sassy was taken into a good home, but it was a pretty sweet gift to have a cat around the place for a few days.  There is a tribe of wild cats that live in the woods behind the church, but they run at the first sight of people...not my kind of cat at all!

Beauty in the Quiet

There is nothing like living in a warehouse for a couple of months to bring about an appreciation of cozy couches, soft carpets, and the quiet that comes when one is alone in a house curled up with a small dog for company.

The last three months have been such a whirlwind, from Colorado to Virginia, from schoolwork to packing to camplife.  It was a good five weeks into the summer before I took a step back and realized I missed those crazy Coloradans with their loving wit and open hearts.  And now I once again look into the questions of what comes next, what I thought was an easy answer of staying, has taken a huge reality punch with a high dental bill, a depleted bank account, and the desire to press forward.

But for this weekend, I have stilled the craziness and sought refuge with a little furry friend in a house empty with its residents on vacation.  How we take for granted the simple acts of grocery shopping, meal prep and devouring, and a chance to spend a Saturday morning curled up with a cup of coffee and remote in hand.

Today I went down to Stepping Out, an outdoor street festival in downtown Blacksburg, full of food, crafters, and music.  I met up with old Alta Mons buddy, Rhiannon, and her friend Brady, to eat vegetarian cuisine at Gilly's (hummus wraps are awesome!) and to stroll in between rain spurts around the tents and vendors.  We spent much of the afternoon in an apartment just off the main street, keeping a tiny chihuahua company and telling stories of mutual friends and our current lives.

One more week of closeout and pack up and my obligation to Project SPY is done... I hate that this heart of mine digs in so deeply and attaches itself, I hate that I am so new to these feelings of stay versus go, and wish goodbyes were easier.....along with dental visits...

I lead for the last time this summer at Fieldstone tomorrow morning, crazy to think that other than one Sunday, I have led every week since stepping foot back in Virginia... I think a break next week will be good for my soul, a time to unpack and unwind my heart.

Becky and Nate came and visited a couple of weeks ago, did my soul good to see family and have an unplanned afternoon where we meandered through stores, the hotel pool, dinner, and finally a movie on my laptop as Nate took up an entire bed sideways in slumber.

Well, back to enjoying a quiet Saturday night...thankful that my Sunday afternoons of hiking are behind me! :o)