Friday, March 21, 2014

Five Minute Friday: JOY

Today's topic for Five Minute Friday: JOY. You can read others' posts at Lisa-Jo's linkup here.

_____

There are few things that bring me more joy as a mom more than watching my girls do what they love.

I put my oldest daughter in a dance class in our small town when she was three years old. Just a few weeks from her 4th birthday, she was so proud to have her little black leotard and her blue wrap skirt and her tiny, tiny little pink leather ballet shoes. She took to dance like the proverbial duck to water, and her teacher said she was a natural. Usually a serious little girl, she wore a look of concentration and adhered to each position as carefully as any serious ballerina.

Just a few years later, her little sister also proudly wore her own tiny little pink leather shoes and shiny black tap shoes, dancing into everyone's hearts with her dimpled smile.

Every place we've moved since we lived in that small town, we've been mindful of finding a good dance studio, not competition-based (although of course we've done *some* competition in intervening years), with nurturing teachers and a cheerful yet studious atmosphere. Schools attached to nonprofit companies have been our best educational opportunities.

Today, my serious little girl has a smile as wide as the ocean and makes her debut onstage in a community theatre production of "Pippin." She dreams of landing on the Great White Way. Her sister with the dimples now tap-dances in sock feet every day in the kitchen, and wants to study and tap dance professionally someday.

My heart is bursting at their joy, which has become my own.
_____ 
Thank you for stopping by! Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Sometimes the answer is no...

When I was growing up in church, I remember our youth pastor telling us that God generally answers prayer in one of three ways: Yes, No, or Wait.

Fast forward about 30-ish years.

I applied for a job a couple of months ago. Yes, I already have two paying jobs, but both are part-time and with a child headed off to college in a year and uncertainties facing the military, I thought applying for two office positions that happen to be in the same office, in a location with which I'm familiar, might not be a bad idea. Keep my options open, as it were, since it seemed like God was being awfully quiet about our future.

I had an interview that I thought went very well. Then two weeks later, as promised, I got news. A very brief email told me that the position was filled.

I got a "no."

The rest of the answer for us seems to be a very big "wait." Wait for the Lord, wait on the Lord, just plain wait.

Waiting is hard. To quote Inigo Montoya from the classic The Princess Bride:


And so, I wait.