Where I'm supposed to be....

I got a sub for my 6th graders today because I felt horrible yesterday, and both of the girls have not been up to par.  Snot galore and sore throats.  I woke this morning actually feeling better than yesterday, so I've already gotten a load of laundry done, dishes done and kitchen cleaned up, fall candles burning and now I'm blogging.  What?!  I've been doing lots of thinking this morning.....about my new job, my old job (at Johnson), and questioning things.  I'm missing my job at Johnson again because I miss the days when my life was much easier.  When the girls were sick, I could work from home and still stay caught up on things.  Now, it takes a week to catch up if I have to get a sub for one day!  Teaching is HARD work.  I make less money and work a lot more.  Twelve hour + days are normal.  And days like today just makes me question all of it.  But as I was folding laundry this morning, it seemed as if the Spirit spoke...."you didn't realize your need for Me when life was easy."  I definitely see Truth in that.  And it certainly seems I can't deny the hand of God in my current situation.  
I was hired at CMS the day before students arrived.  Here's that story....  I applied for 2 positions at CMS - both of which I wasn't yet qualified to teach because I hadn't taken my middle school Praxis yet.  I applied anyway, hoping I'd pass my test the next week.  I took the test on August 5....and passed!  Then, on Tuesday August 6th, Mr. Derrick called me for an interview the following day.  I had not emailed him or anything....only applied for those 2 positions.  So, to get a call out of the blue was really quite amazing.....it just doesn't seem to happen if you don't "know" somebody.  I knew no one at Carter.  I went in for the interview on Wednesday, and it was the BEST interview I'd ever had.  I felt completely at ease, confident and comfortable....and I loved the administration.  None of my other interviews had ever gone so smoothly.  It was obvious that these people cared about kids.  I left that interview feeling very good about it (even found out they had a volleyball team that I could coach!) and headed to my second interview of the day at SDMS.  (I feel the Lord set that interview up just so that CMS would be proactive about offering me a job!)  That interview was lame....nothing felt right about it, but it made me feel confident that CMS is where I wanted to be if I were offered a position.  By lunch, I got a call from CMS asking me to apply for the 6th grade math position....that they wanted me for the job!  Amazing.  So I went back the next day to meet the staff, start on my room and prepare for kids the NEXT day.  
All this to say....it sure seems that God made a way for me to be where I am.  And while I really do enjoy teaching 6th grade math, there is still a part of me that really misses the ease of my Johnson job.  But had I not pursued the "call" to teach, I would have missed out on all the ways God has provided and met every one of my needs in the process.  I am constantly relying on His strength to get me through most days.....I am still not relying on Him enough and trying to do things on my own strength, but I do realize my need for Him more as a teacher. So I guess I'm writing all this to help myself realize that I am where I need to be right now.  Yes, it's hard.  Yes, I miss my easy job.  But, I am better able to see God's faithfulness where I am. He is faithful when we are not.  He is constant and never changing.  He is my rock.  I will trust Him to be my strength and show me how I am to love and care for my sweet 6th graders.  I do love my students.  I will trust Him to guide me in how I am to raise my girls and how to be an example of His love for them.  I will trust Him to lead me in loving and supporting my amazing husband as he goes through school to become a P.A. (that's for another blog).  And I will trust, that in all of this, He will use me to point people to Jesus.  And that His Spirit will....
"lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made strongerIn the presence of my Savior" -Hillsong United "Oceans"   

Anger and questions...

I haven't posted anything in a looooooong time....I nearly forgot I had a blog.  So I may start up again....I'll catch you up on our lives later....today I just wanted to write about some fierce anger and questions that I've been wrestling with lately.  I'm generally not an angry person at all....it takes a lot to make me mad.  But today was different...  I was wasting time on fb and noticed that several people were posting on a college friend's timeline that they were sorry and were praying for her.  So I wanted to find out what was going on....she lost her baby in utero when her due date was only two weeks away.  I can't even imagine.  She will deliver her dead son today.  Hard to swallow that down isn't it?  It's horrible.  It makes me so angry!  Why does crap like that happen????  And I've come to hate the phrase, "God is in control".....  Really?! God is in control of unbelievable heartache?  I don't want to believe in that God.  God is in control of divorce, depression, hatred, racism, death, human trafficking, suffering, oppression?????  Is He??  How can that be?  I believe in a loving, self-sacrificing God....and I love Jesus and believe Him to be the Savior of the world.....but I cannot, for the life of me, believe that my God is in control of,  or making evil happen.  That doesn't make sense. And those words of God being in control are not comforting to those going through heartache.  Yes, I believe God can use any situation to mold us....but is God making heartache happen, controlling every human act of sin and evil? Where is the line between God's sovereignty and man's free will?

My husband likened God's sovereignty to that of a King over a Kingdom. That while a King "rules" the Kingdom, he does not determine all that happens within it.  That makes much more sense to me.  But it still doesn't answer that question of why bad things happen, or what to do with all this earthly heartache.  I guess my anger has subsided a bit with writing this all out....now the question in my head is "how do you provide hope to the hurting and those who are heartbroken?".  Especially if they do not have faith in God.  What do we do??