maybe i'm going somewhere.

I DID IT.

now, unemployed, i sort of feel like i'm out of control, but i am just so relaxed about it. as mama described it today on the phone, "yeah, lindsay, on paper, you and andrew really look like you're in bad shape, you know, you just quit your high-paying job for nothing and andrew never finished college.... but i know you're just doing what god called you to do, and you're happy, so it's okay."

mama always has a way of saying things that almost comes off like an insult, but i know she really means what she says in the best way. she loves me.

i'm just learning so much right now, like how living comfortably just really doesn't mean shit. in fact, i am so much happier now that i'm drying all our clothes on our porch and thinking of ways to make beans and rice appetizing twice, maybe three times a week. it's amazing how obedience, something i once thought would enslave me to poverty, has set me free!

i was living in such a toxic environment in my work. being a nanny is a wonderful job, but the stress of working for the parents i worked for was just choking my spirit. i miss the baby already, but i know 2 things:

1. god called me out of that season of my life, after many months of begging on my part, and I CAME OUT WHEN HE CALLED!
2. he is a good god and he will take care of the baby better than i ever could.

i've been thinking a lot about what to do with this opportunity god gave me. i've come up with a few goals. number one. vacuum the house once a day. (overkill this is not. the people who lived here before were truly disgusting and the amount of dust is insane) number two. write more. in my journal. on this blog. on pieces of paper i find in my purse. i just want to remember that i am a creative person, and that my spirit was pressed, but I AM NOT CRUSHED!

anyway, the bottom line is that from the surface, my life looks like it is in shambles, but i feel victorious, because god is so so so good to me.

here is a picture from one of the happiest days of my life (i'm sure there are more happiest days to come, which is why i can't say THE HAPPIEST.... man sometimes i get too specific with thingsDARN. but you know, what about when i have babies? don't you think that will be right up there with when i married andrew? or when i get a puppy? HAHA.)

sparrows and snow days and my family emergency.

i had a breakdown of huge proportions the other day. it was at night, so of course, the next morning, i woke up looking like a family emergency had happened to me (basically, i looked like someone took my face, turned it into old playdough, and then put in the microwave for a few minutes). thankfully, it was a snow day; god's gift to me, on one of the worse days in my life. it's not like anything truly terrible happened to me, i had just sobbed for an hour or so the night before, wiping my snotty nose on my loving husband's shirt, and trying not to get too hysterical. i was sobbing because i was coming to the realization that i had walked so far from god, and had just sat down on a lonely street corner, refusing to look for a way back home.

it was a self-imposed misery. it was brought on by laziness, selfishness, stupidity, and bad time-management. or, as could be summed up so succinctly by jesus: "oh you of little faith! why did you doubt?" i have this verse written on a post-it note beside my bed, so i see it every day, and yet, it is a concept that always escapes me, every few years.

a lot of times, i find myself sitting in church thinking to myself, "i wonder if they know i'm an imposter." and, shamefully, "what am i doing here? what is the point of all this?" i know it's not a waste of time, but i'm just not sure why not.

i am a woman of little faith. sometimes, i don't remember why i am a christian. i go through my life not acknowledging god's work in me - god's work in everything around me! that is my confession to you. i struggled to admit it to myself, but once i did, i realized that i had to go public with it, because it's not real till other people know. i can always pretend it never happened if no one else ever knew.

life for me right now is not the future i imagined for myself when i was still in college. things turned out differently, and while i do love some things about how things are, i am struggling to accept the things that i wish were different. being at this point in my life has forced me to realize that i really can't handle things without god's help, though. here's a short list of things i love about my life, because making lists helps me cope.

- andrew, my loving husband
- leah, my best friend since we were 11.
- my parents
- my cute, tiny apartment, with the wall of windows
- knitting, and teaching others how to knit
- making new friends in my new home.

i don't know what i'm doing with myself. i feel so weird about this whole thing because i've been a christian for so long, but i just feel like i'm back at square one. i don't know a damn thing. fasting? what's that? praying? oh, i do that sometimes when i'm about to cry.

but, you know, the truth of the matter is that i do know, deep down inside of me, that all hope is not lost. i have to dig real deep in there, but i can find it, and when i do find it, i know things will be okay. i'm not a lost cause, and i do know what jesus said about how he leads his people. "i will never leave you.... as the father knows when a sparrow falls, how much more do you think he watches over you, his children?"

so, where, from here?