Sorry, I can't delete it

Sorry, I can't delete that double posting. It was posted with the Blog This! icon on the Google toolbar, and for some reason it won't let you delete those posts.

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So this is going to be a little bit more personal and share more of myself with you than I usually do, so don't read on if you're not prepared for that.

Today I had three pretty interesting conversations with three Oregonian friends... Adam, Addy, and Andy. It was a day of 4 letter A names. Very very interesting. This post doesn't really concentrate on those conversations, but it does discuss some of the things I've been thinking about in general lately (and one of the conversations had a lot to do with this post, the other two did not). I don't even really know what to think, but it definitely had me thinking a lot about myself and who I am. I've been thinking a lot about it for months, but it was kind of cool to have these random conversations with different people. One of the things I think about a lot is my job, and how sometimes the hours frustrate the heck out of me. The other day I had a horrible day at work and I was just like "man, I want to leave this company, leave this state, go somewhere far far away and be doing something far far different". But I forced myself to take a step back and realize "hey, the grass is always greener... NO JOB is perfect". I'm a very firm believer that you shouldn't be doing a job you're miserable in... what's the point? There are too many other important things in life, and you spend way too much time at your job to be miserable. But at every job, you're going to have good days and bad days. And I'm very thankful for the job I have. I absolutely love it, love the people, love what I'm doing, everything is great. I'd really like to be on a normal day hours schedule, but that will come in time. Looknig at the big picture, I'm thrilled to be here in this state, with this company, and with these people. Over a year of thought and prayer went into this job in particular, and almost two years of thought and prayer went into my job in general. This is where I really thought I should be, and I need to look on that and remember that, because it's important. I'm here for a reason, not by chance and not because there were no "better" opportunities. There is one opportunity that consistently sticks out in my mind as "better", an opportunity that I spent 2 years thinking about, and yet here I am. That's important, I need to remember that. When I get sick of being here and miss Greek IV peeps, DZ people, PHS people, A-Hall people, etc... I need to look at people like Keith, Kendra, Addy, Kristie, Vin, Andy, Adam, etc. that have been put in my life and bring such great joy to me here. Granted I don't see them all very often, and part of that is a function of my hours, but that's okay. They're here.

Something else that I recently discovered was totally cool! I've been pretty blessed for the last 8 or 9 years in terms of jobs and things like that. I've had a lot of good things "fall into my lap". Sophomore year I randomly found the job at the bank when I wasn't even looking, and it was one of my favorite jobs ever. Junior year I got paid a lot more than I should have for being the editor of the yearbook. Senior year I had the awesome Killian babysitting job. They all randomly happened. And whenever I get a little stressed out about money, God's like BAM and provides like randomly huge amounts of money. What's up with that? A few weeks ago I was worried about money for a few different things, and I called Russ up and was pretty upset because of some things that had come up financially. He talked me through it and helped me clear my head... and a few days later two pretty awesome financial things happened, including a much better tax refund than I expected. WOAH. So then I was like "what the heck God, why do you always hook me up when some people struggle so much?" And I kind of realized that He really does know us all so intimately that He knows exactly what we need, as individuals. People deal differently with money, they handle it differently, they manage it differently, etc. None of this money is ours anyway, so He just chooses different people to manage it for Him at different times. He's always blessed me with a reasonable amount and I have always tried to completely acknowledge that and make decisions based on that. It was cool to realize not only does He know that I'm the type of person that maybe needs more money (money influences my relationship with God and it's always been interesting), but He knows that He created me to be a good manager of money, and so He trusts me with it. A lot of Christians that I know really struggle a lot with money and God challenges them with that in different ways than me, so I was like "don't you think I can handle less money?" And then I realized that maybe that's not the way He created me. We're all different, and that's what goes back to the Him knowing us intimately piece. He gives us exactly what He can handle, and I adore Him for it. Something I realized my senior year is that in a lot of ways, it can be MORE of a challenge for us to have more money, because we have to manage it better. It would have been easy for me to take a job where I made less money, because I wouldn't have been able to do some of the things I can. But I realize that that is one of the many reasons God wasn't so all about that... He wanted me to do great things.

A few more random thoughts on this topic and then I'll be done. At a conference years ago I heard a speaker say "maybe God wants you to be a missionary, or a pastor, or blah blah blah [all 'Christian' type stuff]... or maybe He wants you to go out and make a lot of money, then give it all away". Almost immediately I knew that was me. God has enabled me to make a lot of money... and then share it with people who need it. It's kind of cool, actually. That's one of the reasons I'm here, dude. One of the man. :-) I kind of talked about this in one of the conversations I had today, and the person I was talking to was like "hey, that's really cool that you say it's actually easier to make LESS money... that's true, I just hadn't thought about it before". So lesson of the day: yay for God. Yay for Him being so good in my life.

There's one other thing that was the topic of my other two conversations today, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to share it with the world yet. I'm not sure if I should either. But I'm thinking about it, and maybe it will come in the next few days, at least in an edited fashion. We'll see. :-)

My aunt is coming to town tomorrow (in about 12 hours!) so my posts might be somewhat limited in the next few days. I'll see what I can hook y'all up with and if not expect an awesome updated detailing all of the fun on Wednesday. I love y'all so much. Mwah.