Growng Pains - A Year By Year Process

It's hard to say that this has been a "bad year" for my family, or even for just me personally...

Yeah, a lot of not fun circumstances have fallen onto the path of life this year. A lot of things that make me want to crawl in a corner & sleep my life away.
(Sleep = My coping mechanism of choice, because my kidneys frown on binge drinking) 

But God has gotten us through all the crappy circumstances in one piece. Actually, since Jake (My brother) fell from our horse & had to have reconstructive facial surgery in September. Some of us came out of this year with a few extra pieces..

But if I were honest I would say I feel like God's actually used all the unfortunate circumstances in the past 365 days to refocus my attention to him. I tend to try, and fail terribly to be self reliant.  Thinking back.. My struggle with self reliance began long before this year.

Summer of 2008 I went to a church camp where, I'm going to attribute Bobby Joiner for putting out the challenge to start a prayer journal.
Nothing fancy, just to grab a composition note book & use it to focus your prayer time. 

It's now 2014 - I have 17, one-hundred page composition note books FULL. 1,700 pages of prayers  petitions over the past seven years.

But looking though them I realized the majority of them where from 2008-2010. Then they became less prolific. Still there, but more sporadic...

2010. Was the year I left my childhood church. The year I struggled SO much with sorrow, hatred, and bitterness. 

2011 - My life was a big nursing school blob.. Fair excuse. Sorta.. Right? (Yeah, lame I know..) Super troopers could have landed on the moon during 2011 & I wouldn't have known. My life was engulfed in learning to be a nurse.

2012 -- The year I graduated nursing school. The year I became a full fledged nurse. The year I was a New Grad nurse at a small teaching hospital. The year I was struggling with my confidence as a new nurse. My "thing" had become to pray on my way to work. So long as I didn't get too distracted... But I still didn't really make time for God. Either time to pray or get into the word. 

2013 -- I really don't have an excuse. My brother had his 3rd open heart surgery that March, at the same time I was grieving the break down of a dear friendship. That summer I started to get bored at work because I was getting the swing of things, and looking for other things to fill my plate. My Mom also had rotator cuff surgery that summer. Which was a long recovery. 
I was going to a cute little hipster church. The people were SO sweet and loved Jesus, but I wasn't sold...

I was just chugging along & didn't really NEED God. I wanted God, I LONGED for the kind of relationship I had had with him between 2008-2010. I just had NO idea how to get back there. I was angry & frustrated..  

2014 --- Welcome a difficult year. I have tried to wish away this year more than once or twice..

I wasn't really going to church at the start of the year.. 
I was what I like to call, "in-between churches". I didn't want to go to the sweet hipster church - I didn't feel like I fit in & it was a really LONG drive that only got longer when the church moved locations. I didn't want to go to the cowboy church my family went to statues post our church evacuation in 2010, because I didn't feel like I was welcome. 

My prayer-life was a joke. I would pray in the elevator on the way up to my unit at the hospital.. And I would pray when I would be struggling with my anger & frustration from feeling distant from my God. And bitter toward my past church leadership because I felt like it was THEIR fault...

 It wasn't their fault FYI. But they still suck none the less!  :)

Christmas night 2013 my Great Grandma Good pasted away. Which ended a week long sleep over at Pepe's house hospice. We buried Grandma January 6th. 

I left January 7th for a "vacation" where I saw the ugly side of myself during the trip. I came back sick from stress. And constantly feeling like I NEEDED to go to church. Any church, whatever church, I just NEEDED to go to church! 

That week I started going to Girls with Swords, a bible study for young women. I honesty didn't WANT to, but I did. And I'm glad that I did! Because in going I was reminded that God still has a hold of me. 

A month after returning to Tucson from what I have lovingly deemed "Escape from B*tch Mountain San Antonio Edition" I went to the Passion Conference 2014 in Houston with a group of people I hardly knew.. Also a blessing.

 

The following week my Dad had a stroke & stayed in the hospital from Thursday - Sunday. 
The next month we got two new puppies.. And my puppy Bella died a month later. 





This summer God blessed me with 15 yr old Ashley's "dream job". I'm now an ER nurse at the small teaching hospital I started at as a new grad on Med-Surg. And I love it! 
But talk about a learning curve... But I know God has me there for His purpose. 

What have I learned from this year??

 -- I need to get back to the basics in my relationship with God...

I know some will earnestly disagree with me, but I feel like placing my own prayer/quite time & getting back into reading God's word on my own is really where I need to focus. The culture of todays church/corporate worship tends to do nothing but irritate me. 

Great in theory...

But I tend to feel like all I'm doing is sitting through a 1 1/2 hour infomercial about how I'm supposed to "buy into" whatever the churches plans/goals/projects are. Instead, I want to be bought into Jesus. Bought into my God's plan.. His plan for me. His plan for my family. His plan for this community I call my own.

Lamentations 3:22-24 (New International Version) Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassion never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

Psalm 88:13 But I cry to you for help, Lord;
    in the morning my prayer comes before you.

Isaiah 30: 1-5 

 “Woe to the obstinate children,”
    declares the Lord,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
    forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
    heaping sin upon sin; who go down to Egypt
    without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,
    to Egypt’s shade for refuge.  

But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,
    Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.
 Though they have officials in Zoan
    and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,

everyone will be put to shame
    because of a people useless to them,
who bring neither help nor advantage,
    but only shame and disgrace.”

Rescue & Recovery

Disingenuous. That is my new word for today. But before you think, "oh no, this is gonna be a blog post about how awful people are." Be assured that's not what I want to express to you.

Today at church was what I like to call "share & tell". Share what a horrible person you were before Jesus rescued you and tell how wonderful life is status-post surrendering your heart to Jesus. And on top for share & tell hours there were seven baptisms in this moderately sized church I now attend. Pretty good odds God might be moving in the people there.  

I know this is "Normal" practice throughout many churches in America, BUT it makes HORRENDOUSLY uncomfortable & awkward!

I think my church up bringing is part of why it makes me feel ridiculously uncomfortable... I'm not going to get into pointing fingers at my old church. But I will say it's very "traditional" and honestly pretty dang fake. 
I've never been baptized. Yes, I know I should. But it always feels so awkward & staged. How can you PUBLICLY proclaim your acceptance of Jesus's work on the cross for your sins that are worthy of death & your plan to forever follow Jesus when all the witnesses are already churched people? I've always hoped to be baptized surrounded my un-churched people. People that desperately NEED Jesus but don't know him as anything but a story, building or organization. Not on a personal intimate sweet level like I do.

It's been a little over two years since my last post. Two years of God triaging & treating the natural disaster that WAS my heart after leaving my church now FOUR years ago.

I feel like in nursing school I hardly had time to breathe, so I only acknowledged the top layer of hurt, frustration & anger. These past two years God's been able to use as a rescue/recovery mission.

Please keep in mind, as much as one may argue that my relationship breakdown with my church family from my growing up years was a reflection of a relationship breakdown between me & God. That's not true. My anger & un-forgiveness was only aimed at the leadership of my old broken church. 

I think that is the only thing, aside from my family that I accredit for holding me together so well is my relationship with my God. Even when I was running away from his people he kept pursuing me. Comforting me. Calling me back. Asking me to willingly place myself in His hands. 

 dis·in·gen·u·ous

adjective \ˌdis-in-ˈjen-yə-wəs, -yü-əs-\

: not truly honest or sincere : giving the false appearance of being honest or sincere. 

I've spent four years in hiding. Four years wondering if God means me for ministry. Four years of blending into the congregation because I'm honestly scared of the people around me. Not that they won't accept me. But that they will love me only to figuratively stone me at a later date.

God has been so sweetly working me through forgiveness and acceptance to MOVE ON!! I'm not going to lie & say I'm all better. I'm still broken. God's still working on my heart DAILY. But I feel I'm in a place where God is saying I love you, I'm providing for you, TRUST ME!

John 14:27

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Always in Motion

Oh man! It's been almost a year since I've posted a blog entry!

This year has been a HUGE learning experience. Nursing school put the hurt on me like a grade school bully demanding lunch money. Technically I know nothing of this analogy since I was home-schooled. But I figured it was a good way of putting it! lol

My family has been attending the Tanqe Verde Cowboy Church for just about a
year now and I LOVE it there! It's the first time in years that I've
felt comfortable and loved at a church. At my old church I didn't get
that. Which was a bummer, but live and learn!

For me attending a cowboy church is like visiting a different planet inhabited by really friendly space aliens, who enjoy a relationship with Jesus. When they talk about the Bible we speak the same language, but when they get wound up talking rodeo I'm lost. Typically I smile, nod and ask questions. Thankfully they are very gracious in answering all my rodeo questions without blinking at my inexperience with such things as "bulldogging" and "Bucking Chutes".

My Dad is by far the most gun-ho about the cowboy ways. I will say, I'm very fond of our fresh produce from the garden, all the yummy food from scratch and I'm having a lot of fun taking horseback ridding lessons from a girl in our church.

One of my friends calls me and my family "crunchy" because we make a lot of our own cleaning products and dehydrate fruits and veggies and make things like tinctures that can be used as antibiotics. I call my friend "a typical consumer". But that's okay. Sooner or later she'll become "crunchy" too!

My Dad likes to call our property (it's only an acre)"a homestead" but more and more I'm liking to call it a petting zoo!

My wacko parents decided that it would be a great idea to get a couple milking goats. But only one is "in-milk". I don't understand this term "in-milk".. They indeed are not standing in milk. You actually have to squeeze it out of them! So now I don't understand why they call it "milking the goat", I think they should call it "squeezing the goat". That way we can offer guests some fresh squeezed goat! Well this long standing idea came to flourish within a couple days time last week. And while goats milk is pretty yummy, we know where our milk comes from, what conditions the goat lives in, food the goat's fed and now we never have to buy milk at the store again. Sometimes I think this idea is better in theory.. Well.. At least at 6am when my Mom who is a morning person bounces into my room saying, "Wake up Ash.. It's time to go milk the goat!" Ughh! No Mom, it's time to turn over and sleep another two hours. LOL It's not too bad right now since Booger (My brother) and I are taking turns waking up every-other day to help.

Now my Mom thinks it would be a "brilliant" idea to get a rooster! You know those things that decided to "sing" at early morning hours?!? However singing is a relative term.

I would already like to put the donkey's across the road out to pasture. At sun-up and sun down they go at it like newlyweds but are as loud as an old married couple arguing. It's laughable when you're working around the yard. But it's a little weird to have to explain to company what they are hearing! By the way the neighboring donkey's have a now 2 month old baby who is really cute! Gee.. Wonder why? :)

My Mom really wants baby chicks to add to her chicken harem. My Mother however will not allow me to dye the chicks awesome colors. To this I say, "Fie on YOU!".. I've always wanted one of those chicks that they dye colors at Easter. And how much better could it get than having blue, pink, purple, green and yellow chicks running around your petting zoo?!? lol

A few weeks ago Booger and I started taking horse back riding lessons from one of the young ladies at our church and we're both really enjoying it. I've learned that staying in the saddle is more difficult than I thought! By the second lesson we were learning to trot and this "matching the horses gate" is both fun and painful. lol We decided after hauling horse panels all weekend to help horses displaced by the fire in Sierra Vista. That it might be a good idea to actually know how to handle horses. Then we can be of actual help if someone with horses needed a hand for whatever reason. Plus since we go to a cowboy church we know it will come in handy to not look like such a city slicker. But maybe at some point my Daddy will decide to add that pony I've always wanted to the petting zoo! Thus knowing what to do with said imaginary, pipe dream pony would be great! lol

Skipping back to church, currently I'm getting involved in the kids ministry.
And when I say "getting involved", I actually mean I'm the kids ministry coordinator.
lol There are four of us who are taking turns teaching the kiddos.
But the kids ministry is my favorite place in the church to serve! Always has been and probably always will be. That's just where God has always lead my heart.

Now aside from church and my crazies I call parents. This is what I've been up to...

God willing and the creek don't rise and I'll be
graduating from nursing school this coming May!

I can foresee this next year FLYING by me. Last thursday I just
finished a six week job as a nanny for three little girls (They're
2yrs, 3 yrs and 9 yrs). It was a challenge at first but I think I'm
going to really miss the girls! At some point I might post some of the hilarious stuff Princess P. and Miss Koda would say and do! The picture with this post is of me playing dress up with Princess P. (Sorry it's kinda fuzzy!)

Next week I'm supposed to take a 24 hour refresher so that I can
re-up my EMT certification when it's up next spring so that I
don't have to worry about it and finishing out nursing school.

The following week is VBS at my church.

The week after that I'm going on a missions trip to Chihuahua Mexico
to do a VBS in a brick making yard with the Indians that come from the
mountains looking for work.

And the week after that I'm going up to Prescott to help take care of
two little missionary kids (2 yrs and 4 yrs old) at a
Ameritribes/Pioneers missions conference. But hopefully I'll get a
chance to meet people and network a little.

That will bring me to August! And school starts back the 24th. So that
will give me a little time to recoup and get stuff together to start
school. :)

Holy Monkies! December here I come!