Job Update

I know a few of you have been following my job situation and are wondering what's going on.

Here's a brief recap: Last fall, I accepted a 6-month contract position for a Christian school in our area to help plan and coordinate their annual Benefit auction. I knew there was a possibility they would offer me a full-time job for next year and I did receive that offer. To complicate the decision, we've had some financial changes this year and the added income seemed not only helpful, but necessary. I began to become convinced that I was going to need to get a full-time job somewhere, so this opportunity where my children could also go to school seemed ideal.

Well, after weeks of indecision and waiting for information (and then several sleepless nights this week), I have decided to NOT accept the job. As much as part of me wanted to accept it, Mike and I both agree this is just not the right time.

Instead, we have decided that I will go back to teaching piano lessons again this fall. After taking a year off of teaching (which was after 5 years of teaching), the Lord actually used someone at church last Sunday (actually, there's a funny story about that) to remind me that I have this opportunity and gift to share with children who want to learn to play the piano and I can do that while still truly focusing on my family. It is flexible, it is obviously family-friendly, and it doesn’t get much better than getting paid to sit in your own house, with “clients” coming to you, to learn to do the thing that brings you tremendous joy. Combining teaching again with cutting back in some “luxury” areas of our life (and we're talking things like cable TV here, so this is kind of a laugh because we do NOT live lavishly!) will provide what we need financially.

After making this decision on Tuesday night and notifying the school yesterday, I began to feel an enormous weight lift off my shoulders and a deep peace settle in its place. I am SO grateful. I was already excited about Tinsaye coming, but I’m even more excited now because I know that I don’t have to try to figure out how to transition him into our family, walk along side him in his grief, and help him get to know his brother and sisters and friends with the added pressure of working outside our home.

I’m excited about continuing to homeschool our kids and meet them exactly where they are academically and get to go deeper into some of the subjects that interest us most.

And several people have asked how I feel about teaching piano again. Well, I’m actually very excited about teaching piano again – it’s amazing how when we let the Lord into our hearts and ask Him to do HIS will in our lives (instead of insisting on our own!), He truly instills in us not just the ability, but the desire to follow through. (Psalm 37:4-6: "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.")

God is so faithful to wait patiently for me to see His plan for our family.