Some Things Change...but Some Don't

So I knew some things would surely have to change a bit once I started working.  

And they have.

These days, I have more of this that piles up in various places

I have more projects like this that just aren't going to get done anytime soon.

My plants are crying...or dying...or, let's just face it...gone.

But friends, there is one thing that isn't going away.

That's right, you are looking at a pot of homemade chicken and dumplings I whipped up in between school and evening band practice.  Real whole chicken, boiled and deboned.  Real chicken stock, not that canned nonsense (ok, I admit, I have some of that in the pantry for emergencies but it's not in this pot, baby).  Bisquick dumplings rolled out on the counter with a real rolling pin (bonus points to anyone who still owns one much less uses it anymore), cut one-by-one and dropped meticulously into the rolling boil of rich chicken goodness.  (Ok, I dumped in the last few pieces all in a clump because it was taking WAY too long).

I'm not bragging.  Well, maybe I am a little.  But just so we all feel on even ground, it's ok to be jealous of manna from heaven in a stewpot.  Or of me and my happy tummy tonight.

Some things change...but some things don't.

Going out to eat is awesome.  I love it.  Take out is awesome.  I love it too.  Junk food is the bomb.  I love it a little too much.

But nothing compares to home cooking.

There is nothing negative about it.

Well, except for this part.

But one of the happy changes of me working?  My job isn't doing dishes!

(Now I KNOW you are jealous)

More Than Just Music

In high school, one of the most stressing questions for me was what I was going to be when I grew up.  I only wish I had possessed the wisdom to quit taking the battery of tests that would try and define that question and simply responded with the healthy truth.

I am going to be me.

And then, instead of the pressure of trying to define a particular profession I might or might not really do, maybe I could have focused more on my strengths and giftings with the purpose of using those in whatever interests or jobs I found myself doing in life.

I trained to teach music.  But I am more than "just music."  I took a secretarial desk job that morphed into insurance adjuster.  But I am more than "just office worker."  I ended up being a mother four times over.  But I am more than "just mom."  I just got done with two years of volunteer Africa missions.  But I am more than "just Africa."

My school day is now centered around band, but I have another responsibility as well.  When I am not involved in band classes, I pack up my laptop and walk to the other side of campus where I have a quiet (Africa-themed) office.  And there, I suspect, I will fully learn just what "me" is capable of.

The other half of my job is Administrative Assistant to the President of Shiloh Christian School.  Not to be confused with personal secretary or filer girl which wouldn't be exciting to me at all, my job is like Special Ops...I get to do all of the interesting projects nobody else has time for.

Band is easy.  I walk in the room and I know what to do.  I can teach the instruments, I can sing the parts, I can tap the rhythms, I can march the drill and I can clean the petrified food out of the hidden corners of the band hall all while taking roll and telling someone to use more air and raising my eyebrows at the tuba player doing a funny little dance in the back of the room.

But the admin job will stretch me.  I will have to get good at things that aren't currently second nature.  I will have to learn skills I don't currently possess.  But I am not coming in unprepared.  I will be tapping into my natural love of organization, my adamant need for near-perfection excellence and the social leadership skills (yes, I said social and leadership in the same sentence) that I learned over my last two years in missions.

And I am excited.

This is me, the whole thing.  The teaching, the music, the organization, the administration and the joy of knowing I am using my gifts in two completely different areas I am capable in.  This is a job I could have never dreamed up for myself.  It's a job in which I have been placed for this moment of time.

I'm so glad I said yes to being "more than just". 

It All Comes Back Around

When I was in elementary school, I thought it was the coolest thing when my Dad starting teaching band, utilizing his college degree he had set aside for a number of years. A few years later I thought it was amazing when my Mom, armed with only a vocal education degree, went back to school and got her certification to teach band too.  I jumped right in and became a band geek myself in junior high and high school, and although I didn't particularly want to make a career of it, in the end it was really all I knew how to do.

So I got my degree in Instrumental Music Education compliments of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

After marriage and graduation, Wes and I moved to Northwest Arkansas.  Having just completed 4 1/2 years of intense schooling, I was sick of music so I applied for a secretarial-type job to bide the time until we started a family.  

I remember in my job interview I was asked what my degree was.  When I answered, I was told "Well, there aren't any musical instruments around here."

Although I still got the job, I couldn't help but cringe a little.

Meanwhile my parents were still team teaching band and choir at my high school and my brother, who had followed in my footsteps, graduated with his own band degree and was carving out a teaching career in Texas.

It has been roughly 14 years since that time, and although I have been involved in some sporadic music endeavors along the way, I have mostly been a stay-at-home mom; never have I taught officially.

Until now.  Where I am daily surrounded by musical instruments.

I am the Assistant Band Director at Shiloh Christian School and so proud to be using the gifts I have in the area of teaching and music.  I have no idea why now, but I am excited for the opportunity.  Although my parents have retired, my brother is now Head Director at his school in Texas.  Tyler, my oldest, is starting his second year of band and is quite talented if I do say so myself.  (He thinks he wants to be a chef when he grows up, but we shall see, won't we?)

It's funny how it all comes back around.  

A Job Made Just for Me

A simple conversation with someone in a hallway, within minutes on the heels of tears and prayer and the submission of my own will.

An awkward email to someone else composed hours later, me throwing myself out there, inquiring to the possibilities, if there even were any possibilities.

Me wondering what in the world I was thinking, sure it would come to nothing.

An immediate response that caused my knees to buckle.

A meeting. 

An opening I didn't even know existed that was now being silently held.

A conversation between two people, unknown to me, the converging of the earlier simple conversation and the awkward email set into motion without my knowledge or manipulation.

The creation and offer of a part time + part time = full time job, utilizing my best gifts to help two different people in a unique way, created just for me, just for now.

The wonder and awe that still hasn't gone away.

The Next Step

Malawi to...Shiloh??



So I thought I had my life all figured out.  I guess it's a common mistake to make, that arrogant settling into something like we're the boss of things.  Especially settling into a holy something.  Super especially settling into a holy something that you like and are good at (and bonus points that it involves widows and orphans halfway across the world).

But here's the deal:  I knew for a fact God had yanked me right out of my comfort zone three years ago and called me to Malawi--and I was energized.  Shortly after I got home, I went right back again--and I was on fire for the holy work.  After that, I threw myself into full-time volunteer Africa missons.  It seemed perfect for me.  I learned and grew and discovered good things about myself I never knew.  I helped people.  I helped the ministry.  But it was draining me, and I was struggling to find and maintain a healthy balance.  For I quickly grew to love the work and the attention and the satisfaction more than I loved anything else.

This past May, after a couple years of breakneck pace and some increasing instances of insight into the less flattering side of myself that literally brought me to my knees, I gave in.

Not gave up.  There's a difference.

I gave in to the possibility that maybe I was supposed to be done here, no matter how unfathomable it seemed (who decides to be done with a holy work they love and are good at??)  But I silently and with many tears agreed to open up a crack in the door of possibility.   Just like when this started, I surrendered to whatever God had for me.

Three years ago I knew it was Africa.

But the day I surrendered (literally within an hour), events were put into motion that undoubtedly and unequivacally confirmed within a matter of days my new calling.

God was calling me to Shiloh.

Rising from the Ashes

It's hard to write when you are struggling to simply breathe.  But sometimes life gets that way--the crazed striving, the struggle to go and do and do some more.  And in the midst of the whirlwind, when all the air and life and good is sucked out like a vacuum and you feel like there is nothing left to give and do--well, there is a choice to make.  Mine was a hard choice, agonizing and full of grief.  It was a surrender to myself, an acknowledgement that I am not made to be my own master.  It was a slumping of the shoulders, it was hot tears, it was a gaping hole in who I had identified myself to be as I opened myself to the possibility of allowing God to show me who He wanted me to be.

I just want to be me.

This was my heart's cry in the midst of the confusion.

Who am I and what am I supposed to do?

God answered, and with cautious joy I am trusting.


Isaiah 43:19 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.