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"There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage."
--Martin Luther

Saturday 28 April 2012

God Is Good

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, friends.  I don't even have a good excuse.  I've got a few post ideas rattling around my mind, but have not actually put pen to paper, or rather, fingers to keyboard.

God is good!  I say this on what should be a disappointing day.  We were supposed to move today.  I spent most of this week packing up, moving clothes, books, dishes, and subsequently unpacking them at the new house.  Gil was out of town until Thursday, so I took the opportunity to really make a huge mess dive into packing and get things done.  The hope was that today, we'd just have to move Gil's clothes and papers, as well as our couch, mattress and box spring, coffee table, and kitchen table.  Not so.  It turns out that UHaul completely messed up our order, and it being the last Saturday of the month, we were not able to find another cargo van.  Sigh...

BUT...  God is still good in this situation.  In fact, He is glorified in it.  Yesterday, instead of being in turmoil about the uncertainty (and I am a planner and very uncomfortable with uncertainty),  I spent a good time in prayer and asked for His hand in the situation.  Instead of being distressed about the delay, I was able to look at the blessings we have and remember that in a few years, this delay will be forgotten and it will seem like our time in this tiny condo was a small blip in our life together.  More than that, I was reminded of the bigger things to pray about:  character, submission, etc., rather than just focusing on, "God, this is what I want" kind of praying.  He is so good!


Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
James 4:13-15

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Weekends

...Or a lack thereof. Strangely enough, weekends have been one of the biggest adjustments in the transition to married life. I anticipated the on-call weekends being busy, and barely having the chance to see Gil, but I figured the “off” ones would be more, well, weekend-y. You see, as a bureaucrat working in Ottawa, my weeks generally went like this:
Monday – Go to work doped up on coffee, grumbling about the work week starting.
Tuesday to Thursday – Trek through the reeds, all the while counting down the days 'til the weekend.
Friday – Hot dog! Happy times are here again! Get through 8 hours of work and then the time is all mine!  (Okay, technically I know that it is God's time, but I still acted as though it was mine.)
Saturday to Sunday – Don't work. Ever.*

I don't think I realized until just now how much that cycle of building up to a weekend, then being disappointed at its brevity had made an imprint on me over five or so years. While I did like my job, I hung on to the guarantee that my weekends were for my own enjoyment, and also for getting all the stuff done that is put off when you are working full-time and busy with ministry and social activities during the week.

Even in the best of times, Gil has a tenuous grasp on weekends. He tends to spend a lot of Saturday catching up on sleep (something I am incapable of doing), and even when he's NOT on call, like last Saturday, he often goes in to check on patients. Even on Sundays, people call him to ask all kind of questions, and sometimes he is called in for urgent issues. To be honest, this was starting to bother me. Where was my weekend? I thought we were supposed to use these early months of our marriage to build memories and such. Now you're napping and I'm making Mandarin flashcards! Argh!

What I'm realizing more and more is that this is a problem of expectations. Namely, it is one thing for me to ask Gil to spend some time with me when he has days off, but it is another to ask him to ignore his needs to catch up on sleep as well as his work responsibilities. I certainly cannot expect him to know what I want to do and magically provide fun times just because he is not at work. If I continue to expect him to awake early-ish on Saturdays feeling well-rested and delighted to to go hit up museums or go furniture shopping, I will continue to be disappointed. Marriage is often about adjusting expectations to what God realistically has for us, so if weekends packed with crazy adventures are an idol based on a Hollywood movie, perhaps it is time to love the new normal and to settle in for the quieter joys of a Godly marriage.

Postlude: Interestingly, when this post was half-finished, I read this article, which really convicted me to examine my unrealistic expectations. I encourage you to go check it out!


*Okay, I'm slightly exaggerating. In truth, on many occasions I was on-call to go into work should a situation arise, but I never actually had to work.

Monday 16 April 2012

Back Home

Hi friends!  I ended up taking a longer-than-anticipated hiatus, since as soon as I returned from road-tripping, I came down with a nasty cold.  It sometimes feels like over the past few months, I've been sick more than I've been healthy.  Ah well, the spring weather is here to stay so why let a cough get me down?

I've got a few posts in the works, but here are some brief updates:

1)  Road tripping was amazing!  I have a fantastic time touring two wonderful cities, and was happy to spend good quality time with my friend Joy.  It was also great coming home to Gil as it was quickly apparent that even though he'd been super busy and barely emailed me all week, he really had missed me. 

2)  I've spent a lot of time with family over the past week.  My step-mom was in town to see my nephew Avery, and it was fun to have some time with her and with both my brothers and my sister-in-law last week.  The proximity to family is really the second best thing about being back in Toronto (after being with my husband, of course!), especially as I get to see Avery grow and change. 

3)  We *think* we have a moving date.  I don't want to say much for fear of jinxing it, but it looks like we will be in the new house in the next couple of weeks.  Now to get packing!

4)  For a while, I've been contemplating starting a new blog on my language learning experiences, both to document some of my progress and to help others who are attempting to learn a new language.  I've lately come across some similar blogs, and am encouraged to start my own, so when it's up and running, please feel free to check it out!

Monday 2 April 2012

Hitting the Road

Hi friends!


I'll be on hiatus for the next week or so.  In just a few hours, I'll be off to Ottawa, where I will meet up with my excellent friend Joy, and then we are hopping in the car to go here:


We'll spend a few days staying with my friends in Brooklyn, and then we will make our way to Washington, DC, and then back home over the weekend.  Did I mention that I'm super-excited??