Focusing

Lately the message I seem to be hearing is to not focus on circumstances, opportunities, bills, issues, challenges, people - whatever.  Just keep my eyes on God and we can endure the ups and downs.  Sure seems to be helping.  A few opportunities that looked promising have either been postponed or outright gone.  But those opportunities are not the source of our blessings and future.  Maybe God gave them to me on a bad day to encourage me to get through that time or distract me and give me hope.  So when the doors close or when issues arise, I have the choice to get discouraged or to thank God for our daily manna and recognize that His plan hasn't changed for me - just my view of it.  He has been unbelievable in His provision lately - unexpected rebate checks, anonymous gift cards, incredible sales and savings, on and on and on.  Sometimes I have to laugh right out loud at the way He comes through.  But always trying to be positive and thankful and recognizing the Source.

When I went online to find a picture for this blog, I found these three.  So I made a collage.  And as I am working on this, the Praise and Worship page on Pandora is playing the perfect songs to confirm what I am writing.

Looking forward to how God is going to come through - and I am sure it won't be in a way I am expecting...

Connecting

Things have been connecting around here the past few days.  Someone left Lucie an anonymous gift card (thank you Jesus!), I got my jury duty pay, a $5 rebate from the pharmacy, and a call from the security guys I do some occasional consulting work for wanting me to do some background investigations for them.  Not steady work, but I can work from home and I will take about anything at this point.  The big connection of the day though was me finishing a project I have worked on for years - running Ethernet from the router upstairs at one end of the house to the living room downstairs at the other end of the house.  I have had all of the cables and connectors and the switch I need - just logistically it was very hard.  So a long time ago I ran the wire up to the attic and let it sit.  Finally, over the past two days, I managed to get it snaked down to the basement and back up to the living room.  Now the Tivo and Blu Ray player are wired in (previously they were on the much slower and less reliable wifi network).  I also ran a couple of leads so we can hook in the laptops if we need super fast speeds.  The most amazing part of the whole thing is that not only did I not get hurt, break anything or have leftover pieces, it worked the first time!

And another huge connection of the day was Elliott interviewing at the local Walgreen's pharmacy for a summer job.  It is about a mile and a half away and inside.  He filled out his online application, went in and did their online aptitude test, and interviewed today.  All is looking fine and he will do his drug screen tomorrow.  That just leaves one more family member to get employed...