Give Thanks in All Things

Sunday afternoon I sat down to give a lesson to the girls I visit teach after church. I checked my phone and saw that my sister had called (she rarely calls) and texted, asking me to call her ASAP. I was surprised and wondered what it would be about, since that seemed unusually urgent. I didn't call right then, though, since I was about to visit teach, and I'm glad I didn't because I wouldn't have been able to focus.

She called to tell me that someone had broken into our house and stolen some things. Broken in I guess isn't the right term, since the door had been unlocked. When I'd left earlier that day, my hands were full so I asked my niece to close the door behind me. She's four, so obviously she didn't think to lock it. Then my sister took the kids to the library, and they went out the garage door so they didn't think to check or lock the front door either.

When they got home from the library, my nephew went downstairs to play the PlayStation and it wasn't there. He asked my sister if she'd taken it and it was only then that they realized her iPad was also gone. My room is in the basement, where the PlayStation is, so they checked my room and all the drawers from my jewelry box were out and completely empty. She called to ask what else might be missing from my room, so I asked her to look for my passport. Fortunately, I don't own many valuable things, so I wasn't too concerned. After I hung up (I was driving home), I remembered my laptop had been on my bed, so I called her to tell her about that and sure enough, it was gone. In all, whoever it was took my laptop, my jewelry, the PlayStation, her iPad, her nice camera, and some cash from the kitchen. My jewelry is clearly all made from plastic or metal, so I'm not sure why this person considered it important enough to steal, but I make no claim to understand the thinking of a criminal.

Obviously, having your stuff stolen is incredibly inconvenient and financially costly, not to mention disconcerting, but even in this situation it is so clear to me how much we have to be grateful for. I made a list that night, and as I was writing I was overwhelmed by how much Heavenly Father was looking out for us. Sometimes we are the victims of other people's poor choices, and Heavenly Father won't always step in because those choices need to have consequences and He values our agency. But when He can, and in whatever way He can, He will help us and protect us and bless us. Here are just fifteen things I had to be grateful for Sunday night.

1. They didn't steal more. We have several other expensive items in the house that they passed over, either because they didn't find them or, assumedly, they couldn't carry them.
2. My computer was old, and it'd been pretty cheap when I bought it anyway, so I'm not out that much money for that.
3. I recently got some cash to take to Turkey with me. It was in my wallet, and since I had recently lost my wallet I had thought of taking the money out and putting it in my room so I didn't lose it. I'd forgotten to take it out, though, so it was safely in my purse at church with me.
4. My wallet and my phone were with me and Tessa had hers with her as well.
5. They didn't take my passport, which was on my nightstand in plain view. I'm leaving for Turkey on Friday, and there's no way I could've gotten a new one in time. I wouldn't have been able to go.
6. I have a computer at work that I can use, and Tessa has a desktop computer. So even though I no longer have my laptop computer, I still have easy access to one.
7. That weekend I'd been working on my master's thesis (which turned out to be 54 pages), which was due this week. I'd saved it to my online dropbox, though, so I didn't lose it. If I had saved that to my computer, I would have DIED.
8. They didn't empty my entire jewelry box. There were two sections that they didn't notice, so they left those untouched and those two sections had most of the jewelry I wear most often.
9. When dumping the jewelry into their bag (I assume), they dropped a few on the floor. Most of them no longer had their match, but one pair did and it was my favorite pair.
10. Most of my jewelry is cheap anyway. No diamonds or precious stones for me.
11. They left important documents with personal information on them, so it doesn't appear that they were looking to steal my identity.
12. Tessa had the serial number for her iPad so if by chance they track one down, they'll be able to identify it as hers.
13. I make my bed every day. When I came home, my bed was made so I knew that whoever had been in my room hadn't been in my bed. I don't know why this even occurred to me, but there are people in the world who do weird things. And I think if my bed had been unmade, I would've wondered if someone had sat on my bed. Or touched my sheets. Or even been in my bed. And that would've creeped me out. But my bed was made when I left and it was made when I got home, so unless there's a burglar out there who is particular enough to unmake and remake a bed they have messed with, I felt just a tad bit more secure.
14. Tessa took all the kids with her to the library because she was going to take them to their dad's house afterwards. They didn't end up going to his house right away, though. If the oldest (12 years-old) had known that, he probably wouldn't have gone with them at all. And he would've been in the basement, on his PlayStation, with his headset on, completely oblivious to any noise or anything else going on until there was someone right there in the room with him. And who knows what would've happened. But it didn't. Because he was safe with my sister.
15. No one was home. I know this doesn't seem like a blessing, since no one would have probably entered if we had been there. But there's no way of knowing. One thing I've learned in life is that we have no idea when something that seems inconvenient is actually a blessing. It's unlikely, but there's a chance that the person who went into our house would have tried to do it whether people were there or not and it could have led to violence. But we weren't there. So even though we're out quite a bit of money, we're all safe.

Every once in a while I get a bit creeped out when I think about the fact that there was someone in my room going through my things. That night, it was a little bit hard to fall asleep. But overall, this has been a manifestation to me of my Heavenly Father's love and concern for me and my family. I know He's watching over us and I know he cares about our lives. Even amidst trial and tribulation, He blesses us as much as possible. He will never leave us alone.

Deuteronomy 31:8: And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.

Because I Need to

I haven't posted in a loooong time. And to be honest, I feel like I have nothing to blog about. I need to get in the shower in 9 minutes, so for the next 9 minutes I'm going to write about whatever I can think of. And share random pictures from my phone.

1. Flowers. After my grandma's funeral, my sweet best friend Jaime sent me flowers. She ordered them online and they were supposed to deliver them to me directly. I'm not home much, though, so the delivery guy just left them on the doorstep when it was like 10 degrees outside. Not the smartest, I guess. So when I got them, they were frozen and dead. Like they wouldn't even stand up straight.

So I told Jaime and she called and complained (you should make sure your product actually makes it in good shape...) so they sent new ones for free. And did the exact same thing. These weren't outside for quite as long, but they were definitely frostbitten. So she finally just called and had them refund the money. I tried to tell her to just not worry about it - I had definitely received the thought and so appreciated it, but it wasn't worth killing all the beautiful flowers in the world.

She tried again a couple of weeks ago when the weather had gotten warmer. We had a string of days with temperatures in the 50s and 60s, so she felt pretty confident sending them. Ironically, they arrived on the one day that week that was in the 30s. Tessa got them pretty quickly, though, so we finally had living flowers in the house! They were beautiful! Combined with the spring sunshine, they brightened this place right up.

2. TFA. I have only 9 weeks left as a Teach For America corps member. This picture is of me and my friends Rebecca and Kelsey at a TFA training.

Regardless of what I decide to do, I'll be done with TFA at the end of the year. Whether or not I'm done with teaching is up to me. And...I'm pretty sure I am. I've just been feeling over it and ready to move on. I talked to some people from a really awesome charter school in Chicago, though, and they convinced me to consider applying for one of the schools up there. So last week I went to Chicago on a visit to see what the schools were like. They were amazing! Every classroom was focused, engaged, and attentive, and they were getting really amazing things done. Even in that positive environment, I still didn't want to be there. I took that as a confirmation that it's ok for me to move on. I'm sure I'll miss certain things about teaching (namely, Christmas Break, Spring Break, and Summer Break), but I feel confident that this is the right thing for me to do. I'm not exactly sure what I'll do instead or where I'll end up, but I'm trying to keep an open mind and allow myself to be guided as Heavenly Father sees fit.

3. Family History. I've still been working hard on family history. One of the great side effects of doing family history work is that it makes me want to go to the temple more often, because I've got work to do! I have to go frequently or these ordinances will pile up and I won't be able to get them all done! A couple of weeks ago my mom and I went down to the temple in Louisville on a Friday night, stayed overnight in a hotel (I LOVE hotels!), and went again on Saturday. It was really nice to be in the temple and not feel rushed to get back home before it was too late. We estimated that we were able to have about 60 ordinances done - some by us and some by the youth in the baptistry. It was such a productive weekend!

4. Thesis. My master's thesis is due this week so I've been busting my butt this weekend to try to get it done. And it's not there yet. It takes so much work! I don't know what I was thinking, but I was definitely not prepared for the length of time it has taken, so I'm now looking forward to an incredibly busy and stressful week. But it will feel so good when it's done!

5. Candy Crush. I deleted candy crush from my phone over a year ago because it was a giant time sucker. But a few weeks ago I downloaded it again because I was bored (more accurately stated: I didn't want to do the things I really needed to do), and it has once again captured my mind and focus. I feel like I'm doing better about not playing it when I need to do other things, but I do play it a lot. And it's only fun some of the time. What is it about this game? I gotta get rid of it.

It has now been 17 minutes. I'm not very good at time limits, I guess. Good thing there's no one at church that I need to look good for...