The Calm After The Storm (and boy did it get cold all of a sudden!!!)...

Well, Wilma is gone, and what helped push her south of us and across our lovely state so quickly was this big cold front. So this morning, as I took the dog out to do his business, I was freezing my hiney off!!! It dropped from 85 and so humid you felt like you needed gills to breathe, to 60 degrees with 30 mph winds from the north---along with torrential rain. I know, 60 is warm compared to a lot of people "north" of here, but a drop in temp that drastic around here makes you pull the hoodies and jeans out (if all of your clothes like that aren't in storage--"ahem"). So Wilma only brought rain around here, which was good for our area since we were -10" for yearly rainfall as we're getting ready to exit the "rainy season". I know our neighbors to the south didn't fare so well, but it's almost becoming the norm to have to deal with hurricanes around here. (If you live in Florida or any of the Gulf states, that's part of life.)

School was canceled today, so the kids and I had yummy, gooey banana pancakes for breakfast (and Rocky did too, he devoured the one I burnt, so I made him another one!!!). Jerry had to go to work today, he was hoping they'd cancel, but of course they'd rather pay for work done, not people sitting at home. Today's agenda is to finish all of the laundry and do some stuff around the house, and the kiddies are playing outside in the cool weather.

The Funk I'm In...

I'm still stuck in my weird funk, but trying to get out. How do you know what is the right path to follow? It's just hard to figure it out sometimes. Was coming back to the Tampa area the right thing? (As in, we're going through all of this because maybe Satan wants us to think we're not in the right place, but we are.) Or was it the wrong decision to come back here? (As in, God's making everything go wrong because this isn't where we're supposed to be, and we should consider different options.)

I don't know, maybe it's not as simple as all of that. I just know that all day yesterday, half the night (being up watching storm info), and most of this morning I kept thinking that God's not finished with us in youth ministry. I don't know if this sounds selfish or vain, but I like the feeling of being a "youth pastor's wife", of feeling that my role as a wife/supporter is important to making ministry happen. I like having my kids immersed in a church, to the extent that can't really happen unless you're on staff.

Thinking about this past summer, one of the coolest things was how quickly my kids took to the youth, and how quickly the youth accepted my kids and loved them. I miss having the contact and relationships, of feeling relevant and needed, and having a great influence on the "kids"...especially the girls.

I feel useless right now, and I feel like I need to be needed in this way. I think it's part of the "curse" of the calling, to feel like this. I know my faith has really been wavering lately, but every time we talk about walking away from YM, this urge to follow the same road (over and over again) comes back stronger and stronger every time. Sometimes I think I get the urge before Jerry does, but maybe not.

Sure, I want to finish my degree so I can teach, but even stronger than that, I want our family to be super-immersed in ministry again. I want to do all of the trips, activities and retreats, and have to opportunity to be used....like I was starting to feel again this summer.