Haha!

God SOOOO knows when I need a little encouragment.

Today, not feeling so hot, just kinda blah.
I decide to go get myself a coffee but in order to get as much sunshine as i can, i took the long way around Rehab outside as opposed to inside.

I walk up to the doors that go into the lobby and there's a few patients hanging around outside the door - usually smoking, but this one guy was just sitting in his wheelchair, he looks at me and yells out "Hey, did your boyfriend tell you that you look beautiful this morning?"
... i keep walking up the path, smile and say, "uh... no".
I wasn't about to get into an "i don't have a boyfriend" conversation because those usually go a way I don't like.

Especially with patients.

He replies "well then give him shit!".

ha! ...
I laugh and tell him thanks as I walk into the building.

He made my day.

Like i said, sometimes God uses the most unusual people to encourage you when you need it most...

An Un-Career?

I was emailling a friend this am when I started to really ponder the expectations of a worldly life.
Career and Family come to mind.

What if we chose NOT to live that way. Okay. Forget that. What if "I" chose not to live that way. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go out and attempt some form of a new anti-work cult or phenomenon, BUT... what if we were meant to live for so much more. I'm talking about career, not family. Family IS important.

Let me explain.

For the past 6 years I've been trying to figure out what i want to "do" with my life. Scrap that. For ALL OF MY LIFE I have been trying to discover who I really am and what my purpose is. I have passions for certain things, I have giftings and abilities in certain areas, I am able to do this or that... God's given me opportunities for various experiences that have really changed who I am or where I'm going.
Yes, I know, I'm still being vague.
But this is my point. What if life is NOT based on obtaining some sort of skill set in a particular area and living it out for the rest of one's life. What if life is more about the experiences and the adventures, more about the being and impacting than about the doing and making. Maybe that's why people tend to 'change their career' at least 6 times...

I believe there is truth in the difference between 'working to live' and 'living to work'. I see way too many people "living to work" and falling hard when they stop because they know nothing else. I have known people who, within 6 months of retiring or after retiring, die - never getting the chance to complete their "bucket-list" or life-fulfilling intentions.
Who, i want to know, WHO decided that one MUST live their life in a molded career in order to be socially accepted as a responsible adult. Really, I do.
I have always joked that perhaps i'm not meant to live a long life because I was never "driven" to become something in particular. My life-long dream goal was never to "be a mommy" as so many of my friends have told me they want, or to be a nurse, or a lawyer, or ... whatever the rest of my family members have found themselves doing. I can never see myself 'doing' certain things for the rest of my life. I have always wanted different things (and then some! I want a family too, i want to get married and have a family... but I know it will happen in time, God's time and God-willing).
But what if, now I know this might be out of the box, but what if we were designed for a 'work to live' life?
WHAT IF:
~we made money only so that we could give it away and actually do something with it.
~we focused more on our 'after-work' life than our 'work-life'.
~the first question we asked people was 'so, what do you do that gives you joy' rather than 'so, where do you work/what do you do?' -- in fact, i think the next time that someone asks me what I do I'm going to tell them that "I live". - [This past weekend at a family reunion I had a cousin of my dad ask me what I do and i looked at her and said "lots". She looked at me critically and said "I remember your parents saying something about school, but I can't remember what exactly." I smiled and said "yeah, there is that.. ... but i think I should find out what they said I did exactly before I can agree or deny! Haha." I think my response shocked her. I didn't have the answer she expected. I didn't say "I work at ____" or "I'm a(n) ______". I do lots. And the majority of it brings me more joy than anything and no cash.]

-- it kinda reminds me of that part in Ever After where the Prince tells Danielle that she has more passion for books and life in the few statements she shares and the few books she's been opportuned to read in her peasant upbringing than all the book scholars and librarians and teachers and other intelligent influences he's had in his priviledged life.

I think we need to live with passion. We need to find somethign that we LOVE to do... and DO it. No matter the cost.

My heart is torn and herein lay the problem. I WANT to become someone of influence. I want to be a joy to the Lord always. I want to impact the lives of my friends in whatever way i possibly can. At the same time, I also want to do something that represents a career or work-life, and something that I enjoy. I guess the two can be intertwined or one in the same, but.... to find out what that is remains a work in progress.