Martha, Julie & Mary: Even when I walk through the valley of death...

A conversation that took place between my dad and sister on the phone on Saturday:

dad: have you read Julie's blog?

sister: no... why?

dad: she is in BIG trouble (uma GRANDE alhada)

sister: what happened?

dad: she won't say, it's to create suspense for her readers

sister: what... like her three readers?

haha. I forgot, while writing my overly dramatic post on friday, that my parents read my blog. So something I had planned on not telling them for a while gave way to frantic calls to me and my sister and strange guesses about what the mysterious job offer had been!

Well, it's not as exciting as my dad guessed it would be. On Friday I was offered a job in the Azores, where my parents live. I usually would've said no to an offer like that, seeing as it's two hours away by plane (and very expensive to get there), and I have my life here in Lisbon (perfect house by the ocean, perfect boyfriend, perfect youth group getting more perfect each day, perfect dream job sometime in the unknown future). But last week I had reached a point of extreme desperation. I was thinking it was really impossible to find a job. I would accept anything. So, when I got the phonecall, my first reaction was to say YES! Instead I said, "My first reaction is YES but let me have the weekend to think about it." Only when I got off the phone did I realize what a huge, difficult change it would be for me to go to the Azores right now. I panicked. Why weren't things going as I thought they would? Why wasn't God taking care of me and getting me a job like I trusted Him to?

I was ready to pack my bags. I immediately proceeded to cry. Then tried to pray. Then cried again. Then ate a lot of coffee-flavored icecream. (Really good by the way). Then cried some more. Then obsessively made peanut butter cups until Danny came over and talked some sense into me.

I stopped trusting and that wasn't so good. It's really hard to trust everything will be okay when things go badly, especially choices you made fully convinced they would go well. It's hard to trust when you have to let go of dreams and wishes and plans you have made, trying to control your life. It's hard to keep your eyes on Jesus when the ground beneath you is shaking and cracking.

Luckily, the weekend ended wonderfully. I really felt "in communion" with people. An amazing, incredible fantasic night with my youth group on Saturday left me feeling so blessed. After singing Taize songs, we played and laughed and danced until MIDNIGHT. Crazy kids. On Halloween, I was lucky enough to have a friend prepare a beautiful Halloween dinner at her beautiful house and invite me! It was totally cute, thoughtful and creative. It made me really happy to have her as a friend!