abundant blessings

I read today on another blog (I hope she doesn't mind my continuing to refer to her blog) a prayer that “you get overtaken, tackled and overwhelmed by God's blessings today” in response to a passage she read in Deuteronomy that “if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God and carefully observe all His commandments, all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you.” So, sort of in response to what she has shared and because I would have shared this anyway, I’d like to rejoice over how God has been tackling and overwhelming me with blessings!

Well, to start with, this week has been like beginning to see the light at the end of a long, difficult tunnel as it relates to my work situation. Today is my Friday and I am gearing up for a much needed four-day weekend and some time away with a couple of my best girlfriends. I am SO very excited! Let me explain.

I’m starting to get to a point at work where I might actually **get caught up** so I am experiencing an exhilarating sense of joyful delight at the daily appearance of a new area of my desk that I haven’t seen in quite some time! If I could, I’d memorialize each of the moments when the desk reappeared by writing the date and time on each area! And, a few weeks ago, one of our interns got the honor of setting up all my new annual billing files for me and that was such a big deal because I had a very large “to file” pile and couldn’t do anything with it. I can’t stand to have things “to file” piling up for weeks and weeks, but it’s kind of at the bottom of the list when it comes to my work priorities; so until I got some help it had to wait. That was really the first pile of stuff to disappear from my desk. It’s been a little bit of disappearing magic each day since then.

The most beautiful blessing by far this week at work was when I had my annual review with my boss yesterday. At my first counseling appointment almost two months ago, I addressed a lot of the work-related depression issues I’ve been dealing with. One of the assignments the therapist gave me was to talk to my boss about particular issues at work and at least let her be aware of them, even if it turned out there wasn’t an immediate solution to the problem. Well, knowing my annual review was coming up, I had some time to prepare and think about what I wanted to say, how to say it and to pray for wisdom, guidance, boldness, and that my boss would be receptive and understanding to what I had to say. The agency also has us complete a preparation questionnaire to go through with our supervisor at the time of the review. I was still pretty nervous and a little anxious yesterday when the time finally came for my review, but I felt confident in what I was prepared to say and that I was doing what God would have me do, whatever the outcome or the reception from my boss.

Well, it went really well! It has to be the best review I’ve had by far. Not that I’ve ever had bad ones, per se, but I definitely felt more comfortable and confident to honestly and freely express my thoughts without dwelling on the outcome this year. And, what I had to say was both well received, appreciated, and affirmed by my boss. And, we talked about the issues I’ve had and what can be done to resolve them. We even talked about a part of my job that may need to be completely eliminated from the agency because the pay-off may not be worth the time and effort we’re putting in to it. Until now, I’ve always felt nervous about seriously looking at giving this part of my work up because I was afraid I’d talk myself out of a job. (There’s that not-trusting-God thing.) I can’t begin to express how large of a burden has been lifted from me, how much brighter the world suddenly appeared, and how deep was the sigh of relief when I walked out of her office. It was satisfying to know that my hard work and persistence is beginning to reap rewards.

And so, to celebrate, one of my bestest girlfriends ever – Laura - and I are going out of town to visit a mutual friend in Arkansas over the coming weekend! Our friend, Whitney, is a married mother of one, soon-to-be-two! and we don’t get to visit with her very often. She and her family come to town every so often and we’ll have girls’ nights out together, but this weekend is sure to be unprecedented and may never happen again for a very long time because if everything works out, the three of us girls will get to slumber party out by ourselves on Saturday night. WOO-HOO! We’re actually staying with Whitney and her family in their home Friday night. Then Saturday night, Laura and I got a hotel room in Little Rock and it’s looking good for Whitney to get to take off her mommy hat off for the night and spend some major girl time with us! I cannot wait! I’ve told this to both of them several times (it’s become sort of like our little “joke” because I say it nearly everytime we all get together and have even had to promise them I won’t go into my little speech), but really - I know how very blessed I am to have these two incredible women in my life. I’ve never had friends like them and they are the truest, most loyal, Godly, sweet, tell-it-like-it-is-with-love, challenging, encouraging, laugh out loud till our sides hurt, there-for-you-through-thick-and-thin, heart friends God could have ever blessed me with. I prayed a long time for friends like them and I have found my cup unable to contain all the blessing that they are to me!

So, this weekend, I will celebrate the blessings of sweet friendship and love, of all the majesty and mystery of who God is, the joy of our friend’s second pregnancy, the joy of being women, the joy of who God has made us to be, and all those things that girls do when they get together and just get to be daughters of the King.