ah-ha!

I had an epiphany yesterday. We continue to suffer through tough times here, and despair seems to have unpacked its bags and settled in . NOT a happy feeling. But back to the epiphany. Tears were starting to prick at my eyes, and to stave them off I dug into a prayer. Help! (Yes, Anne Lammott and I are in full agreement on this.) In addition to that exclamatory invitation into my chaos, I got specific. "Give me strength, give me courage, give me wisdom, give me insight..." and that's when the epiphany struck. "Wait a minute," I thought. "I already have those things." 

Hmm. It seems, then, that I am not needful of those attributes. Instead I appear to be having difficulty accessing them. Which means that something is in the way. Of course now my thinking shifts from the theological to the psychological, but that's okay. God oversees that, too, in my opinion. The important thing is that I am reminded that I already have the tools to move from my current position on the "stuck" board. That doesn't mean anything gets easier. Like on The Amazing Race, the sorting out of one puzzle simply moves you onto the next one. But. It's one puzzle closer to the light. 

I'm trying to feel optimistic about this. It is, of course, helpful to clarify and redirect my prayer. It's amusing to think of the image of the dog digging, with its butt in the air (metaphor has always been my preference at times like this). There is, after all, nothing graceful about doing messy work. The grace is that the epiphany occurred, and that I can laugh about my butt being in the air, and that all of this has mysteriously drawn me closer to God rather than distancing me from him or her (something that, truthfully, has been at risk).

The upshot? I need to find a job. I need a job with flexible hours, part to full time. The flexibility thing probably means a job I can do from home. Until I can build my business up to generate enough revenue to fill the gap of our necessity, we need a reliable and consistent revenue stream.  Even minimum wage, which is likely.

It's not pretty. But the alternative is worse still. Here's to digging.