God's goodness

I've had this post rolling around in my head since about 1:00 this afternoon and I've been trying to put into words what I've been thinking with limited success. So I guess I'll just go for it and do the best I can.

Around 10:00 this morning, as I was in the middle of teaching my second class, my phone rang. It was Landon calling to tell me about the interview he had just finished at a law firm pretty near our house. Of course, I couldn't pick up the phone right then but called him during the passing period, before the next group of kids began streaming into my room. He proceeded to calmly tell me that he was offered the attorney position on the spot during the interview and was going to call and accept the offer and start on Thursday. And he will now, for good, be working in Houston! Woohoo! (All of his jobs since law school, including the one he took last week were jobs that required him to be out of town 3-4 days a week.) And really, there are no words for our excitement and the thankfulness I felt at that moment. It's been a long journey and a faith building journey to get to this point, one that was hard at times and had me (and Landon, I'm sure) crying out to God that I wasn't sure if I could handle any more. But, it's been one that has drawn us closer to God and closer to one another and totally worth it.

When I hung up with Landon I ran out into the hallway and told one of my friends that teaches across the hall that he got a job at a law firm that requires NO TRAVEL and she screamed and we did a little happy dance in the hallway as our kids looked on in shock and confusion. Then, I walked back into my class and saw that the TAKS scores from the reading test my kids took a few weeks ago had come in and overall my school, and my kids, did AWESOME. Even the vast majority of those that I was worried about because they didn't pass last year, passed. I can't wait to tell them tomorrow! And while much less of a relief than Landon getting hired at a law firm in Houston, where he can actually come home each night, that was still a huge relief for me because there is so much pressure on our school right now for our scores to go up and on individual teachers for their kids to make progress.

So at this point, I'm basically walking on cloud nine until, on my lunch break, I see on MckMama's blog that Stellan, their baby who they were told would surely die but was healed, was back in the hospital with the same heart condition he had while in the womb. If you haven't been to her blog, check it out and please be praying for this sweet baby. As I read through her words and hear her saying over and over again that the trials they are going through are for God's glory and His good and that they are achieving an eternal glory, I am torn. My heart is sinking for this family and what they're going through and my heart is also even more overwhelmed with the goodness of our God, who would choose to love us so lavishly, and I am also comforted knowing that this God who loves so lavishly is holding baby Stellan in His hands.

So I guess what I'm trying to say, what the point of all of this rambling is, is that I was feeling so completely overwhelmed by God's goodness and mercy on us because He does not owe us these blessings and He definitely did not have to bestow them upon us. He could have kept Landon working at the job He gave him last week, where he was driving to Tyler for the week and coming home on the weekends which, while definitely a blessing, was hard for us. Especially since we'd been doing the out of town during the week for work thing since last October. Or he could have kept him without a job for a while. And those options, while much harder for us, would have been just as OK because the end result of everything is for God to be glorified. And they would have been OK because, just like Stellan's sickness was not a surprise to God, our hard times and struggles would not be a surprise to him. But, this time, He didn't. When the oil and gas company that Landon worked for suddenly became without work, God provided him a good paying legal temp job within 2 weeks, which he began the day before his last paycheck from the oil and gas company arrived. And then, outdoing Himself, less than a week later, God provided Him with a job that seems pretty much perfect. It was almost more than we could have asked for and came so quickly. And all of this in an economy and a time in our country such as this, which just shows His power and might all the more. We are in awe. And the more I become aware of that and that hard times are not a curse from God and that in the hard times He is just as much God, never changing, still loving, still blessing, still drawing us to Him, makes me so much more thankful and overwhelmed at the goodness and graciousness that our Heavenly Father has shown us over the journey of these last 3 weeks, and even more so over the last year since Landon graduated from law school.

And we've spent the night marveling at His goodness, praying prayers of thanksgiving and celebrating with Chinese food, Dancing with the Stars and Americas Tres Leches cake, the dessert which is practically heaven on Earth to Landon. And let me tell you, seeing my husband as happy as he is tonight, with the weight of the job search off of his shoulders, is perhaps one of the biggest blessings of all.