What Am I Going To Do with My Life?

Normally, this is a question that a person would ask themselves in high school? But, here I am 39 years old and asking myself “What am I going to do with my life?”

When I was in high school, college wasn’t even a consideration. I knew that my family didn’t have the money, and I received absolutely no guidance from the so-called “guidance counselor”. I didn’t even know that I had “options” (student loans). I didn’t even bother to take my SAT/ACT…pathetic isn’t it? So, I started a career in Business at the early age of 15 typing banquet order forms for a catering office at a hotel. Through the years, I continued to excel and I am currently an Executive Assistant for the CEO at an environmental firm. I’m not trying to boast, but I’m very good at what I do, so I always assumed that the "corporate world" was what I was going to do for the rest of my life. Continue to move up the ladder and some day be an executive. The pay is good and the benefits are great. What more could I ask for?

A LOT MORE…contentment, happiness, satisfaction…actually living life…not just existing and going through the motions day-to-day.

I have taken those “career tests” and "personality tests" in the past, and always answered them based on what I was good at. I figured that if I was good at it, then I enjoyed it. Needless to say, by answering the tests like that, it always came up with the same result…Business! I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

I started college almost a year ago and it opened me up to so many things that I had not considered. I have learned more about my interests and passions in the past year than I have my entire life-time.

A couple of days ago, I went back and took some of those same tests and truly answered them based on what I enjoyed…not what I was good at. The results came out very different!

It appears that Natural Science and Entrepreneurship are my top interests….hmmm, who would have thunk!

I do not want to spend the rest of my life doing something just because I’m good at it. I want to do something that I’m going to enjoy doing. I want to find satisfaction in doing something that I love and make a difference.

So now, I’m faced with the dilemma….

What am I going to do with my life?

Right now your guess is as good as mine…but I’m determined to keep searching until I figure it out.

God...I'm Done with My Temper-Tantrum...

Yes…I admit it. I have been having a temper tantrum for the last several years. Yes, you read that right…years!

I have been angry with God for the past several years, and just within the past six months or so I’ve realized that I’m done with my temper tantrum and ready to move on.

What caused my temper-tantrum?

I will never forget the night I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior at Camp ID-RA-HA-JE. I was 12 years old and it was one of the most powerful experiences I have ever encountered in my life. However, I didn’t become serious about my walk with the Lord until I was around 23 years old. What an incredible relationship I had with HIM! He was truly my breath of life every morning and what sustained me every second of every day. I never knew such love, peace, and comfort that could bring me incredible joy and happiness. He was constantly by my side and my time with Him grew more and more incredible each day.

And then things changed.

About seven years ago, things got really tough. Our family experienced financial hardship, which in turn caused a domino effect of problems from finances to personal issues. At the time, I felt that my faith remained strong.

And then it happened.

It felt as if one day the Lord just decided to pack up His bags and hit the road and leave me frail and helpless in the middle of my crises. I can go back and read page after page in my journal - crying out to the Lord, begging Him to be near me again. I wasn't asking Him to deliver me from my physical afflictions- but to just let me feel His presence again. “Lord! Lord! Lord!” I’d cry out. “Where are you? I need you! I need you more than ever…I can’t do this without you…” and NOTHING. Where had my God gone? Where was He in my most desperate time of need? Doesn’t the Bible promise that if we call out to Him, that He will be there?

Little was I to know, that my quest for God and personal hardships had just begun…

I shared my struggles with a few very close friends, and they did their very best to comfort me and encourage me. They reminded me of God’s promises and spoke all the right “Christianese” to me, and my struggles seemed to get worse.

Being a Christian, I knew all the stuff I was supposed to do – read my Bible, pray, pray, pray, read my Bible some more, pray some more, seek Godly counsel, pray some more, read my Bible some more, etc. I did do those things for a while, and it seemed like the more I did them, the harder my struggles became. Finally my struggles took over and consumed me and I just stopped. I stopped seeking for my Lord because I couldn’t handle the rejection anymore. It seemed that everything I had read, everything I had been taught, everything I believed about God was a lie. Where was my Comforter, my Shepherd, the guy that was supposed to carry me through my hardships (Footprints)? I became bitter, angry, and questioned everything I had ever known about my faith. Was all of this really true? How come the church never told me about this part of my relationship with Christ? All I had ever heard was how great it was. I was confused, I felt the ultimate rejection, and NO ONE had any answers for me. Was I done with this thing called Christianity? Was God real? If He was, why had He allowed this to happen to me?

I had so many questions, NO answers, and no where to turn. I felt abandoned. I felt lost. I felt alone. I felt frustrated. I felt fear. I felt hopeless. I felt defeated. I felt anger. I literally wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

*I look forward to sharing more with you in future blogs. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments.

ARGHHHH!!...I WANT MY OWN ROOM!!!

I have lived with my husband for the past 21 years of my life and we have always shared a room/bed. Up until the past few years, this has not been a problem. Now all of a sudden all I desire is a peaceful night’s rest without my husband interrupting it with his snoring and tossing and turning. I have noticed that on occasion when we don’t sleep together (he or I are out of town, etc.) how incredible my night’s rest is and how great it is to wake up feeling refreshed and energized…unlike the mornings that I share my bed with him. Here is a typical night’s sleep for me:

8:30 pm - Mike goes to bed and I stay up.

10:00 pm - I go to get into bed and Mike has his head in the upper left-hand corner of the bed and his feet in the lower right-hand corner of the bed. So basically, he has taken up the entire bed by sleeping diagonally. I crawl into bed and gently move his legs to his side of the bed. I watch the news.

10:30 pm - I shut off the light and settle in to fall asleep.

12:00 am - Mike is on his side and snoring in my ear. I gently wake him up and tell him to roll over. I go back to sleep.

12:30 am - Mike has rolled over onto his back and there is a freight train going through my bedroom. I wake him up and tell him to roll over onto his side.

1:45 am - I wake up because there is so much tossing and turning going on from “you know who.” He finally settles down and I fall back asleep.

2:25 am - Mike is on his side, snoring. I toss and turn as hard as I can so he wakes up a little bit and stops snoring.

3:05 am - Mike is on his side again, and snoring in my ear, but this time he has pushed me up against the edge of my side of the bed so that I have no room. I’m mad now. I push his shoulder rather abruptly and tell him to scoot over because he is hogging the bed and SNORING IN MY EAR!!

3:40 am - Mike is once again sleeping diagonally. I kick his legs (hard) (because I’m mad) until he is back on his side of the bed.

4:10 am - WHAT THE HECK…THE FREIGHT TRAIN IS BACK. I’ve had it! I get up, grab my pillow and head for the couch. This is ridiculous!

4:45 am - I’m supposed to get up and go to the gym. Mike is up and he’s all ready to go…bouncing around like a rabbit (because he has had plenty of restful sleep.) He wakes me up “Are you going to the gym?” I look at him sternly and think “Are you kiddin’ me?” I tell him no and go back to sleep. I have the best two hours sleep that I’ve had all night…Mike is at the gym and I have the bed all to myself!

So, that my friend’s is why I want my own room. Now some of you are thinking, “well, share a room and just get separate beds.” That is not going to work! I already have the majority of the dresser and closet space, and I still need more…hence having my own room would be perfect! And….don’t even get me started about having my own bathroom…

Please...Somebody Shut Off My Brain!!

Ok…so now I know why everyone is addicted to blogging. My mind has not shut off since I decided to start a blog. I keep thinking about all the stuff I want to blog about and all the stuff everyone is waiting on the edge of your seat for me to say (see previous blog)! My brain just keeps spinning and spinning and spinning…the ideas just keep coming and coming and coming! It’s enough to push me over that edge of insanity that I teeter on a daily basis!

But in the mean time…welcome to my journey through this thing called life. Some of you know me very well, and won’t be surprised by the things I have to say…others will be surprised by the things I have to say…others will judge me and determine that I’m a lost soul and will be going straight to H-E-Double Hockey Sticks…and yet others will just shake their heads and decide that they just feel sorry for me! But either way, I have determined that there will be times that I will be more transparent than what some people are comfortable with and that my blog is going to be a true reflection of who I truly am. So prepared or not…here I go… ~keri

p.s. This blog site is a "work in progress". If I wait to get it “perfect”, I won’t “hop on the bandwagon” for another 6 months!

OK...I'm a Hypocrite!

The following conversation took place between a good friend of mine and I. I started the conversation by saying:

“I’ve decided that I hate blogging.”

“Do you have a blog?”

“No, but I’ve just spent the last two hours looking at other people’s blogs and it was a complete waste of my time.”

“Why is that?”

“Everyone thinks that they have something significant to say and that other people actually want to hear it…when in all reality they were really saying nothing the entire time.”

“Yes, I’ve read some blogs like that myself. You know I have a blog right?”

“No, I didn’t know that. Why?”

“It’s mainly for my family. Because they live in another state, it’s a great way to keep them involved in our lives.”

I stop and think a moment…my family lives in Minnesota…I’m here in Colorado…my family is always wanting more pics and communication and I am terrible at it….hmmmm…maybe I should start a blog…

I reply, “Hey, can you tell me how to set up a blog?”

{Oh…and for those of you that know me, this will come as no surprise, but I’m a rebel without a cause. For the longest time, I refused to even look at blogs because I wasn’t about to do what “everybody else was doing”…I don’t have a reason…I just HATE hopping on bandwagons!}

So, here it is…my blog…where you too can waste your time reading about things that I feel are significant and OF COURSE everyone wants to hear about them!

~keri