Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah... I have read about these men of God and have found that each of them went through a kind of training time...some of them for many, many years. And none of them were trained in easy circumstances; Joseph was a slave, Moses a fugative shepherd, David spent a few years running for his life from a crazy-man, and Elijah was exhiled and lived with a poor widow. God had a very specific purpose for each of them, a big purpose He needed them for, but first they had to learn how to trust Him. Joseph went on to be the second-in-command in Egypt and saved many lives during a famine; Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt (after Joseph was forgotten - the Egyptians decided to make the Israelites slaves, go figure), David became the greatest king Israel ever knew, and Elijah led the people away from their idols and back to the living God by standing up to a very, very bad Jezabeel. I won't go into more detail than that, but I strongly suggest you read about these things...no small feats, let me tell you. Anyway, none of them could have accomplished these things if they had not trusted God - if they had not learn to hear His voice.

I feel like I am being trained. This part of my life is wonderful in many ways, but I feel so uncertain of my future. I work at a job that makes me feel useless and very bored. I am a teacher, or at least I feel like that's what God has always called me to, but all those doors were shut, and God seems to be keeping them shut for now. From my first thoughts I've always felt that God had a big purpose for me, I have no idea what that is, but I believe He wants to use me to do something, so I am grateful for the training. I am grateful that I never have enough money, but that God ALWAYS provides; I am grateful I actually have a job, and I'm grateful I have the one God wants me to have...I will try to learn the lessons from this job He has for me. And I am so grateful that God sent me a trainer whom I call my husband - a man whose faith rarely waivers and a man who helps me see the forest and not just the trees.

God is teaching me that following Him is enough...it is enough.

Jonathan and I lead a small group at our house every Thursday evening. Besides all the other blessings we receive from this; it also requires me to clean my house at least once a week :) That sounds bad...I clean my house. I guess what I mean is that - when I know people are coming over, I look at my living space with a different eye, and that's helpful. Anyway, my very sweet husband decided to help me out and do the "before small group" cleaning a couple Thursdays ago. I gave him some ideas on what needed to be done...dishes, vaccuming with smell-good stuff, general arranging and putting away of things. Unfortunately I forgot to mention the bathroom. We are not fortunate enough to have two bathrooms, so that one can always be kept in tip-top shape, with nice lotion and hand towels. Nope, just one, so it has all our stuff strewn about, and we are prolific strewners (wow, positive that is NOT a word). Nightgown, hairdyer, make-up, little toothpaste remenant in the sink, maybe a few wiskers from Jonathan's last shave...yeah, bathroom stuff. So, anyway, I usually do a quick once over in the bathroom before people come, and add nice little touches like a candle and nicely folded hand towels, and above all, I close the shower curtain! We have a very cute shower curtain, and we have one of those old tubs that never looks clean no matter how often we scrub it; and while I can learn to ignore it, the thought of someone else seeing it makes me feel unwell in my mind. (dingy bathtubs make me think of scary roach-motels) So, the first few weeks of our group I was very confident in my bathroom...almost wishing people would need to go, serving lots of juice and water; no one ever did....I mean NEVER. I'm sure you can see what's coming. Jonathan did not think about the bathroom, and I did not think to check when I came home from work, guess how many people went to the bathroom that night! JUST GUESS! Every person, every single one!!! Can you believe it?!?!? And it was timed so that I couldn't go in between to check it out, so my mind was racing..."oh dear....what did I leave out? please have at least put your undies away, did I take the garbage out recently, gasp.....the shower curtain!" After everyone had left...bladders ALL empty, I walked grimly into the bathroom; the shower curtain was wide open. Sigh. As you can imagine I redoubled my efforts for the following week, and miraculously not a single person has gone since. You've just gotta love it :)

This is spring break at the university, but alas, Jonathan and I still had to work. So we decided to take a one day spring break. It was glorious and I would like to share it with you.

We woke up late, actually that's kind-of a lie. Jonathan got up at like 7 I think to start making some oven-dried tomatoes. I woke up then too, but forced myself to lay in the bed till 9 :)

Then we made pancakes and watched a pilot for a new show called Kings. Heard of it? It's really cool; it's the story of David in modern times. Very clever; the producers really did their homework.

Then we went to play tennis...and while we've done this a few times already this week...gradually becoming better and better....it's like we reverted to beginners, we were aweful. There were some old people in the court beside us (probably 70's) who were kicking our butts :) But it was fun.

Then we came home and took a shower and got our picnic ready. We had delicious sandwiches on Jonathan's homemade honey-oat bread (oh so yummy) with his fantastic sundried
tom-ah-toes...it was glorious!

We went to the beach for our picnic, with our books for reading. It was quite windy and cool at the actual beach (and I had decided to be daring and wear shorts in the 60 degree weather :), but Jonathan and I aren't big beach people anyway, so instead we enjoyed ourselves at a beautiful little park close to the beach. We layed on a blanket in the soft spring sun (have you ever noticed that the sun feels soft in the spring?) had our picnic, took a nap, read our books (I finished my Bill Bryson Notes from a Small Island...hilarious.

Then we went to the public library, got some more books, and went home to plan our garden.

Absolutely wonderful.

I finally read through the entire Bible...finished on Friday night. I had started this project a few times but never quite got through all the minor prophets. And now that it's over, what can I say? At times while I was slogging through some of those prophets...let me just name Zachariah for one....(what in the world was he talking about?!!?)...occasionally gems of beauty and insight would leap out of the page, but those moments were rather few and far between. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, reading the Bible is important but clicking off the chapters until you're finished is not. Some of those books are not meant to just be read but to be studied. So what have I learned? When reading the Bible, speed is not important, comprehension is. I'm sure all of you have just fallen to the floor, blown away by that insightful, pertinent and not-at-all obvious statement. Call me Captain Obvious, and read your Bible; read it slowly, look up the things you don't understand, and ask God to show himself to you through it's words. I will try to follow my own advise.

...which means, "I miss you" in Korean. I miss Korea. I miss my Korean friends...sometimes I miss them so much my heart feels like it's being squeezed by some large invisible hand. I lived and worked and ministered in Seoul for about a year and a half. There I met my husband and got engaged. They threw me an "engagement party," which was really a wedding! (I'll rustle up some pics and blog about it). It was just unbelievable how much time and effort they put into it. *sigh* I often wonder why God has given me so many people in my life who love me...I certainly do not deserve it, but I am so grateful for them. I just want to introduce you to a couple of the beautiful people I left in Korea.

I was excited to see all the comments on my storytime. I'm glad you all liked it, or at least had some kind of strong opinion about it. As some of you curious cats already know, (uh-hum, Harmony and Todd) this is a Medeival lais, written by Marie de France in the late 12th century. As most of you know, I am taking a medieval romance class for my Master's. First of all, I love her lais; she has 12 of them. They are all different, but all have similar themes, but I love that she is able to put a very distinct feeling behind all of them. Anyway....

When I read Eliduc I reacted the same way, and I brought my outrage with me to class and promptly declared I was not impressed with the way Guildeluec just let him off the hook. Everyone else agreed, if not quite as vehemently as me. I mean, come on, why would a beautiful, intelligent, God-fearing woman just....step aside! Give her blessing to the happy couple! But after my indignation subsided I had a thought....what was the alternative? What would I have rather she done? Yelled? Made a scene? Slapped him in the face and shouted "I wasted the best years of my life on you!"? Would I have felt better if she had fainted, (a very popular pastime for many women, trust me), wept tears of profound anguish and eventually died, either by her own hands or through pure grief? Should she have calmly told him he could not see his lover again and that she would forgive him this one time? Do we really think this cheater-face liar would have let it go at that? No, she would have just lived as a wife whose husband clearly no longer loves her and who prefers the younger model. None of these options leave us with the VINDICATED woman we wish to see. BUT, her choice does leave us with an independant woman with quite a lot of power. First of all, I believe she took control of the situation - she planned it all; she was in power. She looked at all the options and decided she didn't like any of them, so she created her own.
At that time women had little power in the home, but they had considerable power in the abbey. By requesting that her husband build her her own abbey, of which she would be the abbess, she was setting up her own little kingdom, of which she would have complete power over her decisions and the decisions of others. Not to mention that the Man she now served would never treat her in such a way.

So, in the end, I am reconciled to her decision.

There is much more to say, but perhaps it is best to leave it at that. Thanks again for tuning in for Jodi's Story-time :)

....so, our knight bends down to check on the princess....she appears to be dead, and Eliduc weeps in a torrent of anguish. When they finally reach land, Eliduc takes her to a hermitage, but finds that the holy man has died, so he simply lays Guilliadon in the chapel, planning to come back to bury her after he has erected an appropriate tomb. Every day he sneaks away from his wife to visit Guilliadon at the chapel and weep over her, strangely not decaying, body. Meanwhile, Eliduc's wife is wondering what's up with her husband; he's always so sad...really sorrowful. So one day she sends a servant to follow him and then to let her know where he's going. The servant tells her and then leads her to the hermitage, where, what should she find but a beautiful, unconcious Guilliadon. Guideleuc immediately realizes this must be her husbands lover. Strangly, she is filled with pity for this beautiful woman who died before her time and she grieves for her. Then all of a sudden two weasels appear and one weasel runs over the fair maid's body, and the servant kills it. The weasel's mate then runs out and comes back with a beautiful red flower in its mouth and places it in the mouth of his mate. The she-weasel wakes up immediately and they start to run off together. Guideleuc says, "quickly man! stop that weasel!" So he stops the weasel and retrieves the flower, which is promptly placed in Guilliadon's mouth, and - you guessed it - she wakes up. The fair maid sees Guideleuc and tells her the whole story of a worthless knight whom she loved, but who abandoned her after she discovered he was actually married. The noble wife then explains that she is that knight's wife and that he has been coming to mourn there every day. She takes the beautiful princess to her husband, and upon seeing his joy, she decides not to stand in their way. She asks her husband to build an abbey, of which, she will be the abbess. And so it is, Guideleuc becomes the abbess of her own abbey, Eliduc marries his love, and they live happily for many years. They do many good deeds, and eventually they decide they want to devote their lives to God, so Guilliadon goes to live with Guideleuc in the Abbey and Eliduc joins a monastary.

The End

Now, I really would like to make some comments here, but I will refrain till I hear what you think of the tale. :)

I didn't realize how long it had been since I blogged last...I've just been enjoying everyone else's posts...it's really one of my favorite things to do in a day, to look at my dashboard and see what's new. And as I'm sitting here I still can only think about...Heather's office kitties, Desi's dreams, Ari dancing, Elizabeth coming to visit, Benjamin's morning words, Lindsey's pregnancy discomfort but beautiful spirit, Todd's chickies and a new way to make chili.