Breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel...

Every now and again I look up and don't know how I got here.
Seriously,  I live in Florida, I knit, and I have hideous couches. Who is this person!
Yet, despite things not turning out quite how I planned them from my beanbag chair in my childhood bedroom, I am mindlessly happy. I am nearly never cold in the Sunshine State, I discovered that I love knitting, and I get to cozy up to the love of my life on our ugly couch. It amazes me how all this happened.
I've had a whole spectrum of "plans" since about the time I was four. The simplest goal was to forego tertiary education and become an awesome florist in my hometown, fortunately for Ben, that wasn't my path. The most extravagant of my dreams (behind becoming an elite athlete) was to become a forensic pathologist, fortunately I didn't pursue that since it turns out that I don't really care for microbiology.
Somewhere I moved beyond my spectrum of ideas and, as a freshwoman in college, settled on becoming a missionary/nurse.
Unbeknown to me, being a missionary/nurse isn't (to my knowledge) actually on my path, rather, as a senior in college, I got the "call" to be a midwife. The majority of women who are midwives know what I mean, and anyone else who senses the undeniable certainty of their life's work also understands. For the rest of you, you are free to pass judgement of the validity of a "call". Regardless, the journey of my life has led me to pursue midwifery, and I love it!
I have learned and experienced so much in the past few months that I cant possible formulate my thoughts well enough to write it all down. Along with basic skills like blood pressures, fundal height, fetal heart tones, IM injections and blood draws, I am beginning to learn how to think like a midwife, to know what the different sounds and expressions a woman makes mean, I am beginning to see that there is a huge amount to personal sacrifice involved with being a midwife, but it is also obvious that the rewards are greater. I am so privileged to be learning this by shadowing and assisting an incredible midwife (and mother of six!). I hope that during the course of another year, I will see myself beginning to blossom into a midwife...

Every now and again I look up and don't know how I got here...

Then I realize, it wasn't me, it's never been me.
It has all been God.


Birds flying high, You know how I feel
Sun in the sky, You know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by, You know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good

USA vs Scotland

Last night Ben was buying tickets for the football/soccer match tonight.

Ben: "Where should we sit? On the US side or on Scotland's side?"

Jacinda: "Scotland of course"

Ben: Pause "Really? They are going to loose"

Jacinda: "So"

A moment passes

Ben: a bit of uncertainty in his voice, "I think I want to sit on the US side, it would feel weird not to".

Jacinda: heartless as ever, "What am I suppose to do on the US side?"

Ben: silence

It begins to dawn on her, that if the situation was reversed she would never sit on a side that opposed her country, no matter what Ben wanted.

Jacinda: with understanding, "I guess you are an American. You should sit on the US side, I don't mind".

Ben: "Are you sure" 

Jacinda: "Yip"

Ben: "But is that what you want?"

Jacinda: "No, but we have a dilemma. You are an American and so you should support your country. I'm not and so I have an natural responsibility to cheer for any team that opposes the States, I feel like a traitor sitting on the US side. But it's okay, because I would never let you make me sit on a side that opposed New Zealand."

Ben: "Alright, Im booking the tickets"

This morning

Jacinda: "Hey, what are Scotland's colours?"

Ben: "Are you serious? You're going to wear Scotland's colours!"

Jacinda: "Of course, I'm still going to cheer for Scotland."

Ben: "This is going to be embarrassing."

Knitting

Here are my latest knitting projects. 

I had so much fun making these little dolls (or babies, as Ben calls them).

The pattern is from the book Knitting at Home

Designs by Ella Rae

Our Home

 

The Kitchen

Dining Room

Living Room

Our little porch. 

Master Bedroom. It also has a half bath.

Pretty Self-explanatory

My plants love the Sunshine state! They are already way bigger than this.

The Beginning

How good is God? 

There aren't adequate words to answer that, so we use our feeble lives as examples of His goodness.

And He is good, great even. Magnificent! Supreme! ..........

Still, He personally guides our lives, leads us and walks with us. A good shepherd. Amazing.

At the end of last year I was accepted into the Florida School of Traditional Midwifery. So, about a month ago Ben and I picked up our lives in West Virginia and moved to Jacksonville, Florida. Naturally, we had never been to Jacksonville, we didn't really know anybody and we hardly had to lift a finger during the whole process. Thats how awesome God is.

We arrived on a Wednesday morning, we were accepted into the Arbors at Orange Park that afternoon (which was our first pick on places to live) and we moved in the next day! 

Ben was able to transfer his job from Sears in WV to the Sears at the Orange Park Mall, which is about half a mile down the road from us. He started work on Monday. 

It made me think of one of my favorite verses:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths" - Proverbs 3:5-6

I've always so adamantly told myself, "You have to trust God, Jacinda. With all your heart." or "You better trust God if you want what is best for you.

But may I make an amendment to my previous understanding of the verse?

Yes, trusting and obeying God are vital, but God is just so far above me. He operates independently of me. His ways are not my ways, He created the paths; I don't. What I'm getting at is that God is faithful to direct my paths and I don't think my moments of doubt or fear or stupidity are going to change His faithfulness. 

God directs my paths, whether I trust Him or not, it is the trust that allows me to see those paths. 

So back to our lives. Ben is working at Sears, selling appliances. He has also started writing a book since we moved. I am going to school and I love it! 

We are looking for a Church which is harder than you would thing seeing as there are millions of them down here. But we're not to worried. God will lead us where He wants us.

Preface

After much procrastination on my part, I am finally sitting down in the Clay County Public Library (early voting site to anyone who cares) and writing a blog. 

As you see, this blog is entitled Chapter Three, for the simple reason that that is where I am in my life. 

Chapter One: I was born
Chapter Two: I was saved (by grace, through faith)
Chapter Three: I grew up
Simplistic, I know. Also tucked somewhere in those chapters are college, marriage, moving to Florida, not to mention twenty-one years full of wonderful memories, friends, and experiences. But who has time to outline all that, so lets just take it from here.