Forged in the Fire

I didn't get the teaching job I interviewed for a few weeks ago. It would have been perfect because the boys would have been able to go to the same school. Maybe I'm not meant to be a teacher after all, but for some strange reason I love it. Besides writing, it's all I've ever wanted to do.

There is an opening at SJCDS that I'm in the running for, too, but it's hard to get my hopes up when I continue to be let down. Will things ever be a hundred percent again? Sometimes it feels like my enemies get everything they want, while I struggle and struggle, with each day my dreams moving a little further out of reach. I know I am blessed in so many ways, and I'm complaining again, but this is the ranting part of the blog.

I need a real job next year. Substituting pays crap, and I need more than crap to live off of. Little boys need clothes and food and an occasional toy. So pray or light a candle or call on the god of your people, and help me get some gainful employment for next year.

A few nights ago, I got a call from my ex-husband's girlfriend's husband. (Complicated, I know) I knew I should haven't answered the phone, but curiosity got he better of me. He'd read an email that my ex had written to his wife. It was when she was going back to the husband yet again. The ex said, "Well, I'll just get Lauren back and continue to cheat on her until you're ready to be with me."
How am I supposed to react to this information? At first it was rage. How dare he think I'd ever want anything to do with him again? How dare he think I was stupid enough to believe his lies? How dare he think he could still manipulate me?

And then I got sad. Is this all I get when it comes to love, to be scorned over and over? Will I ever mean anything to man again? Isn't there a hot lumberjack waiting for me somewhere in the forests of Florida? To be honest, I'm lonely. Yes, I have my children, my summer school kids, and my fictional characters to keep my company, but I need something real. I want a love that will shake me to the core. After living so many years in the darkness, I could used some light in my life.

Church helps. I'm always reminded that the Lord remembers me. He cares. He answer prayers. He says all these hard times are shaping me into the truest, bravest form of myself. "Into every life there come the painful, despairing days of adversity and buffeting. There seems to be a full measure of anguish, sorrow, and often heartbreak for everyone, including those who earnestly seek to do right and be faithful. The thorns that prick, that stick in the flesh, that hurt, often change lives which seem robbed of significance and hope. This change comes about through a refining process which often seems cruel and hard. In this way the soul can become like soft clay in the hands of the Master in building lives of faith, usefulness, beauty, and strength. For some, the refiner’s fire causes a loss of belief and faith in God, but those with eternal perspective understand that such refining is part of the perfection process." - James E. Faust.

I believe what James E. Faust concealed, but I also made up my own advise: Do not let the fires of loss and heartache burn you into ash and nothingness. Let the scorching flames forge you into a steel so strong and blindingly beautiful that no man dare try to break you again.

I will take this turmoil and disappointment and let it shape me into a badass, into someone who will get everything she wants and deserves, who was brave enough to forge her way through the fires of adversity and come out a precious metal.