Hurry Up and Wait

My speed seems to be way ahead of God's perfect timing these days.  And because of that we have faced many disappointments along this way.  For example, when we got word about the first potential job I emailed my friend Jessie to give me the rundown of what I would need to survive NYC in the winter.  And I started looking for apts and YMCA's and churches and NOTHING.  And then Rochester, NY came on the table and here I went again - hurrying up just to WAIT.  And then Atlanta, Saudi Arabia, Harrisburg Pennsylvania and Bristol Connecticut.  So you can imagine how my mind went to living in these places and then we had to wait - either because we passed up the opportunity or things were moving slow because of the holidays.  Either way I would hurry up and plan only to find myself waiting.  It was quite disappointing. 
Today, I experienced the same thing.  We have spent all week looking for apartments there.  We were told to look and let them know what we found.  Well we did just that and found what we think is the perfect place in the perfect location.  But it seems that it all has to happen before noon tomorrow.  It seems impossible because big corporations do very little by noon the next day.  Though it could still happen, I succumb to yet another disappointment of hurrying up to wait.  But tonight in my disappointment God spoke to my heart:
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your OWN understanding, in all ways acknowledge Him and he will make your paths straight."
I don't want to hold so tightly to my ideals of what is best for my family that I miss God and his straight path.  He has orchestrated this in his time and why do I not trust him to carry it out to completion - even the small details? 
Whatever you are doing Lord, help me slow down and wait!!!

Cook's Current Events

Life has taken an unexpected turn for the Cook's the last month.  I believe the last post I wrote was putting this blog to rest for a season so I could focus on the people in my life.  We were finally building relationships in Bham and starting to experience the community that we desperately long for.  It was becoming home.  But God has different plans for us.  In November, we found out that the company he was contracting for did not have another contract to place him on.  So with a one week notice we were jobless.  So we started planning - our plan was to move back to Denver.  There is a large flash/flex community (the programming languages John works with) in Denver and we were sure there would be a spot open for him.  But again, this was not God's plan for us.  After a few weeks, he did not have a single interview for a job in Denver.  So again we had to ask "God what are you doing?"

Options were coming to the table in places like Manhattan, Rochester New York and Saudi Arabia.  Then he had a really cool interview with ESPN but well they wanted to pay him pennies for his work.  So he turned down several opportunities and we waited.  We did this asking God for some specific request regarding his job but I will confess it was scary to tell potential jobs that we weren't interested.  But with a knot in our guts we waited.  And then it happened - from start to finish within 24 hours.  A GREAT job with a GREAT company.  The only catch is well in the words of my friend "it is about as far away from Birmingham as you can get without going to Saudi Arabia"  We are headed to Seattle for at least the year of 2011. 

This company does about 90% of their jobs remote (working from home) which is opposite of his previous company - thus his traveling about 50% 2010.  However, this particular contract is slated to last the entire year and required John to travel 3 weeks out of a month. We decided that it was not worth our family being together for only 16 weeks this year.  So the company is providing us with a furnished apartment rather than paying for John to travel for 3 weeks a month.  So Seattle - here we come. 

Stay tuned for more as we start this journey in the Pacific Northwest :)