It's About Time

I've really been trying to set aside time to sit down and update my blog, but that has been such a challenge! It's always one thing after another and the next thing I know, months have passed.

A lot has happened. A lot has changed. A lot has been going on. I began dating someone and a short time later it ended. I was pretty upset about it for awhile because it was a total whirlwind romance and was beyond anything I could have ever asked for. It obviously wasn't meant to be though, and even though it was very short, I learned a lot about myself. Shortly after that I started having issues with my church. I was seeing signs of teaching going on that was not Biblically based and not true. I had a really tough time dealing with that and wasn't sure how to handle it. I had gotten planted there, met a ton of great people, I was taking my Bible college course there, my kids loved the children's church and I didn't want to give it up. At the same time, I was very scared that I was being misled without even realizing it, and in turn so were my kids. If you aren't well educated in Biblical studies, doctrine and theology, it's not hard to be misled. I don't believe the church I attended was misleading people on purpose. I truly feel like they are uneducated, and listening to other "teachers" who are uneducated. I decided the best thing to do would be to not walk, but run away. As hard as it was at first, I know I made the right decision. Doing that freed up a lot of time for me, and I realized then just how much I had been getting involved in and slowly overwhelming myself. Because of my Bible course I was required to serve 20 hours per month at the church. That may not seem like a lot, but if you consider that I live 45 minutes away (in each direction), how often I was having to go back and forth, how much it was costing me to do so, and how much more kept getting added to my serving plate, then factor in non-church related commitments we had, it was a lot. And I still wasn't even meeting my 20 hours of service time. Serving was becoming a burden, and I kept getting told by church staff that it is our duty as Christians to serve. But isn't it supposed to be with a joyful heart? I just wasn't there. And I think that's okay! I can't do everything, especially as a single parent. I started to realize that maybe my job right now is to just be a Mom. That is the season of life I'm in right now so I need to embrace it and do the best I can. Before I know it, this season will change and my kids won't need me as much as they do. I want to make the most of the time I have with them now, and train them in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). Lord knows how quickly they grown up.

After all that happened with my church, I began looking for a new church, and one close to home. I think I have found one, but I haven't attended it yet so I don't have any comments to share about it. I did email the Pastor there and found out that he has been to seminary which I've learned is VERY important. I had never considered before if my Pastor was actually educated. I guess I just assumed that with having the title "Pastor" they would have had to complete some sort of education. This isn't so, and this is what I find frightening. How can you TEACH the Bible if you don't know it yourself? The Bible needs to be studied in order to be taught. I honestly feel a little bit burned, a little ripped off by my old church, so I'm taking a bit of a church vacation. I will attend this church close to home soon.

Now that I'm not making anymore trips into the city where my church was, I've found that I've not been driving much anymore. The city that I live in is, in my opinion, amazingly well planned and almost every single thing that I need to survive is within 2km's of my home. Lately we will go out to get groceries or pay a bill and that's about it. We've been doing this routinely about once a week. As I was reflecting on this significant change in my life, I started thinking. The first thought was that I was no longer impressed with how much money I was paying to use a vehicle 1-2 times a week. I'm lucky that my vehicle is paid off, but the costs of insurance and gas made my infrequent usage bother me. Gas prices keep rising steadily, and our government has also planted their hands deep in gas users pockets with taxes on the gas (somewhere around the 36% mark). The government has also implemented a carbon tax that increases each year for four years and started last year. For someone like me, a single parent who doesn't make much money, driving has definitely become a luxury, and a pain in the ass. Granted that with me driving less it means spending less on gas, but it's still money that I have to put out that I don't want to put out anymore. I also drive a minivan that is a hog on gas. The idea popped into my head that I could bike ride everywhere. Then the idea came to me that I should bike ride everywhere. Why didn't I think of this sooner?! All I would need is a good bike, a bike trailer to tow around Gabe, and Vaeh could ride her bike. If I got a 2 seater trailer I could put groceries in beside Gabe. I could then take the insurance off of my van, park it and start saving money. By hanging on to the van instead of selling it, it's there in case of absolute emergency and it's also there for the winter. This is the perfect time to tinker with such an experiment being that we are heading into summer. Right now I'm looking for a good used bike and trailer on Craiglist and once my tax refund comes we are getting started! The kids are super excited to do this, and so am I. I heard from somewhere once that the most dangerous part of a car is the seat. So many of us live planted on our couches, in office chairs, or in the seat of our cars and aren't being anywhere near as active as we should be. That's about to change for us. Pretty soon we will be a car-lite family and we'll actually be out and about in our community, not locked away in a vehicle or in the house all the time! You will probably be reading a lot about this as we move forward in this journey and I will share with you as much as I possibly can. Life is all about The Journey, The Adventure. Lets get out there and try something new! It will be uncomfortable at first not having a vehicle at my disposal, that I know. Trying a new thing is almost always uncomfortable, but it's in that discomfort where growth is born and if you aren't growing, you aren't living. Don't you agree? ♥