Post Tenebras Lux

Well, here we are.  Just over a month ago, I graduated from seminary.  I am now a Master of Divinity.  Armed with my Divine Masterness, I still work at the YMCA.  When people ask, “What do you do for a living?”, I simply say, “I yell at kids.”  Yep, that education is really paying off.

My life is now that of the functionally unemployed.  By this I mean that while I technically have a job which gives me money, I can’t truly say that I am employed.  In my mind, being employed means that I am engaged, that I am involved; in short, that I care.  I am functionally unemployed.  My usual day goes something like this:

• 5:20am-Arise, shave, shower, get dressed.
• 5:50am-Take the dog out, feed him, eat breakfast.
• 6:00am-Hide from the dog because he is now awake and wants to bite me.
• 7:00-9:00am-Sit with kids at the YMCA.  I yell a lot.
• 9:20am-1:40pm-Take the dog out to pee and poop.  Try to play with the dog.  Get bit by the dog.  Shun the dog.
• 2:00pm-6:00pm-Go back to the YMCA.  Yell even more.
• 6:00-10:00pm-Eat dinner.  Hang out with wife.  Get bit by dog.
• 10:00pm-Go to bed.
• 2:15am-Take dog out to back yard to “Go Potty.”  Shiver in the back yard waiting for him to go.  Marvel at the fact that I am a twenty-six year old man who uses the phrase, “Go Potty.”
• 5:20am-Start all over again

I am waiting to hear from the schools to which I have applied for doctoral studies, and in the meantime, this is my life. Yelling.  Enduring puppy bites.  Hiding from my attack pug.  This is my life.

Janel is getting more and more pregnant every day.  The due date for our son is May 8th and seems to be approaching at an alarming rate.  I am excited and fearful.  Right now I just hope I can get the dog to stop biting so he doesn’t playfully rip my son’s arm off.  This is my life.

 Our living arrangement has changed recently as well.  Since we lived in seminary student housing, we had to leave our apartment after I graduated.  Therefore, a couple in our church was kind enough to rent us their old house for the present while we are waiting to hear back from schools.  Janel and I call this house our redneck house.  Not to say that the house itself is redneck, but a lot of little things contribute to the conferring of this title.  First, the woman who lived in this house before us must have never heard the words “Lysol,” “Comet,” or “Pine-Sol” in her life.  The house sure didn’t look like it.  The carpet was disgusting, dried food was plastered to the walls, and the house reeked of cigarette smoke.  There is a pile of used Camel butts underneath our porch.  At least once a week I find an empty tallboy of Busch or Natty Light in our front yard.  Our neighbor across the street delights in turning the subwoofer in her car to the max and breaking it down to 50 Cent in her driveway.  We have a redneck house.

 This is my life.

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P.S.  Despite the tone of bitterness which permeates this post, life is far better than I deserve.  Life is frustrating at the present, but there is always hope in Christ.  Therefore, I say to both myself and to you, “Take heart!  Christ has come, and He makes all things new.”