There Hides the Cowboy

Normally I'm not the sort of guy who posts music videos (or videos in general for that matter) in hopes of turning people onto fantastic music they may not have found otherwise. I'll talk music with you all day if you want to, but I try not to force it on people. But today I threw a video up for two reasons 1) It's the song I've had stuck in my head all day and it seems super relevant right now and 2) It's just a video of the band playing. There's no trick cinematography or anything, it's just the band playing the song. So give it a listen if you want to. It's a good song.

But yeah, the reason I've had that song stuck in my head is because Megan and I really need to hold on to our hope and our faith right now. It is becoming increasingly more important for us to get the jobs we've interviewed for, but the process might take longer than we anticipated. They haven't called my references yet, which starts me thinking, "Well, maybe they won't call them because they've already decided to hire someone else." or "They won't call them because they want to hire me based on my own representation of my skills and abilities." or "They are way behind in the process and it'll take forever to find out." All these lines of thought can have dangerous consequences. I need to keep my thoughts realistic now more than ever and hold on to the hope and the faith that things will work out fine for Megan and I. We're honestly doing everything we know how to do to get these jobs. It's just so easy to get discouraged when things don't come in the time frame you want them to come in.

Megan has been especially frustrated because she wants to be out working and contributing to our family finances, but she doesn't have a ton of control over whether or not these people hire her or not. So it's easy to think that just because they aren't calling her right at the beginning of this week that they might not call at all. But once again, we know that there is a process that things have to go through. If they make the recommendation that I get my job, I know it has to clear the hiring committee, library administration, and human resources before they even give me a call. But I really want them to call me right now and tell me I got it. Megan and I are a little impatient, which I think is understandable.

But the important thing is that in this time of trial the most important thing for us to do will be to put our trust in the one sure place we can put it. We both have faith that if we live up to the things that have been asked of us, we will be blessed both temporally and spiritually. We have faith and we have hope, but we can't help but falter a little as Peter did when he saw the billowing surge beneath his feet. So having, "Hold on Hope" by Guided By Voices stuck in my head all day isn't a bad thing. It's not a hymn, but it's a good song and it reminds me that the trials we're going through are as much a test of faith as they are of anything else.

Also, Megan and I have noticed that the hope that we've had the past couple weeks has made everything just a little better and a little brighter at home. I love her a little more this week than I did last week, and I think she feels the same (not that we didn't love each other last week, but we love each other more). There have been a lot of positive effects that have already come from this trial, and I expect that those we have seen thus far will not be the last. The only thing is that it's so easy as a human being to want everything right now rather than waiting to see how it all turns out in time. I have no doubt that everything will be fine and we'll pass this trial with flying colors but, as Tom Petty once said, "The waiting is the hardest part."