Date with Destiny

Hey all! Don't you just wish this blog was going to be as exciting as the title makes it sound? Today in RS we were talking about preparedness through finding employment. It occurred to me how similar finding a vocation is to finding a spouse. At this exact moment in my life, I'm not too concerned about the whole spouse thing, but a vocation is always a good thing. Here are the similarities between the two that I found

• Any righteous man and woman can make a marriage work. We've all heard that quote a million times, admit it. But the truth is that some personalities just work better together than others. Sometimes, no matter how righteous you both are, you just don't sustain each other merely because of the ways you are different. Other times you find a companion that you feel good around, and you want to be with them no matter what your differences are. Well today one girl said she wanted to be a mechanical engineer. Gag me, that is a circle of hell. Can you imagine spending the rest of your life doing math? Now that is honest work, and I'm sure she will be happy in it. I'm also sure if the Lord would assist me (a LOT) I could make that work as my career. However, my personality is so much better suited to the careers I've chosen for myself. So I pass up a perfectly wonderful honest career and everything it has to offer, and instead choose another equally wonderful career.


• It's okay to explore. I've heard the statistic that the average college student changes their major 2.5 times. I think this is similar to the exploration known as dating. For instance, I took several psychology classes, and courted the idea of working in a battered women's and children's shelter. This is a very good vocation, but we had to break up because I realized I couldn't do it. I think it is good to try some ideas on for size, spend time with them, and get to know them, until you find the one that is good for you


• I so look forward to the perfect job, and I intend to have it. But that perfection will still include bad days. Some days nothing will go as planned, in a bad way, and I will be handling thing poorly. The good thing about bad days, when you are in the right place and doing the right thing, is that they pass. Bad days will happen early in your employed life, and after you've been there most of your life.


• Finally, understanding that things will change. I have talked to a lot of people about there long-lived working life, and they have all told me that the job changed over time, or there responsibilities have changed over time. Just like relationships change over time, hopefully for the better, but change for sure.

I don't know what the correlation means, but I find it interesting that there are so many correlations. The good news is that I can take all the relationship and marriage advice and understanding I have, and put it into something that is pertinent to me.

Book Review

Last night was very trying for me, and I handled it in typical Jana fashion. I curlled up with a book that seems like a friend. You can become so familiar with a book that every word in it is familiar, like comfort food only less fattening.

"The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is right in the middle of the Chronicles of Narnia. I read it as #3, but I know most people now-a-days consider it #5, but either way it's really good. The first line in it "There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it"

This one is about King Caspian, the two younger kids, and their cousin Eustace, as they sail out to the eastern end of the world, searching for 7 people that went into hiding 10 years ago. On there adventures they find a cave that turns people into what they are in their hearts, and a river that finds what's underneath. They find another river that has the Midas power, and dicover the difference between the worth of an object, and the worth of a soul. They learn about what governs a God, and why someone with those powers does the things He does.

I have always loved the personifications C.S. Lewis puts into the Chronicles (i.e. "The birtch was the graceful and majestic lady of the wood, watching the Lords of the Sky (stars) tread their celestial dance) and this book brings that up to a whole new level. Somtimes I get lost in how poetic it sounds, and forget to wonder what the point of the story is. But when you really listen with your spiritual ears, so many eternal truths are between those pages.

I was reading about a wizard (I think a prophet figure in this book) named Coriarkin who is very unpopular with the people he has been given charge over because he makes so many unreasonable demands. He wants them to draw water from the stream 1/2 a mile away rather than walk 5 miles to the well several times a day. More importantly, he wants them to grow a garden, since there is no contact with the world off the island. It made me think that as human beings we can have a tendancy to complain about comandments, but really Heavenly Father's only purpose is to help us be happy. Every comandment ever given has been to that end.

I would love if all my blog readers could tell me what gems they have found in this wonderful story. I would love to look at it from new angles, like the lifelong friend that can still suprise you.