Trusting in His Wisdom

Eleven years ago, Wingnut was on the verge of separating from the Air Force when the job he has now caught his attention.  We began to pray for God's Wisdom in helping us decide if we should remain in the military or if Wingnut should separate and enter the work force as an airline pilot.  We asked God to place obstacles in our path if we happened to fail to see His Way and we asked him to remove obstacles from the path He wanted us to follow.  As he applied and interviewed for the job at Andrew's AFB that particular path seemed paved and ready made for us.  In the end we thought we would let the 2000 Presidential Election make the final decision for us.  Funny, that was the election that dragged on and on in court in Florida and in the end we just had to trust God had our best interests in mind even if he did not desire to show us with signs and wonders.  Wingnut stayed in the military, he got the job at Andrew's, and President Bush was finally victorious, in that order.

So many of our friends and colleagues had made the jump to the airline world from the military. We were among the few that remained in the military.  We came to see exactly how well God was looking out for our family when 9/11 hit.  Every one of our airline friends were furloughed from their jobs.  We were so incredibly thankful to have been spared unemployment.  God is Good!

Last week Wingnut put in his papers to retire from the military.  We are again looking to God for Wisdom.  Our time in the military is done and we are relieved and thankful.  Now we need to seek His Will for what to do next.  Wingnut has applied for several jobs in corporate aviation as well as civilian federal jobs.  We love our parish and our network of friends here, but there is also so much we don't love about living in the DC area. We also know the housing market is not favorable, and so staying would probably be less stressful.  He has applied to several local jobs, but it seems there is a hiring freeze for federal jobs.

He's had one interview in New Jersey with a corporate aviation company.  He hit it off with the head of the aviation department and feels he'd be a good fit with this company.  They are going to have him out for another interview in the very near future. We'd likely live in Pennsylvania if he was hired by this company.  This would keep us close to Oleander and Karate Kid, and fairly close to our established network--at least close enough for visiting occasionally.  In Pennsylvania we'd be able to own a little land.  I'd love to have a large garden and maybe some chickens and the girls would love to have a horse.  We've researched parishes in Pennsylvania and Catholic high schools for JayP.  We are fairly certain we can find something pretty orthodox, if not exactly the same as our beloved parish here.  There are two draw backs to Pennsylvania.  First, homeschooling is a bit more regulated there.  We'd be required to test our home schooled kids in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grade and would need to submit to yearly evaluations to the superintendent by an independent educator/evaluator.  We'd also have to defend our unorthodox immunization and healthcare choices. Secondly, we'd have to worry about doing something with this house.  This choice would be a bit more stressful than staying where we are.

He has an interview lined up in Utah.  This one we were extremely excited about at first.  Utah is much, much closer to home for us.  It would be the closest I've lived to family since leaving home after college.  We could definitely own land and the cost of living is incredibly low.  Homeschooling is also a cinch.  Unfortunately there are a couple huge drawbacks to Utah.  Utah would take us very far away from our two daughters.  I'm not as worried about Karate Kid getting along without us as I am about our 14 year old at the Aspirancy school.  This idea stresses me out.  Obviously another drawback is once again having to do something with our current house.  The biggest drawback to moving to Utah is the diocese is not orthodox at all.  In researching I couldn't find a single parish that has daily mass every day.  Only two parishes have a Saturday morning mass, and only the Cathedral has a Friday daily mass.  This is very troublesome in my mind, not to mention Utah is only 2% Catholic, and the bishop of Salt Lake City is less than impressive.  Even so, Wingnut found a trappist monastery with daily masses (6:45 am) and two Latin Sunday masses.  We could handle that, but it would be unlikely they would need our boys to serve on the Altar, and very unlikely there would be a youth group or a family like atmosphere anything similar to what we have here.  This really stresses me out!

Once again, we seek His Will in making this decision.  Pray for us!  We are definitely going to need it!

Comments

Michelle said…
There are some very nice parishes in NJ near Trenton. And when I lived there back in 2005, there were no homeschooling laws, not even notification. And NJ is called the Garden State for a reason. Really, there are plenty of places that are quite rural, and still only 20 minutes away from a mall.
Our Family said…
You are in our prayers.

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