Starting a business?

So.  My dad is something of a good photographer.  By good, I mean, really good.  Not over-the-top excellent, but definitely good enough to be a professional photographer.  He has all of the professional equipment (to my mother’s dismay… he’s been purchasing and upgrading for the past five years).  He’s done a few gigs on the side— three weddings, some senior photos, etc.

My dad’s been thinking about starting a business for the past year or so.  He hates his current job.  And he knows he’s good enough to do it.  And he has all of the equipment, all of pre-reqs.

He brought it up to me tonight.  Ya know, going in together.  

It’s something to think about.  Something to pray about.  It would take a lot of effort.  I didn’t exactly major in business.  Haha.  But I think it’s doable.  Heck, we could be up and running by next month, if we really wanted to.  Of course, we’d start off slow— Dad would keep his job until the business shows enough prospect of becoming a full-time shin-dig.

Of course…  Well, I’m not really in this for the long-run, am I?  Once I pay off my loans, I’d head out.  Not that I mind letting my dad know that I’m not in it for the long run… but he doesn’t know about my loan situation and he can’t find out about it.

Minor complications.  Something like this probably won’t completely take-off as a full-time thing for a few years.  By that time I hope to be in the convent.  But I could help start the part-time business.  Make some money with it.  I mean, to be honest, it’s not like I’ve got much going on in my life right now anyways.  And if I do manage to find a real job soon, I can still work on this part-time.

First glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything ‘negative’ about the project.  I know my dad’s really been wanting to do this, but he can’t get it up and started on his own.  He needs help.  So even I just help it start up and am gone by the time it really takes off… well, he’ll be doing something he loves.  And that’s worth it alone.

Dad has me working on drawing up a business plan right now.  o_O

I still need to pray about it.  But there doesn’t seem to be any major ‘negative’ factors with all of this.  At least not with dabbling into it.  Most likely it would start out something pretty small.  Doing some weddings, senior portraits, some sporting events.  Types of events that can be done in congruence with real jobs.  If anything, it's a couple hundred bucks a pop on the side of a steady (or in my case, non-existant) income. 

On a completely different note: I went to my parish's summer RCIA class tonight (they have one once a month during the summer).  The topic was St. Louis de Montfort's Total Consecration to Mary, so of course I was quite pleased.  :-)  Got to talk with the director for a while afterwards-- he taught my RCIA class three years ago.  We had a good conversation.  If I'm still around in the Fall, he wants to let me teach a few lessons!  I'm really excited about it!  He's also going to keep an eye out in his circle of friends for any jobs.  He made a good point to me when we were talking... at this point, in this economy, the only real stable way of getting a good job is through personal connections.  There are only a few jobs out there, and they're going to people who know people.  Just the way it is right now.

Surprisingly, I'm rather at peace right now.  Wish God would be a little more clear in shedding light on the steps between here and the convent-- or at least just simply the next step, haha.  But ya know, God's timing.  In a way, He has revealed the next step.  Right now it's spending time with my family.  Lots of time with them.  (By the way, past few nights have been great!!  Sipping cocktails and playing card games with my mom in a light summer breeze out on the back porch... love it!)  When it's time to get to serious work, God'll show me.  And I'll jump up and put my very best effort into it!!  Just say the word, Lord, and I'll be ready!

It's a beautiful day!!

We may spend 80% or more of our year enduring the constant patter and splatter of tropical rain (hey, we're technically a rainforest), but when summer finally rolls around, boy do we have something beautiful!!

That's a picture my dad took of Mt. Hood last year, I think.  She's a pretty one.  We're heading up there to go camping on 4th of July weekend, which should be excellent.  We're going to this nice campground that we went to all through my childhood.  I've probably been there a total of 40 or 50 times, although it's definitely been a few years now.  My brother and his family are coming too, so it's going to be great.  I can't wait.

I wanted to head out for a bike ride yesterday, but I found that my tire tubes need to be replaced.  :-/  Hopefully we can get that done before the camping trip.  I think today I'm going to take Vegas, my dog, down to the lake and explore the trails down there.  Gotta do something with my days!

Another picture of Mt. Hood.  Wish I could find the ones my dad took of Mt. St. Helen's, 'cause she's a beauty too.  We can see both of them from my house.  And on really good days, we can see Mt. Rainier too.

On a side note, I can't say the phrase "It's a beautiful day" without getting Mr. Roger's song stuck in my head.

Jesus, I trust in You... I just don't trust myself!!

I feel like I'm at such a frustrating point right now.  These past few days have been enlightening for me.  The Lord has been gently reminding me of abandonment.  Of total and complete trust in Divine Providence.  He has been showing me where I continue to hold on to my own will, revealing desires that need to be purified.  It's a bittersweet sort of time-- bitter because it is difficult to let go of these things, sweet because I know that it is the work of the Divine Physician.  I know that is His will, and that brings me great joy.

But do I know that it is His will?  This question haunts me something terrible!  

When I bring my whole job and financial situation to the Lord, I receive a most frustrating answer:  Wait.  Abandon yourself to Me.  Rest here with Me.

At a time when it seems like I need a bit more of a concrete answer...  Should I get a job?  Which Coast?  What kind of job?  I'm ready do anything, to do everything, to work as hard as I possibly can until I can enter.

Yet, when I present my enthusiasm to the Lord, I am rebuked.  Yes, I can work hard.  I've done that my entire life.  Worked harder than everyone else so that I could achieve what I wanted.  I've never been overly talented at anything, but the work-ethic and self-discipline instilled into me as a child has given me the tools I need to succeed-- at whatever I put my mind toward.

And this is what God wants from me.  To recognize that this is His work, not mine.  That I can't do it on my own.  This isn't something that my hard work and will alone can accomplish.  So hold onto your horses and be still.  Wait.  Give everything to Me.

But this is so counter-intuitive!  When I look at it logically...  I have an absurd amount of loans to pay off.  The sooner I get to work, the faster I can get rid of them.  Every minute I spend lounging around at the house is exponentially increasing the money I'm going to have to pay.  

This makes me question whether or not what I think I'm receiving in prayer really isn't from God.  How can I justify not doing anything, putting in no effort on this front?  Surely I'm missing something.  What if God is really telling me something different and I'm too inept to perceive it?

I don't know...  I feel trapped.  If I ignore what I think I'm receiving in prayer, I feel like I will be ignoring this call of God to an even deeper spirit of abandonment.  On the other hand, I feel like it's imprudent not to be super active in the job search, even to the point of getting part-time jobs or something.

I really wish I had recourse to my spiritual director right now.  He's out of the country.  And I'm not even sure that he's technically my director anymore.  But that's a whole 'nother issue that I don't know what to do about.

Praise God.  I don't know what He's working right now, but I know it is for my good.  Just pray that I am amiable to His movements, generously responding to His will in all things.


Edit: Wouldn't you know that God works in mysterious ways.  After writing this post, I went to go find my copy of Abandonment to Divine Providence, since it seemed to me to be a good thing to reread for spiritually reading.  I was flipping through the pages and came across this particular passage:


To effect this God combats all the personal affections of the soul, so that when these take any especial shape, such as some pious notion, some help to devotion; or when there is any idea of being able to attain perfection by some such method, or such a path or way, or by the guidance of some particular person; in fine to whatever the soul attaches itself, God upsets its plans, and allows it to find, instead of success in these projects, nothing but confusion, trouble, emptiness, and folly. Hardly has it said "I must go this way, I must consult this person, or, I must act in such a manner," than God immediately says the exact contrary, and withdraws all the virtue usual in the means adopted by the soul. Thus, finding only deception and emptiness in everything, the soul is compelled to have recourse to God Himself, and to be content with Him.


Happy the soul that understands this lovingly severe conduct of God, and that corresponds faithfully with it. It is raised above all that passes away to repose in the immutable and the infinite. It is no longer dissipated among created things by giving them love and confidence, but allows them only when it becomes a duty to do so, or when enjoined by God, and when His will is made especially manifest in the matter. It inhabits a region above earthly abundance or dearth, in the fulness of God who is its permanent good.

A Great Blessing

Both of my parents grew up in broken households.  My grandfathers on both sides were lousy men who abandoned their families to drink and gamble at the racetracks.  My mom had three brothers and my dad had five and both of my grandmothers worked two jobs just to make ends-meat, providing for their children.  They grew up on the same street in North Portland, the same street that I spent my early childhood growing up on.

At the age of 23 or 24, my dad's disease hit him at full speed.  Nobody could diagnose what it was, they didn't have a clue.  His joints were failing him, his mobility became extremely limited, and he was in severe pain.  It was attacking his organs, too.  He was set to die by the time I was five.  Of course, I didn't know it then.  

Then, by the grace of God, he found a doctor that could diagnose his disease.  Found some experimental medicine to put him on that would slow down the progression, although it wouldn't be able to cure it.  He'd be in pain for the rest of his life, despite the myriads of pain meds he takes daily.

My dad's a fighter.  So is my mom.  She's stood by him this entire time.  I can only imagine how difficult that must've been for her, early in her marriage, two small kids...

I never knew any of this growing up.  I guess I was just naive.  I knew dad had somesort of disease, but I never knew what it was or what it did to him.  I never knew that as a young child I was so close to losing my dad.

I've only recently come to know about my dad's condition, about how he's had to fight it almost all of his adult life. It's only been recently that I've seen the pain he's in and has been in for his whole life.  

He never let on.  He never let us kids see how worn out he was all the time.  He made so many sacrifices for us and we never saw it.  Never appreciated it.  The same with mom.  She loves him so.

You know, it's been a tremendous grace, this past year, coming to see my parents in a way that I never have before.  They are non-believers, but I can honestly say that I think they are some of the most virtuous people I know.  

Praise God.  I grew up witnessing sacrificial love without even knowing it.  Now I can truly come to appreciate all of the lessons that my parents have and continue to teach me.  In their relationship with each other, in their relationship with me and my brother...  It's such a blessing and one that I've only even really come to recognize here tonight.

I don't know how much longer my dad'll be with us.  That statement sounds a little more serious than it should-- it's not as though he's currently on his death bed.  But his disease has taken it's toll on him.  It's in it's third and final stage, where it's beginning to fuse together all of his joints and will then progress once again to his organs.  In the next few months he'll probably undergo a hip replacement to try and keep mobile for a few more years.  But, according to the progression of the disease, it may be as few as 7-8 years before his organs give way.  Of course, that's barring any new medicines and it also doesn't take into consideration the fight left in my dad.  It could be 15 year-- who knows.  But it could be sooner than that.

Heh.  I didn't intend this post to be about my dad or my family.  In fact, I had been planning to talk more about abandonment... but somehow all of this came out.  I'm glad it did.  It brought to mind how very blessed I've been in my family.  I think I forgot that for a while, during my struggle to find myself.  I guess most teenagers and young adults do.

Purification

I know that it's usually a bad sign when anxiety begins to overtake your sense of peace.  Usually means something's not right and you need to reexamine some stuff.

Anxiety about job and money issues has slowly been eating away at my peace, dragging me back down into the depths of... I'm not even sure how to explain my state of mind lately.  Worried, stressed, anxious, depressed, unmotivated, frustrated, I-just-want-to-curl-up-into-a-ball-and-hide-in-a-corner-until-everything-is-worked-out.

It's been particularly difficult because it has felt as though I can't even bring all of this to the Lord.  I have it swimming around in my head all day long and then, when I'm finally able to to go to Adoration or to Mass or to prayer of any sort, everything just slips away.  Everything is a blank and if I can say anything to Jesus, it's merely, "Well I had something to talk to you about..."

Okay, okay, Jesus.  I get it.  It's not time to talk about all of that right now.  You just want me to be still and to be with You.  To sit with You, to love You.


And then my mind wanders, I pull it back.  It begins to wander again, I pull it back.  I wonder why I'm even at prayer.  But that's a brief thought because it's been ingrained in me to persevere through these times of dryness.  So I sit there.  Still.  Quiet.  Doing nothing.

Of course, a few hours after prayer, I'm back to worrying, anxiety, and all of the above.  Perhaps because I have nothing to do but think about those things.  About how badly I want to enter.  About how badly I want a good-paying job so I can work on my student loans...

Silly Kayla.

Abandonment.

It's time for a purification of my desires.  Why is it that I want so badly to enter the convent?  To be exclusively His.  To be concerned only with Him.  To love Him more.  To be made perfect.  To be possessed by and to possess Him.  In a word: Jesus.

A desire put into my heart by God Himself.  A desire that He will fulfill, in His own time.  Not mine.

So why focus on something other than the only desire of my heart?  Why focus so much and worry so much about money or about a job, however well ordered those desires are toward my ultimate desire?  God well knows my needs, He well knows what is needed in order for me to enter.  So why focus on anything but Jesus right now?

Have I let my desire to enter the convent become something more than my desire for Jesus?  Am I pursuing my own desires over the will of God?

Abandonment.  Abandonment to God's will.  Right here, right now.

Oh this lesson should be so familiar to me.  It has been the one He has been teaching all year long.  A purification of my desires... a purification to only one thing: Jesus.  My other desires, they are good things.  They are goods in and of themselves.  But they are not the Good.  Purification.

And that's what I desire in the religious life, is it not?  To be made pure?  So why should I flee from the purifying hand of God outside of the convent?

The desire burns within me, a desire put into my heart by God.  But first, before He should allow me to attain to it, He wants to purify my desires.

Jesus, be my only desire.


Silly Kayla.  Silly, silly Kayla.  Funny how even a good thing can become somehow prohibiting in one's relationship with God.

Funny how God can remind a soul of something like this in a single moment of grace.  Then the soul is presented with two options: to work with this gift, this out-pouring of grace, and amend one's life, to present itself before God and abandon everything at His feet.  Or to ignore the movement of grace and continue in its stubborn ways.

Jesus, be my only desire.

Sleep

Sleep is once again becoming elusive.

*le sigh*


This generally happens within a few weeks of being home.  I don't know exactly why, but it does.  Hopefully it won't develop as badly as it did last summer.  That was pretty bad-- I'd be up until 4-5am, and then I'd only sleep for a few hours.

Right now it's only 11:40pm, so I don't have too much cause to be alarmed, save for the fact that I've been going to bed around 10pm since I've been home.  It's just that it's been taking about an hour to get to sleep these past few nights and tonight is worse than usual.  It always starts out slow like this, then turns into full-blast insomnia.

Trust me, I don't need to battle with insomnia in addition to other things right now.

I need to write.  Something.  Anything.  Maybe a short story.  I've had this idea for a short story floating around for a while now...  I would follow the soldier that pierced Jesus on the cross from the agony in the garden all the way up to death of Christ.  For some reason he's been in meditations during the sorrowful mysteries.  At each event, the soldier's eyes meet with Jesus', and slowly there's a conversion of heart, culminating in his exclamation, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"

Hm.  Well, I suppose I'll try to go to sleep again.  Here's to trying.

Gone Mad

Just so everyone knows:

I've gone crazy.  Bonkers.  Mad.

All because I have nothing to do.  And no motivation to do it.

That is all.