The battleground of our lives

We feel like a bit of a battleground lately, in that Satan has been attacking, and God has been blessing (though sometimes that blessing hurts a little, too). First, some of the blessings: Lisa (for those of you who aren't her Facebook friend) will have a second phone interview on Thursday for a fantastic position in North Carolina. This job would be a substantial raise for Lisa, and would allow us to remain in Nashville; the downside is that she would have to travel a lot, but we can deal with that.

Then an attack - I am covered quite ridiculously in poison ivy, mosquito bites, and chiggers, and I don't think it all came from the campout last week. When I say ridiculously, I mean poison ivy on my leg, the back of my neck, my forehead, my nose, my chin through my beard, and my eyelids. I never went into the woods, so I don't know where I could have picked it up. It's a fairly minor thing in the grand scheme, but quite annoying. Within the last month, Avery's been sick, Elise has been sick, and I've been almost sick. And Lisa is dealing with a horribly dysfunctional workplace that led her to look for other work in the first place - but that, as I've said, may be a hidden blessing.

Probably the most difficult "blessing" is our remaining cat, Kira. Kira has been with us for almost 15 years now, our first baby. Since we have made the decision to go to Bulgaria, we had wondered what we would do with the cats, and her in particular. We had found a person to take Keiko, but we knew that Kira would never adjust; It's too expensive to take her with us to Bulgaria, and even if we did the flight would probably kill her. We're taking our call to mission seriously, and we can't tell God "Sorry, but we can't go do the work you've put before us - we have a cat." The horrible blessing is that we may be putting Kira down this week. She has not been right since we put Keiko to sleep; she hardly eats, and I have not seen her drink water in weeks (which makes me wonder seriously how she's still alive now). She has balance issues, and staggers often. There have been other disturbing behaviors which I won't go into (you might have just eaten...) that tell us it's time.

Strangely, I am more at peace on this. I am sad, to be sure, but perhaps losing Keiko prepared me somewhat to lose Kira as well. This will be a pet-less house, which makes it easier for us to prepare it to sell. I've learned through life that transitions are tough, but God leads us through them to brighter futures.