It's done.

After much agonizing I decided to stay with the part-time cake decorator position and decline the full-time museum position. This was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make, but I'm convinced I made the right one. 


I got lots of great insight from friends everywhere. But the thing that really helped me decide was yesterday at church a teenaged girl got up and was talking about a mission trip she went on over the summer. She quoted a passage from Matthew that was read at our wedding:


Matthew 6:25-34
²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[a]?
   ²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.


It's been a long time since I thought about that passage. It occurred to me that I was being influenced by what could be, what might be, what may be and not what actually was. Being a part-time cake decorator right now is absolutely perfect. Working full-time for the museum had a bunch of different possibilities, none of which were a sure thing other than I would be spending less time with Lily and Joe. It's the kind of job that would require a huge emotional investment, and I would feel guilty about not giving it 100% and I would feel guilty about not being with family. That's just too much guilt for me to handle. 


Also, I can still volunteer at the museum. That's basically how I got the job offer anyway. Volunteering allows me to work more closely with high school students than the job would have, I get to do it once a week, it lets Joe and Lily have daddy-daughter-dates, and I'm still doing something worth while. Working part-time and volunteering offers me the best of both worlds. 


So there you have it. After sending my email declining the position I went for a 4-mile run along the lake with Lily in the jogging stroller. The sun was shining, there was a cool lake breeze, Lily napped the whole way, and I didn't have to stop to walk even once. Now Lily's taking another nap and I get to blog and watch Days of Our Lives. This is definitely the right choice.