January 16, 2013

Houston: We have a problem

It started out as a problem.  But I wasn't radioing Houston about it, I was radioing Heaven about it.

I was just about to click "purchase" on our tickets to Tanzania when I called Bill just to triple-check that it was okay.. and that's when the two-week war began.  Because he said no.  Don't buy the tickets just yet.  My boss is telling me I can't take that much vacation at once.

So I hit that little red "X" in the corner and felt defeated.
For the next two weeks he battled with his job about letting him take all three of his vacation weeks at once.  They were giving him the run-around, quite literally.  Made him call the entire team to make sure it was okay with all nine of them.  Then one said "no".  Said that he 'needed' the week that was smack in the middle of our trip.  And since that guy has seniority over Bill, well, you know.  So he went higher, explaining we had to go on this trip and it had to be now, we couldn't postpone it by weeks (because God told us to go) because our visas expired soon (also true).  So he gave him the run-around for another week saying that he was contacting HR about it.
So we waited.
And I got frustrated.  Frustrated because I felt like we just needed to buy the tickets anyway and that us doing that in faith would mean that God would figure out all the details with his job.  And I was frustrated with my usually-non-confrontational husband for not standing up more than (what I could see) he was.
And he got stressed.  Super stressed.  To the point where he was considering finding another job, or putting in his two weeks and just buying the tickets.
And so I told a friend.  Two actually.  About the whole situation.  All the shenanigans.  And one of them said, "You know, this is just Satan, right?  You knew there was going to be roadblocks with this, just like there was last time.  This is just another roadblock."  **Insert lightbulb here**   So she talked me down a little from my frustration, and I began to see something else.
Satan was winning.  Winning because we were letting him come between our marriage again.  It had been at least a solid week of us being frustrated with each other.  Him at me for pushing the 'buy the tickets anyway' plan and me at him for not letting me buy the tickets yet and relying more on his job than on God's plan.
So finally one night we decided to hash the situation out and take the next step.  The first thing I said was, "We have to remember, we aren't fighting each other in this war, we're fighting your job, and Satan - but we have to be together.  We need to get on the same page.  This is just what Satan wants is for us to be divided, because then he wins.  But if we get on the same page, we are so gonna kick his you-know-what." (only maybe, just maybe I didn't say 'you-know-what')
And he said, "Yup."
So we talked, and we got on the same page.  **and the angles rejoiced** or at least, we did. :)
We emailed his boss's boss that night, letting them know we were going to purchase the tickets the next day and that we'd like to know what HR said about it.  He responded that he'd meet with Bill in person the next day at work.
Bill called around 4pm the next day and said, "Buy the tickets!"  And that was pretty much it.  I didn't hear the rest of the story 'till he got home later that evening.
Apparently his boss hadn't actually contacted the higher-up boss because he didn't know much at all about the trip.  The higher-up boss told him that it wouldn't be easy to make sure everything was covered, but that they would figure something out and to go ahead and buy the tickets.  It was that easy.

~~~  Stay tuned for part 2 --- the day we tried to buy our tickets.  ~~~


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