Immersed

Romans 6:4
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.


Hebrews 10:22
Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

I was "sprinkled" in baptism in June, 2000, when I was pregnant with Mykah.  Fast forward to 2005- when Joe and I realized we wanted to be together forever, we began attending church at First Baptist in Pocatello (Idaho, for my out of state friends).  I never thought about the technicalities of my baptism until Joe got baptized at FBC on Father's Day of 2005, a month before we got married.  I didn't understand why Joe was baptized by immersion, while I was sprinkled, so I asked our pastor.  He explained this varies from church to church and they believed immersion is the way for them.  When I asked how my prior baptism ranked, he indicated that it was a personal choice, that if I felt my baptism was for the correct reason, I was good.   I had accepted Christ as my Savior prior to my sprinkling, but that didn't stop me from wondering every time someone else was baptized, or there was a sermon that mentioned "baptism by immersion."  I just didn't feel peaceful when the subject came up.

As you may know, Joe and I were blessed enough to find a church that we were comfortable with immediately after moving to Tiffin a year ago.  Because of the life we were living through Joe's career, we didn't bother joining the church, although we attend every week and have grown to love it.  Before January, it seemed like a lot of good-byes and another way our hearts would break if (when) we had to move again.  As God guided our journey, we discovered that we were not going to have to leave Tiffin.  My selfless husband gave up the career he loved and sacrificed so much for over the last 15 years for stability for our family.  So here we are!

It seems like our church family knew our hesitation, as well.  When we spread the news that we were staying in Tiffin indefinitely, our minister approached us about a class for new members.  In this class, baptism was addressed.  When I told our minister that I was sprinkled, not immersed, he told me he could fix that in about 5 minutes!  I cried.  Poor Joe thought I was upset.  It was just the opposite, however. 

As I reflected to my prior baptism, I thought of the incredibly hard journey I have taken over the last 10 years.  As the tears were streaming down my face, and the others in class had to be wondering why I was crying, I was thinking, "I get to start fresh."  How many people are so blessed that they get to experience two rebirths?! 

So, on March 27th, I was baptized by immersion by my husband, while our minister officiated.  Mykah and Max got to watch with the rest of our church family and although I HATE being in front of people, I was overcome with gratitude for my new beginning.

I literally felt relief wash over my body through the water, and I felt the strength of my husband's love through his strong and capable hands.  Most importantly, I felt the love of my Savior and the freedom that comes with letting go of all the troubles, failures, and regrets of my past.  This made me think of how many opportunities my family has had over the last year to experience different kinds of immersion...

We immersed ourselves in this community from the very beginning, but now that others know how much we love it and that my husband was willing to change his beloved career so we could stay, we have been immersed even more by friendship and acceptance and it feels wonderful!  In fact, we are now official members of Christ's Church at Tiffin!

We immersed ourselves into a new life, one that included actual simultaneous co-parenting.  My fellow coaching wives know what I mean by this.  Coaching wives establish routines for ourselves and our children to accomodate football season, recruiting season, long hours, and no days off.  As mothers, we get used to doing the majority of the parenting solo.  All of the sudden, Joe was home.  We had to get to know each other on different levels, and begin new routines, so we immersed ourselves into family time so we could get to know each other in a whole new sense. 

We immersed ourselves in trying to increase our family's activities together.  Joe was asked to teach a fitness class for kids at the YMCA that our family loves, and now has the highest kid's class enrollment they've ever had.  He's such a big kid anyway that the kids love him!  Mykah takes the class, and recently, Max started going, too.  Some of the games are over his head, but he has 45 minutes of running around like a wild man and he loves it!  Not to mention that he sleeps like a baby on Monday and Wednesday nights ;)  I still love my pilates/yoga class while they are in their class, and Joe & I recently added a circuit training class on Tuesday/Thursday that seriously kicks our butts and we LOVE it!  Mykah has incredible passion for soccer, so her games and practices keep her busy, but active.

Joe & I are immersed in school.  We are both doing well, but the combination of all this has affected our communication with the "outside" world!  Obviously, my blog has suffered from my lack of time, and my phone calls and emails have become almost non-existant.  But we know that we are where we are supposed to be.   Regardless of the decrease in the time we get to spend outside of our immediate family, we have increased the time spent doing the most important things in our lives- dedicating time to each other and God.

Just as I loved being immersed in the baptismal waters, I have loved being immersed in my family.  Despite immersion into total life change, we are immersed in blessings and love.

Update: As of May 16th, Joe began transitioning from the Admissions Office at TU to the Registrar's Office. He works 1/2 day in each until he can be replaced in Admissions. The details are still rough, but we'll let you know them as we find out. Here are the very latest pix (from Mykah's last soccer game today and one of Joe & I from date night about a month ago) My time is so sporatic that it has taken me 11 days to finish this one entry from when I started it! Very sad! I'll make up for it in a year when I have my degree :)

At least you can see how big the kiddos are!!

This picture made me laugh out loud despite the consequence...Josh & I were doing just fine on the slide by ourselves, but Max was feeling left out. Look at the delight on Max's face after he wedged himself between us and twisted Joshie Bear around! Poor Josh smacked his face on the slide on the way down, got a bloody nose, and he's such a little peanut that he wedged himself sideways in the slide! There was blood everywhere!!

Admissions

Admissions (ad mish' uns): things confessed.  I've heard that confessions are good for the soul.  I'm releasing some of mine so that I can continue to heal and be the woman God wants me to be, the wife Joe deserves, the mother my children deserve, the friend my friends deserve, the daughter my parents deserve, and the sister my siblings deserve.  Only when I have achieved these things will I be the woman that I want to be.

Admission 1- Coaching can be a tiring profession and the Borich family is tired.  We have been tired for a while now.  We felt like we were just in a rough patch, though, and we hadn't earned the rite of passage to the ideal job yet.  The majority of coaching families experience rough patches-it's the nature of the beast.  The beast in control of the coaching life  is a nasty bitch, though, that had an unrelenting hold on our lives.

Admission 2- I was a poor coach's wife, and for once I don't make this reference monetarily.  My parents were at every game I danced or cheered at, every play or concert, every EVERYTHING!  I was resentful that Joe couldn't be at Mykah's soccer games or school functions.  I was also anticipating more heartache as the boys get older and involved in their own stuff.  I found myself already dreading being the only Borich parent on the sidelines or in the audience, and the boys are only 4 and 2.  What I was supposed to do was put on my fake happy face and convince everyone that it worked for our family.  Everyone reading this knows that's not one of my strengths!  I sucked at it and I can't say that I would change it if I could.

Admission 3- I'm a nerd.  I am!  I love school and I'm really good at it.  I believe that is a gift from God and I want to develop it.  It's hard to have any goals outside of football when football controls our lives, and I felt horribly selfish for wanting to have the opportunity to stay in school.  Most of the coach's wives that I know are (or at least seem) so selfless, not selfish.  However, I have talked to some who do what I've been doing, which is say the "right" thing about the unique characteristics of the coaching profession.  Meanwhile, her heart is breaking under the continuous sacrifices that coaching requires.

Admission 4- Joe has been struggling.  I knew when he told me he wanted to get his Master's degree that his faith in the coaching profession was wavering.  Joe is just traditional enough that he feels people should be rewarded and punished based on their own merit.  Coaching doesn't necessarily work that way.  A football coach can be fired just because he works for an unethical, morally corrupt person.  A football coach can be jobless based solely on another's poor decisions, including those of mentally deficient 18-22 year old boys.  The opposite is also true.  A piss-poor coach can be ridiculously successful on another's shoulder pads.

Admission 5- Coaching is a social network.  Joe has many friends and acquaintances throughout the profession.  But he never wanted to solicit those friends for jobs.  He believes that when it comes to a job like the one at TU, he shouldn't have to have everyone he knows flood the Athletic Director with recommendations.  We'll never know if that would have made a difference in the AD's decision, and it doesn't matter to us.  We accept the decision as God's will for our family.

Admission 6- We dreaded moving to Tiffin.  We passed up the opportunity in 2009, then resisted all thoughts of Tiffin until Joe accepted the job as a last resort in February.  We know now that God allowed us a second chance to come here, and we almost blew it again!  As we pulled into town close to midnight on April 24th, 2010, I was completely void of optimism.

Then we fell in love in a very short amount of time!  We fell in love with the university, the YMCA, our church, our babysitter (and her family), my part-time job... we fell in love with the ENTIRE community and all it offers.  We truly believe that God wants us here, and we were absolutely devastated when Joe didn't get the job we wanted.  At the time, that was the only way we could be here, so now what?!!

Admission7- It's time for a change.  Joe was offered a job as an Admissions Counselor for TU.  Yesterday, he accepted it.  We will be staying in Tiffin and both continuing our educations.  Instead of recruiting players, he'll recruit students.  He'll work Monday through Friday, with the occasional Saturday for a college function.

Turns out that Joe was also silently struggling with the kind of dad he wants to be.  His parents were like mine.  They came to all of his games and he has not been able to handle being absent.  How can he be like his wonderful father if his lifestyle prevents doing so? 

Another struggle Joe had was being tied to another person-good, bad, or indifferent.  It's almost impossible to let your light shine when someone's shadow completely covers it!  Now, Joe will be held accountable for Joe's performance.  Period. 

We have decided to be a "normal" family since the opportunity presented itself.  We feel that this job shares some characteristics with coaching and will provide some balance to Joe's life, to my life, and to the lives of our children.  We feel this opportunity is God showing His will for us and we are excited to see where it leads and the doors and windows it opens.  We still believe the coaching door had to be slammed in our faces to make us turn this direction.  For now, that helps take some of the sting out of the rejection we can't help but feel from the coaching job.

Coaching is a family decision and the Borich family is choosing to take a break.  Thanks to our families for your constant and unwavering support.  You deserve a break from the craziness, too!  We don't know if this Admissions job is the best decision, but we feel it's the right one for our family at this moment in our lives, which seem to be sailing by too quickly.  Ultimately there is no way to know if the decisions we make are the perfect ones, so we do the best we can through prayer and faith.

This will be my last post to "The Coaching Life...by a Coach's Wife."  When I post next, I will change the title to "Team Borich" because our family is the team that matters most.  The Bengals, Big Red, and Dragons will just be teams we cheered for along the way.  All of our stops will be part of our unique story that I will continue to share as it unfolds.

God Bless You, for He has surely blessed us!  Thanks for stopping by...

The Reason for the Season

Of all the ways we could say Merry Christmas, we thought Max said it best.  Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Sanity Slowly Returns

To our dear friends and family,

Thank you for all of your prayers and support during the last very long and painful month!  We are so grateful for each and every one of you.  As you may or may not know, Joe did not get the job that we wanted. 

Please know, without a doubt, that we are okay.  If you were on my blog yesterday and earlier today, you saw a very raw reaction that included my most personal feelings and thoughts.  I removed the post because we are ready to move forward.  We don't exactly know which direction "forward" is, but we will let you all know when we do.

There are only 2 thoughts that I will re-post:

Sometimes, we need a door slammed in our faces to turn our eyes so we can see something greater.

This poem is my favorite and will be heavy on my mind as we face our future...

Footprints in the Sand

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.

This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord,

“You promised me Lord,

that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”

The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”

________________________________________

Mary Stevenson, 1936

We have ultimate faith in God.  We know He sees us and He loves us.  We know His plans for us are flawless, and someday we will understand...

A Prayer Answered (as only God can)

As some of you may know, we have been waiting to find out if we get to stay in Tiffin, or if we will need to move on.  The decision is to be made on Friday (in 2 days but who's counting?!) and I am going crazy this week.  With the exception of each Sunday, where I fall apart in church, I have been holding together pretty well.  When our season ended a month ago, we knew we were in for major changes again.  Joe interviewed for the position of head coach on December 2 and 3rd.  He was the first interview, so we've had to wait while others are shown around our gem of a school and town that we have fallen head over heels in love with.  The final candidate is here today and tomorrow, but the AD has told us that he will act quickly and have a decision on Friday-  (BTW~Happy Birthday Friday, Kevin! ♥ Moo)
Now that you are up to speed, I can proceed to my not so subtly answered prayer.  I do not want to wish away time-I know how precious it is.  Instead, I've been praying for ways to pass the time as I get more anxious.  We have so much to lose if Joe doesn't get the job and we'll have a lot of decisions to make.  We remain hopeful because we strongly feel that we are not done here yet.  But there is always that part of us that tries to prepare for the worst case scenario.  That part is the one that I have been busily trying to keep preoccupied with other thoughts so that I don't stray into that territory unless I absolutely have to.
One of my keep busy projects is to fix the kitchen faucet.  It's not broken, per se, but it doesn't swivel.  We are renting our home, and if it were broken, I could just call our landlord.  Since it isn't broken (yet), I thought I could give it a go.  My brother Trevor knows everything about faucets and now I have a plumber in my family, so I can totally take this project on, right?!  So I'm crammed into the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink, trying to contort my body into this miniscule space to tighten the nuts that secure the faucet to the sink.  (Thanks, by the way, to Trevor for an extremely sarcastic description of a bolt versus a nut, which I didn't need!)
Bodie starts yapping like mad, and I think to myself, "Oh good.  Joe's home early and is going to ask what I broke!  This will be fun..."  Then there's a crash in the sink, which is very loud when your face is smooshed right up next to it!  I unfold myself and crawl out from under ready to lash out at Joe for throwing something into the sink for his own amusement.  But Joe is nowhere around, and Bodie is still yapping like crazy, directing his gaze to the window above the sink.  I look into the sink and it's one of my frogs that normally sit on the windowsill.  As I'm thinking, What the *%^!, I notice that there is a bird sitting where my frog had been (yes, a real LIVE bird).  I lean in thinking I have finally lost my friggin' mind and the little sucker starts going crazy!
So, as I'm tripping over all the bottles that are normally under my sink, waving my arms above my head, my dog is barking and this damn bird starts flying all around my house.  (Don't judge unless you've been in this situation!)  We live in a really old house that has awesome original wood trim around all the windows, but it's very drafty.  So we have all the windows covered with energy-saving plastic to try to keep the heat in.  Well, we did have all of them covered.  This bird went nuts trying to find a spot to fly outside.  He hit all the windows, repeatedly, popping and tearing all of Joe's hard work as he tried to get out.  Then the bird found our Christmas tree.  I gotta tell you, bird's wings are loud when they are beating as fast as they can between an ornament covered tree and a wall.  Again, don't judge! 
Please keep in mind that Bodie is still barking like mad and chasing this bird around the house as it tries to escape.  At one point, the bird landed on the windowsill right behind the couch and Bodie got him.  I'm screaming at the top of my lungs for Bodie to get away.  I wish I could say that I was concerned for the bird's safety, but all I could think is, "If I have to clean up dead bird guts or watch my sweet wiener dog eat a bird, I'm gonna throw up!"  It is at this point that Max comes upstairs, completely freaked out, and Mykah comes home from school.
Although we've lived here for 6 months, she has had a hard time making friends.  Tiffin is a small place and all the kids in her school have grown up together.  Much to my dismay, when I turn around to ask her to keep the door open, she is standing there with a friend.  She is standing there with a friend, who she has invited to our house for the first time in 6 months, only to find the dog going crazy, her little brother an absolute mess and her mom running around like a psycho with a broom.  I pause, long enough to say nice to meet you and smile, and then it's back to work.  I put them in charge of holding onto Bodie and giving Max some other pair of legs to hide behind while he cries, "No birds in the house!" 
In the meantime, I tried to call Joe, who was out recruiting, to find out where he is and when he'll be home.  Lucky me- he doesn't answer.  I immediately called my mom, but what's she gonna do from Idaho, and while laughing?!  Fully aware that this story may not seem believable, I pause when the bird finds its way to the bathroom to shoot this video from my phone... (if you stop the music from playing at the very bottom of the blog, you can hear my message to Joe on this video)

The doors in our house are situated such that you have to turn a corner to go out of each, so the bird never went anywhere near the doors.  Since all the plastic covering our windows was popped anyway, I was able to open the window that the bird was repeatedly trying to fly out, remove the screens, then "coax" it out from behind the curtain with my broom, where it promptly flew away. 

I still have no logical explanation of how this bird got into our house.  We don't have any broken windows, but at this point it doesn't really matter.  Thank you, God, for helping me to pass the time!

P.S.  I posted this a couple of hours ago, but I have just gotten home from picking Max up from preschool.  Their project today, NO JOKE, was to make bird feeders out of pinecones, peanut butter and birdseed.  When they finished, the teachers asked the kids where they wanted to hang their feeders.  All of the kids said in the tree.  Except Maxie!  Maxie said in my house!  Thank goodness Joe filled them in on the story when he dropped Max off this morning~ but his teachers just about fell off their chairs laughing when he said his was going in his house!  I think I'll hang it above the kitchen sink.  And the time continues to pass...