When God says No!

So what are your thoughts on when God says No. No, I won't dramatically intervene so your life can be easier (ie my situation). No, I won't work a miracle so children are not raped or killed by their parents. No, I won't fix the crisis in Darfur and thousands of people die. No, I won't keep your mother/father/brother/sister from dying. Obviously to even begin to answer the question you must believe there is a God. Which I do and some of you do too.

In the Old Testament God says to the Children of Israel...you follow me and I will bless you, you will lack for nothing, lions will starve but you will eat. If we, as Christians, are modern "descendants" of Abraham does this apply to us?

Have you heard of the prosperity gospel? It is VERY popular right now. "Claim God's promises and they will be yours". I had a boss and co-workers who took this to heart. One who was dying of breast cancer went to a faith healer and believed she would be healed if she had enough faith. I mentioned to her adult daughter that there was some new stuff out that might help her mom. The daughter said to me, "we have faith she will be healed. We can't even think of that stuff."...it says if you have faith size of a mustard seed you can move a mountain. My boss's business was heading down hill because of the recession. He held prayer lunches and prayed around his office to bring in God's Spirit to prosper his business. Did it work?

Here are some Bible texts:
* (Deuteronomy 8:18) "But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day" (New American Standard Bible)
* (Malachi 3:10) "'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,' says the LORD of hosts, 'if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.'" (New American Standard Bible)
* (John 10:10) "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (King James Version)

What about the prayer of Jabez?

The idea of the prosperity gospel was a little extreme for the my SDA palate but deep inside myself I found that I have held the same beliefs just tweaked for my own preference. Why aren't my problems fixed if I pray? This was exposed to me by how I reacted when God did say No to my prayers, desperate prayers that really needed a Yes. It may be something taught to us from childhood...you hear the story of the kid the prays and the car starts when it wouldn't before. You don't hear the story of my close friend who prayed when he was a kid and the car did not start.

This is something I have been thinking through for 2 years. Not because my life is dramatic but because of some honest questions from my honest hurt friends, because I am finding myself closer to Him and that requires some of these questions to be settled and because of the death of a friend.

Is this how a dream dies?

So this has been a week for the records. By the way, we haven't found a car to replace Blueberry so we are a one car family which is difficult when Charles' school is 12 miles N and mine 15 miles S and we are in school the same days. :) But there could be a good reason for not finding a car yet.

Sometime around Monday I applied for my loan for this semester. So far there have been no problems so I didn't think too much about it. I waited until we really needed the money to pay rent, bills and summer tuition before applying. Why not, there hadn't been any problems and it keeps us from being tempted to waste money.

Why not became apparent when they (being the application with instant decision) flatly refused to give me a loan for the summer. No one at the company could tell me why. My credit is still great...but they insisted it was probably my credit. I get a little impatient...I just checked my credit and it is excellent what is the deal? No one can seem to figure it out...just wait for the letter they say.

So I go to school and head to financial aid to see what they might say. "Sorry, so sorry, go apply to get into a degree program and then we can help you. With the housing market private loans are just tightening up." So I trudge around to registration and records and ask about applying. "Sorry, so sorry, the deadline for fall '08 registration has passed. You are too late." WHAT?!?!! The shock I am in keeps me from desintegrating right there in their office. I walk out with my eyes fixed into a distant stare. Is this for real? Is this how dreams die?

Yes, I can apply for Spring 2009 but what do I do until then? I have a class to attend my class I am a supplemental instructor for Chemistry 101. I wander in and hazily sit down. Near the end I decide to ask the professor I work with to keep his ears open for any jobs or anything that might help but he is mobbed with around 50 kids trying to get past tests. I wander away.

In the hall I call Mom. I know that this is my time to decide to trust God and to let it go, it is something I struggle with...trusting like a child and letting go. I want to but yet I don't. Mom and I talk. She is curious to see what God will do, what's the next thing He has in mind. I am not ready for that I am just upset. Also, I can ask Him to take it but underneath my body is clenched, I am one fried nerve away from meltdown.

From that point I am too busy to think. I have supplemental instruction, SI, to do for 1 hour and then I get a ride home with Charles. After SI a student needs extra help so I help him. We get home around 7pm.

After finishing my list of homework for the night, I write an email to my professor that I work with for SI asking him to keep his ears open for a job or anything, I read a little and fall into bed. I just can't deal with it. I can't change how I feel. I can't make myself trust. Sadly, I cry out to God...I just can't do it! I fall asleep.

The next morning I wake up. Oddly, this morning I find myself curious what is next. I haven't done anything but my attitude has changed. I humbly thank God for the change.

Wouldn't it be great if I just stayed changed, my attitude uplifted? Yes it would but that isn't how it goes. When I catch myself worrying, I turn to God and ask Him to take it again. Thankfully, from my experience He doesn't ask me to fix my weakness forever I have found He simply asks that at the moment I give it up to Him. This happens A LOT! I give up my stress, worry and frustration and 15 minutes, 1 minute, 15 seconds later its back again. Once again I give it up to my Friend and turn my attention to what I need to be doing.

Maybe someday I will be completely trusting and not struggle so hard. But for now I struggle not knowing the future and continually giving up my pride and control. Asking for His strength to accept what the future might hold.

Scene II: Blueberry Hauled Away

The accident has been a bit of trouble. The insurance decided to fix Blueberry and then pretty much exactly a month to the day they changed their mind and decided to total Blueberry. It was at that time the rental car agreement with the insurance ran out as well. So that left us in a bit of a fix...no Blueberry, 3 days of rental to find another car. :-) No, we haven’t found another car and the rental went back last night.

We decided to try to sell Blueberry on Craigslist to see if we could raise a little money for our next car since we got a measly pittance from insurance because it was salvage. The process ended up being frustrating and complicated because I left the title in some box somewhere in Coloraodo. And to make a long, frustrating and boring story short. We sold Blueberry as of today. We met the guy at the body shop at 7:30am this morning and he hauled Blueberry away.

I really did fine until they started the motor to drive it onto the trailer. Something about the sound of the diesel engine purring got to me. I started to cry...not bawling shooting tears crying but tears that welled up and threated to spill over cry. Since we were with the buyer still I choked it down but I expect I will have a good bawl over my pain-in-the-neck, but beloved first car.

Bye Bye Blueberry

So yeh...Blueberry and I had an accident the other day. We left for the weekend and I couldn't get onto the internet with my computer so couldn't give any updates. Also there is still some investigation into the accident going on by the insurance company (of course) so I will not give any long detailed explanation. We figured Blueberry was totaled but come to find out she is not. So she has an appointment at the plastic surgeons for the 18th of March and I will be driving a pretty dark gray Mazda 3 rental car until Blueberry comes back looking new. It is my very first (personal) rental car. Yes, I have had rental cars rented for me by Parelli but never one of my own. Interesting.

Whilst Blueberry looks new we will be selling her to the highest bidder. Charles is ready for a Honda or something that is reliable to a fault and I don't blame him.

I am embarrassed to admit that it tears at my heart hard to lose my first car and the car that represents who I am for something less defining. Yet it is an object, a thing and it is my own attachment that is causing this pain. I REALLY would like to be less attached to "things" and more attached to people, experiences and be free to follow my God where He leads even if it requires giving things up. So perhaps on that level it is a blessing in disguise.

If you ask Charles it is simply a good thing on ALL levels. ;-) And since I haven't had to fight over her little personality quirks like he has I can't deny that. :D hehe


And why am I sweaty...I got very sick on Monday night...threw up for the first time in 15 years. HORRIBLE and I am enjoying a fever. YEY! :D Glad it's spring break for me.

Drawing the Line

So some of you may recall the blog about my fight with my pet dragon. And not at all shocking is that one fight doesn't end all. I coddled that dragon long enough that it will probably be something I fight with my whole life. But each blow will weaken the power it has over my life and my decisions.

The end of last semester I was invited to be a supplemental instructor for the general chemistry by tutorial center. For a variety of reasons I said yes, money not being one of them since they pay an astounding 7.50/hr. For two reasons really...I immensely enjoy helping other people discover and learn and because it will help keep my gen chem skills sharp for taking the MCAT. So I added on another hour of school to take a tutoring course that they require and set about to do my job well.

"And set about to do my job well"...this is a job that I found quickly ate up a majority of my study time. But being hard headed I kept at it as my own school work suffered. I wanted to be good at what I did and I had 15-70 kids to help 3 hours a week. My experience with leading larger groups of people that I didn't know was zero so my confidence was pretty low. So I made some mistakes and learned and grew dramatically. And my school work suffered.

I'd get up at 6am, leave by 7:00am spend the whole day running from class to class, run an SI session until 5:30, answer some questions and after riding the bus and driving be home by 7:30pm only to do some bare minimum homework until 11pm and fall into bed emotionally and mentally exhausted but my body pulsing with tension. Waking up at 6am my body still tense and my mind still tired. I started to feel trapped, desperate, angry and depressed.

A week or two before test time I began to see reality for what it was. I could conceivably throw away a dream simply to try and succeed spectacularly at a part time job. Yep I am foolish but really it doesn't seem so foolish when you just don't have time to even think about it. And really when I am busy, really busy, I tend to take very little time to ponder about what is going on in that gray fluffy stuff I call a brain. When I am busy I tend to live in a tension filled rushed world with my mind buzzing from one task to the next, no time for the calming influence of God's voice and our peaceful conversations and His insight into my life. I had no peace.

So I had a choice, to keep going like a crazy woman and gripe because of what was happening or to adapt. I could quit the job, or I could adapt my study skills and limit the amount of time I gave to the job and not allow it to feed my dragon.

For awhile I did do a bit of griping about how it had all turned out. But Thank God He quickly helped me realize that griping was not going to help in fact it would make me feel like I was doing something while the whole while (as I told my friend Justin) allowing me to sit in the middle of life's road. I would only sit griping for a short amount of time before the speeding compact cards of life (little things such as a missing out studying for tests, a lack of peace) would come run me over, drag me down the road and leave me bloody in the ditch...if I was lucky I would make it to the ditch. Too often I have spent my life being run over time and time again only to sit up and gripe about life's tough breaks just to be hit again. When the answer..."pick your bloody carcass off the road and get into a car and start moving" was staring me in the face.

He reminded me that busy'ness for me was a way to escape reality. I don't have to think, I don't have to face reality, I don't have to worry, my life just goes and I fly along with it. And best of all it is another one of those socially accepted and praised attributes. But I have found when I don't have time for Him He can't guide me, He can't give me a new perspective, quite honestly I am out of His reach. A place I don't want to be. It is only in His tender care that I have found serious true peace. Peace that can only come when I exist in the moment, not worrying about this and that and I trust that He will give me the wisdom and strength to deal with each moment as they happen.

So I am learning. I have a C on my quantitative chemistry test to remind me of my slowness to respond and thank God an A on my Physics test because I listened to God's voice in my heart inviting me to slow down, take stock and adapt...stop fighting mindlessly and starting living with His wisdom.

Physics Love

I thought I should let you guys know that I am enjoying physics this semester. A token of how much I am enjoying it is a 98% on my first test. New teacher... as well as some lessons learned...big difference!

SR-56 A Memory of Two Years

Hey I just thought I would write a little blog on a memory that happened two years ago this weekend. It was one of the worst Sabbath's of my life. It was two years ago today that we got the word that our friend Doug was had died in the mountains because of a car accident and hypothermia. It is one of those days that I move through in my memory as if the air was goo...a slow motion, painful dance of sharp colors, distorted sounds and sharp edges.

There was little time for denial just too many people needing our hands and our hearts. RA & Susan, Walter, and Mom...confusion with how to deal with this when you've never faced it before. Gut felt anger at phrases like "God has a reason" or "it was meant to be". It made me want to run away screaming with my ears covered...there is no reason and this was not meant to be. It made me want to turn around and pummel them all the while asking, "HOW can you say that?" What a cruel thing to say although said with all the best intentions in the world.

Snap shots of the fall colors, the crisp air, the phone calls, the heads bent in grief. People who part of them died the day Doug died. And a person who began their path to life that very same day(here's a link to his blog from this weekend also in memory of Doug our good friend Jared Walter Read his post if you want proof that God can change things). Who would have guessed that life would be begotten by death. A broken heart soothed, a hand of friendship taken...I don't believe God had a reason or that it was meant to be...No I do not believe that. But I DO believe that He will turn our pain into something good if we allow Him. I believe that God took the evil spirit of the day and turned our mourning (after a long while) into peace.

Today the Rutkowske's, Charles and I wore our shirts commemorating Doug. A lot of people at church and potluck asked and Terry shared a small part of the story and she shared one of the blessings of Doug's life; his joy of helping others through the local Search and Rescue. I cried in my heart many times today, my eyes brimmed with tears as did Terry's as she shared a little bit of her beloved brother's life with each person who cocked their head and asked, "What's with the shirts?"

Thank you, Doug, for teaching us the beauty of God's grace and the expansiveness of His love in the most unconventional of ways.