HAILSTORM
[written for a friend in need]
Hail-storms of hurt-words
Come barreling down;
Warm rays of sunlight
No longer found.
Unexpected and whirling;
Hardened and cold;
Invaded by dark clouds
Angry and bold.
A bruise here, a scar there
Salty rain-tears descend
Lord, strengthen me;
Lead me to the storm’s end.
I'm afraid to even look at the date of my last post. I'm sure it was years ago. Accept my full apologies!
A lot of what has been consuming me lately has been this big crazy college decision part of life. The scholarships. The interviews. The research. The thinking. The letters. The credits. The majors. The programs. The distance from home. The campuses. The admissions counselors. The professors. The students. The food (hey, it's an important factor). The costs. Etc.
It has been a MAJOR source of stress and pure terror for me over the last few months (years?) and yet, I can feel God teaching me things through this process.
One thing that's been sticking out at me lately has been, as a dear friend put it, "The Classic Christian Mistake".
I keep looking for factors that will make this decision easier for me, and one of those was financial aid. I prayed and prayed and prayed and found that my top two schools were basically the same in every respect -- I loved them both and they had so much to offer and both are great choices. And so I thought the only factor left was financial aid; I prayed that God would use scholarships and grants and such to point me in the right direction. And I waited. And I waited. And for a few weeks, it looked like even the monetary awards would be almost exactly the same, leaving me very undecided and unsure of what God was doing.
Then I got a letter in the mail from one school, and the scholarship money was significantly higher than I expected. Woo hoo, happy dance, life is good. This was a sign, I knew it; this was God pointing.
I was thrilled for all of about two hours.
Then the doubt set in.
"I should wait until I get the official statement from the other school. This really isn't a sign. This is just unexpected. What if this isn't really God? What if God hasn't really spoken yet, but I'm just trying to force everything to fit into MY own will instead of His? How do I know this is a sign? This can't be what answered prayers look like..." etc, etc.
The next day, knowing most of this, my friend talked to me about my big mistake. "You made the classic Christian mistake," she said of my doubt. "You prayed and prayed that God would speak to you about this decision through finances. And He did exactly as you asked. And then after you got that, you looked at God and wondered if it was enough." She's so very right; that's EXACTLY what I did!
I haven't been able to stop thinking about this conversation since. How often do we want God to just drop down a sign straight from Heaven to point us in the right direction? But even more interesting, how often does God DO this, but instead of following his sign, we second-guess it and doubt Him and ask for a billboard. THEN we'll be sure. And sometimes God has enough patience to drop us a fairly obvious billboard...and we have the gall to look at him and go, "Could ya just add some flashing lights to it? I'm not sure if this is the sign I need yet...I'm waiting for something more obvious...."
It reminds me of the story of Gideon, which you can also find in Judges 6-7. You gotta love Gideon. He's out in his field threshing wheat, and an ANGEL of the LORD appears.(First sign: There's an angel standing in front of me.) And Gideon says, "Whoa, baby. Are you really an angel? If you are, hang on just one second." Gideon goes inside to prepare an offering and the angel waits, just as he asks. (Second sign: Angel does as he asks and waits with heavenly patience). Then, Gideon comes back out and asks for ANOTHER sign. So the angel touches Gideon's altar offering with his staff and BOOM! instant flames. (Third sign) Ok. So, now, Gideon has an ethereal being standing in front of him who has just made fire appear out of nowhere....pretty obvious, eh? Gideon's still skeptical. He comes up with this elaborate test for God, involving fleece and dew and very specific instructions (Seriously? If this is not an illustration of how patient our God is, then I don't know WHAT is! Because if it was me...I'd be a little peeved at Gideon and I'd been ready to smite the guy.) And God, who has created the heavens and the earth and can do ANYTHING, has the patience and goodwill to accommodate Gideon's silly requests about putting dew on the fleece. (Fourth sign, anyone??) Gideon wakes up the next morning and goes, "Alright! You did exactly what I wanted, God! But...well, just one more thing...." and he goes and asks God for YET ANOTHER sign. And God STILL doesn't smite the guy, but gives him his sign, (Yep, we're up to five signs, now, in a few day's time, if I remember correctly) and thank goodness Gideon finally sees the light and realizes, DUH, this IS God.
And it's so easy for me (us) to roll our eyes at Gideon and wonder how he could possibly still doubt, even when God did exactly what he asked, over and over again.
And yet, here I am doing exactly the same thing.
Thank you, God, for your indescribable patience!
After being at work all morning, I came home this afternoon and headed upstairs to tackle some schoolwork. Like any normal person, I also had to go to the bathroom. I walked in to the little upstairs bathroom that the Lil Bro and I share only to discover this....
So you're thinking, "Duh, MMSG. It's winter. That stuff is called snow. You got 13 inches of it yesterday. Why are you surprised by this??!" And, well, yeah. If I was outside, a hunk of dirty snow would have been no big deal.
But it was in my bathtub!!!
So, seeing as the Lil Bro is the only other person who uses this bathroom, I marched off to his room.
Me: "Come."
Lil Bro: "Huh?"
Me (leads Lil Bro to bathroom and points to snow)
Lil Bro: "It's snow."
Me: "It's IN MY BATHTUB!!!"
Lil Bro: "Yeah....?"
Me: "Explain, if you please?!"
Lil Bro (shrugs): "I dunno. Is the roof leaking?"
Me and Lil Bro pause and look up at ceiling. It is dry and leak-free.
Me: "Any other ideas?"
Lil Bro: "Check with Dad."
Me (marching downstairs, hands on hips)
Dad: "Yes?"
Me: "Let's play a game. It's called, 'Guess What's In My Bathtub That Doesn't Belong There.' You go first."
Dad: "Snow?"
Me: "Ding ding ding! We have a winner! And now for the bonus round: WHY?!?!"
Dad: "It was in the attic."
Me: "Great. That's fantastic. But, it's no longer IN the attic. It's IN MY BATHTUB! And it's DIRTY!"
Dad: "Indeed. I moved it from the attic. It's melting."
Me: "And you didn't feel the need to put it in YOUR bathtub?"
Dad (feigning shock): "Why, goodness, no! It's DIRTY!"
THE GHOST
by: Charles Baudelaire
OFTLY as brown-eyed Angels rove Excerpt from an IM conversation tonight....sorry, dear, but it was funny!
Friend: hi
Me: hi!!!!!!!!
Friend: r u home
Me: No. Are you ready for this?!?!? I decided to take up residence on the moon today. Earth is just too darn polluted!
Friend: oh
Me: :)
Friend: ur kidding right?
Me: Uh, NO!!!!!!!!!!! That's what's so crazy awesome about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There was this new program at NASA for high school seniors to go experience life in space for three days! It's an environmental-awareness thing; about teaching us to appreciate all the things we do have on earth, etc....I'M SO PSYCHED THAT I GOT PICKED!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't want to tell anyone I applied in case I didn't get it...it was really competitive and all....but we flew down to the NASA headquarters here in Houston late last night...and "take-off" was this morning at 7am...and now here I am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: Is this awesome or WHAT?!?!?
Friend: ok...sure....
Love ya, dear :) Thanks for putting up with me!
Heh. I received this email a few days ago, forwarded from the friend of a friend, and I have to say, it cracked me up :) I know I sent it some of you, but just in case...it seems to fit my current rant quite nicely..."Yesterday I was buying 2 large bags of Purina dog chow at Walmart, for my dogs Winston, Chief, Gus, and Maximus.
I was about to check out when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog. What did she think, that I had an elephant?
Since I had little else to do, on impulse, I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, and that I was starting the Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I ended up in the hospital last time. On the bright side though, I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of every hole in my body and IVs in both arms. I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally
complete so I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was enthralled with my story by now.)
Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food had poisoned me. I told her no; I had stopped in the middle of the parking lot to lick my butt and a car hit me.
I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard!
WAL-MART won't let me shop there anymore."
(Any of you who got the above reference to a very pathetic yet very funny country song...Kudos to you)
Ok, in continuing the current rant of Somnite (see below), I have my own two cents to add. Seriously, it's articles like this that make me shake my head an echo my great-grandmother: "What on EARTH is this crazy world coming to?!"
"Fish pedicures — the use of tiny, live carp to clean feet — have been made available in several Florida cosmetology salons in recent months.
Now, Florida is banning the practice.
The Florida Board of Cosmetology, housed within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, determined that fish pedicures are not permitted in salons because they violate two previously standing rules: one that prohibits animals or pets (excluding animals trained to assist the hearing impaired, visually impaired or the physically disabled) in salons and another that sets the standards for pedicure sanitation requirements."
[From the Tampa Bay Business Journal]
SERIOUSLY, people!? What on EARTH possessed you to think that using tiny, live FISH to CLEAN your FEET would be a GOOD idea? (Sorry, went a little overboard on the capital letters there....)
Maybe it's just me. But seeing as feet (mine or anyone else's) and contact with fish (alive or otherwise) are two of the things that SERIOUSLY GROSS ME OUT, the combination of the two is enough to cause extreme gagging. At the very least.
I totally stole that line ^ from Somnite. He is currently discussing stupid/ignorant people. Like those mentioned above.
And let me just say, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE!
Come ON, people!!! Is it that hard to move a few feet IN or a few feet OUT of the room in question?!?!!? ARGH!
Or maybe it's just part of the Conspiracy to Make MMSG Late for Everything.
*menacing glare directed towards all ignorant and non-ignorant door-blockers alike*