Today

Today I am just trying not to be afraid.

A short news update & a nice story

We’ve had two showings in two days to the same people.  Either they’ll make an offer tomorrow, or we’ll never hear from them again.

 Neal is still trying for a job.  His top 2 picks right now are BMXT in Lynchburg Virginia and DAK in Leland NC.  He’s in process with some other companies, too, but those are the ones he’s excited about right now.  The first is our hands-down preference, but we’ll see…

We ran out of money on Sunday.  Neal made me laugh until I snorted in church.  He found a $10 bill on the beach last week & we needed to tithe on it.  I was afraid he’d forget, so when I was walking out the door to church, I tucked a dollar in my pocket.  We checked the mailbox on our way & discovered that our account was overdrawn.  Neal went in to transfer money & discovered there was very little to transfer.  The fees had eaten our savings.  Very worried.  Went to church feeling glum.  Neal says, “Well, we just won’t buy anything this week.”  So I spent part of the service trying to figure out what kind of meals I could make from the contents of the pantry and wondering how my children would react to life without milk, fruit, or bread.  Can you eat peanut butter and jelly on rice?
        When the collection time came, I pulled the dollar out of my pocket & showed it to him.  He laughed and pulled one out of his pocket.  (We take tithing very seriously!)  Then he leaned over and quoted It’s A Wonderful Life.  “Mama dollar and Papa dollar,” he said, grinning, “May they have lots of babies!”  I cracked up and was definitely a “hilarious giver” this Sunday.  We put both dollars in the bucket, of course!
          Well, Monday, when M.R. dropped off her kids, she had something to say to me.  Our previous agreement was that I would keep her children (2 boys 2 & 4, and a girl 11)for five dollars a day for expenses.  They come before breakfast and leave at lunchtime so she can work as a crisis manager or some such at the school.  I love keeping them.  I felt guilty for charging $5!  It was the blessing of God to open a way for Mike to “Go to Preschool” at home.  Even after just two days, his speech had already progressed a great deal, and he was playing and laughing instead of lurking around the house.  I would gladly have kept her children for nothing.  Seven kids in the house?  Ah, who cares!  Personally, I thrive on moderate amounts of chaos.
       But Monday morning, she confessed that she hadn’t been able to sleep the night before worrying about not paying me.  And she handed me a check!  I tried not to take it.  I tried to tell her how blessed I was just by the prescence of her children in my home.  But she insisted.  It was beautifully ironic to think of her laying awake worrying about paying me the same night I was laying awake fretting about how to feed my kids.  Is that God at work, or what? 
       But wait- there’s more!  I thanked her with tears in my eyes and told her what a blessing her money was.  Foolishly, I guess, I told her that I hadn’t known what I was going to do about groceries until Neal got his next check on Friday & thanked her over and over.  Should have kept my dumb mouth shut.  Because at 9pm that night, my own personal angel and her four-year-old brought us a week’s worth of food!  My kids were hysterical with pleasure.  Juice and grapes and Eggo waffles and cheese and meat and bread and diapers!  In the right size!  Milk and muffin mix.  Cooking oil and spaghetti sauce.
       Mike ran up to me and begged, pulling on my robe sash, “Oh grapes, mommy!  I’m so hungry!  I need a snack!”  Donal was practically crying and saying, “Spaghetti sauce AND spaghetti AND salad AND bread!  You’re spoiling us, Mrs. M!”  It was like something out of the Grapes of Wrath.  Which was totally ridiculous, because they hadn’t even missed a meal yet.  They’d just overheard their dad and I talking about what we would do.  I hadn’t even tried to feed them my own special recipe of cranberry olive stirfry yet!  It’s not like we were going to starve.  We HAVE a credit card, for Pete’s sake.  I could have bought groceries if I’d wanted to.  We just thought we’d rather eat wierd food out of the back of the freezer than go into debt right then.  And he’d get a check again on Friday.
       My emotions were quite a mix- shame and elation, frustration, embarassment, and delight.  It was such a kind thing!  Such an example of God’s love poured out, that she should have done that for us.  She explained that she just couldn’t shake the feeling that the Lord wanted her to bless us in that way.  I said, “But you already gave us a check this morning!”  She said, “I know, but He wanted me to.”  I wanted to sit down on the floor and cry.
         I’m glad my heavenly father will help me out in times of desperate need.  I am relying on him to help Neal find a job, to help us make our November mortgage payment, to keep all the bills paid, to help sell our house.  Compared to our needs, a few days without groceries because we miscalculated and were careless with our bank balance was such a MINOR thing.  We felt like fools.  We felt like we deserved a week of eating peanut suprise and home-made rice cakes.
       It was grace, grace, overabundant grace that spared us that.  God and Mrs. M. poured out help, not because we were in desperate overwhelming need, but because they loved us.  Because they wanted to bless us.  She knew very well we weren’t starving.  She just wanted to share.  To make my life easier.  To help me not to worry.  To show me that I’m loved.
      True love is a humbling thing.  It makes you feel like you don’t deserve it.  I guess maybe none of us really deserve it.  But it’s the only thing that makes life worth while.

Evangelical Guilt Complex

        I think I’m suffering from Evangelical Guilt Complex.  EGC syndrome is brought on by the feeling that you should be walking up to strangers in the grocery store and asking if they have a deep and meaningful relationship with Jesus.  I can’t do that!  I’m, um, not really comfortable with knocking on doors and handing out pamphlets, either.
       I read the lovely little book, “Share Jesus without Fear.”  I even marked up a little pocket bible to carry around and witness with, but had fear anyhow and never ended up showing it to anyone.
       I have an uneasy suspicion that, though I would like to yeild a 100-fold return on God’s investment in my life, the only people I witness to may turn out to be my kids.  Maybe I should just adopt 100 kids….
       It’s a good thing I’m not a Jehova’s Witness- I’d never make it into the kingdom.
       So when I read Abbye’s blog about the beautiful light-stick service (see Abs of Steel in my blogroll), I had a severe attack of EGC.  Any time someone starts talking about people being empowered to go out and reach their community for Christ I get one of those test-day tummy aches.  I begin to feel a real need to lay in bed all day eating cookies and reading.  My palms get sweaty and I want to go hide in the bathtub.
       You get the feeling you’re supposed to DO it, but don’t know how.  Maybe that’s why so many people are guilty of Evangelism Abuse.  You know, where they walk up to you and make you feel like you’re going to hell and glad to get there because you won’t be bunking with the person who’s talking to you?
       My idea, which I commented to P.A. (and shouldn’t have- this is my official apology!) was that perhaps we should have like, some kind of class where we could practice a non-threatening effective approach.
       But Pastor Ron must have read my mind (again) and talked this morning about how NO approach was ever going to work out.  (Whew!  You mean it’s not just me?)  What he said, and I loved this, was that if you were soaked in the Holy Spirit, totally given to God, that you would know what to say, know what to do & how to do it.
       Of course, I’ve never actually known what to do yet, but I now have hope that perhaps some day Holy Spirit will whisper in my ear and give me something to say to help somebody.  Hey, come on, it’s possible!  Even for me.
        It would be awfully nice to talk to someone sucessfully and feel like it was one of those God Appointments.  I’ve never had that happen.  When I had to fill out the church application to be a child-care worker, I felt really guilty because when it asked, “Have you ever led someone to Christ?” I had to say, “No.”  (Well, unless my 4-year-old son counts.)
       It’s hard to feel like you know this overwhelmingly wonderful person who makes all of life worthwhile and beautiful and makes you get up in the morning singing, and not be able to get other people to come meet Him.
       I love God SO much, I love him, I love him, I love him!  I don’t love the bible- it’s a book.  Church is nice, and the people are great, but it’s being with God himself that is just incredible.  Today in pre-service prayer I went from Blah to Shazaam in about two seconds.  I felt God’s prescence drop around my shoulders like he came up behind me and lay his arm around my neck. 
      I could tell Edith felt it too, because her hand started shaking in mine.  How can I describe his presence?  It’s overwhelming.  The feeling that someone is there is so strong it’s undeniable, and the someone is wonderful- so loving, so real, so exciting.  Sometimes he speaks to me, and sometimes he just pulls me up in his lap (spiritually speaking) and I feel loved, loved, loved, forever loved.  God makes me beautiful.  It’s like being all alone locked in a dark room and having the person you love most in the world come open the door and let you out.
       We all want something in life.  We want cars or money or friends or jobs or a new TV or health or someone to love.  Seeing God is like seeing all those things heaped on top of each other.  It’s like longing and hungering and starving for a peanut butter sandwich and then seeing the Golden Coral Buffet with a big “Eat all you Want” sign over it.  Seeing God for the first time is incredible, because you suddenly know that THIS is what you really wanted all the time and just didn’t know it.  Love at first sight with electricity running up and down your spine.  And the really fantastic thing is that the thrill doesn’t wear off- it actually gets better every time you experience his prescence.  Even the times I get in trouble with him are wonderful.  I’d rather have God fussing at me than having anyone else on Earth handing me an award!
      Oh, I wish I could tell people!  But when they look at me with sarcastic eyes all my words dry up.  I become silent and ashamed.  The scientific mindset hurts me.  “Prove there is a god!” they seem to demand.  But how can I prove him?  I just talked with him yesterday.  He told me something wonderful I would never have thought of on my own.  He healed my back when I wasn’t even expecting it!  But how can I prove it?
       And what on earth do you say if they say, “Well you may need that, but I don’t.”  Good grief, if you don’t need it, you ought to want it!  Who doesn’t want True Love complete with the handsome prince, the white horse, the palace and the happily ever after?  If only I had a magic wand I could use to make them see.
       It’s not like believing in Santa Claus.  It’s like believing in my husband when he’s on a business trip and he emails me and talks to me every day and sends me checks when I need them!  Good grief!  How could I NOT believe?
      Now if only I could think of a way to say it….