Things I won't be telling you about...

Wow, I just realized how long it has been since I had posted last. A lot has happened since then, including a lot of stuff I wanted to blog about but never did. So, one day when I have a sane moment ask me about what vehicle I decided I wanted (hint: it has personality), what I ended up deciding about the whole vehicle situation, about the good news at AUMC, about the cell phone pic I took in the parking lot... all that stuff (and more!) will be yours to keep if you CALL NOW! OPERATORS are STANDING by! (I thought that they were sitting in chairs?)

Anywho, I don't want to talk about those things right now, I want to talk about something else tonight. I was just laying down to go to bed (at 2:45 AM) and started going on this long rant/prayer/soul searching thing. Actually, it was my nightly prayer that turned out to be more revealing than I had originally planned.

First I realized how my body has bad timing. It likes to not sleep on important nights, or get tired when I have plenty of sleep... or, like this week, get sick at the most un-opportune time. I could have been sick last week, or the week before, or the week before that, or ALL THREE WEEKS, and I wouldn't have missed a beat... I had nothing going on those weeks!

But this week has been a hive of activity. I have gone to tape with Cathy in Gainesville for the first time in almost a month (she has been sick). I have been at church several times this week for different meetings. I have been working for dad doing office stuff. Stephen wants me doing internet research for him. All of this on top of trying to find a new vehicle, and/or deciding what to do with mine. Compared to last week, this week has been a tornado of activity.

And of course, it is this week that I got sick. But I am really not sick... real sickness I could understand and point at decisions I have made (like playing "Freeze Flag" (a combination of "Freeze Tag" and "Capture the Flag") in a muddy field after a thunderstorm in 50 degree weather). THAT I could understand. But no, this is allergy/sinus sickness. The kind that makes me not be able to breathe at night but gives me a runny nose during the day, that makes me cough and hack all day, that upsets my stomach so much that I can't run because the bile comes up (and at night it gets worse).

I could understand if my sickness were due to my body not being in shape or because I have been mean to my immune system. However, this sickness would have come this week, this day, no matter what... It would have come if I were busy with five jobs or if I were sitting around doing nothing. It is just my luck that it came the week/day that I have five jobs. Sorry to tell you like this Stephen, I REALLY want to be working on your stuff, but I have not been able to yet. Give me a few days and I will... (of course staying up late to write long blog posts isn't helping much, so I will make this quick)

Getting back to the prayer... Actually, I had more stuff to say, but I have forgotten it now... let me try to remember... There was something in the prayer about how when things hurt it is the hardest time to have faith, but it is also the most important time to have faith. That faith is built most during the low times when one's faith is under attack (BTW: understanding this doesn't help one have faith during the low time, it only gives hope). Faith tends to be easy for me in the good times but very troublesome in the bad times.

It was somewhere in this prayer of mine that I decided to stop whining and start listing all of the blessings that God has put in my life. I realized that for several weeks (months even) I have been praying for financial help (a steady job, maybe?), and here I am this week with an abundance of jobs! Granted, none of them are "stable", but...
Cathy gave me a raise,
I have been working for dad,
Stephen has offered to pay me for work (if I ever get around to it),
AUMC won't be paying me any more now, but I have secured my role in the church for many years to come...

And as I think about all of the money blessings that God has given me this week alone, I put two and two together... in the same week that I decide that I need a new vehicle (and thus I need a job), God gives me lots of odds and ends to make a little money. Granted, the jobs from Stephen and dad might have been because I need money, but Cathy had already decided to give me a raise (she told me that she felt led to do it). Am I just pulling coincidences together and trying to read the tarot cards, or is God trying to tell me something? And if he is, what is he trying to say?

It was at this point in my rambling prayer that I decided I had an epiphany big enough to share it with the blog-o-sphere. I half wish I had kept going on my path down my inner self; the other half of me is glad that I stopped when I did, or this blog post would be much longer, and I would be going to bed much later than 3:15!

Matthew

PS: thanks to proofreading, it is now just before 3:30... I hope I can get to sleep sometime tonight, because I have to be at church in 12 hours to run the Saturday night service, one that I don't normally go to... just one more thing scheduled in this busy week of mine.