Fantastic-ness Continued

I keep hearing people say that 2023 was an awful year for them, as if 2023 were a long continuation of 2020 or 2021, so I feel a little bit guilty that 2023 was actually a good year for me. My word for the year was “fantastic,” and it was pretty darn fantastic indeed.

Except for my health.

In October, my doctor’s office told me that I’m prediabetic; they also said that my cholesterol was high, likely due to the high blood sugar. A few months before that, they told me that my liver count was high, so they put me on a lowfat diet. So, after dieting for three months, I was expecting to get the good news that my liver count is back to normal and that I could start eating normally again. Nope. Although my liver count is OK again, the doctor’s office said that I now have to avoid sugar and carbs, which means that I’m technically now supposed to be on a lowfat, low-sodium, low-cholesterol, low-carb, low/non-sugar diet. I was so angry about this. I was like (reminiscent of an episode from The Cosby Show), what am I supposed to eat? Air?

So, I’ve been working like crazy to reverse this prediabetes. After my chat with the doctor’s office, I remembered that my mother was once diagnosed with pre-prediabetes (which I believe was a high blood sugar level that technically wasn’t prediabetic) and my great-grandmother was diabetic, so I need to be extra careful. I’ve learned firsthand that as we get older, our bodies can’t process foods as easily as they did when we were younger. I would like to become so healthy that no one will have to tell me that I can’t eat a certain thing ever again. (For real, attending parties and church gatherings where sweets are offered is torturous and depressing now.)

 

Meanwhile, I’ve needed to make some adjustments. Remember me blogging last time about how I had a migraine? I think that may have been a sugar headache. After the prediabetes diagnosis, I noticed for a while that whenever I would eat a snack between meals like a granola bar or a banana (foods that have some sugar in them), I would get a headache. So, to adjust, I’ve tried to eat a low/non-sugar snack or just eat a bigger breakfast so that I won’t get hungry between meals. According to my online research, I’ve learned that the following foods are good for regulating blood sugar: nuts, apples, avocados, eggs, green leafy vegetables, dark chocolate, unsweetened yogurt, and unsweetened coffee. So, I’ve been trying to focus my diet around those awesome things. The photo I’ve shared above—stir-fried canned veggies with avocado and some Triscuits on the side—is the type of dinner that I’ve been eating at home lately.

 

After dinner, I’ll usually eat a small piece of dark chocolate for dessert. I decided to try some chocolate that has a high concentration of cocoa (instead of a high amount of sugar), and it was horrible and bitter at first, but it kind of grew on me.

 

For my emotional health, I insist on eating one cheat meal per week. Towards the end of 2023, it was a slice of pizza with a salad on the side.

So, I’ve had to get used to eating a certain way, avoiding certain foods, and saying “no” a lot to things that I really want to say “yes” to. I’ve had to adjust my eating habits in the past due to various health reasons, but this time the whole no-sugar thing has been a lot to handle. Frankly, it’s really hard to be Mexican and eat healthy. Maybe someday I’ll get to eat a cheese enchilada dinner again... with chocolate-chip ice cream for dessert... and chug it all down with a Coke... picture me drooling here...

But other than that, my 2023 really was fantastic. I enjoyed some fun moments with my family. School was challenging at the beginning of the year (e.g., one class was frustrating and awful), but I got to learn some Hebrew and connect some of the foreign-language dots that have been floating around my brain since childhood. I got to start researching early for my thesis, and I’m halfway done with my master’s degree now! I also got to lead worship in some new milieus, and I got to volunteer with my church’s choir as we’ve gradually been invited back to the platform since our pandemic-induced hiatus. This is an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime season for me.

 

Also—and I’m wondering if this is God having a good chuckle—during my fantastic 2023, I “discovered” the Fantastic Beasts trilogy. It’s the prequel to the Harry Potter series, and I’ve heard that it isn’t as good as Harry Potter, but it is an intriguing story. I found the third movie in the series on clearance, so I grabbed it and took it home. I can see why it isn’t as good as Harry Potter; during the first scene, I was like, whaaaaaaat?? But I look forward to exploring the film series more as I read more of the Harry Potter books (I finally finished reading the first book the other day).

So, what about 2024? My word for the year is “fantastic-ness continued,” as I think 2024 will be like a continuation of 2023 for me. Hopefully I’ll keep enjoying some good times with my family, my health will improve, my thesis research will progress, and I’ll keep getting a lot out of my schoolwork. We’ll see, and happy new year!  

“Let’s See What God Does”

Yes, I’m a middle-aged woman who owns a SpongeBob ice pack. I ended up using it yesterday to help with a migraine. I don’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve had a migraine (I used to get them more frequently when I was in my 20s), but I was fighting one pretty much all day yesterday. Aspirin wasn’t completely getting rid of the pain (I can’t just take Tylenol and drink a Coke anymore like I used to), but smushing an ice pack to my forehead/eyeballs/neck helped. I blame the Texas heat. Or my middle-agedness. Or maybe stress.

“‘We have the fire and the wood,’ the boy said, ‘but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?’ ‘God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,’ Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.” (Genesis 22:7b-8 NLT)

I’ve been taking Hebrew this semester, which has been a delight thus far, despite its challenges. When I was very young, my language-professor dad taught me and my sister some Hebrew (he still communicates to us that way on occasion, and we’re usually just like... Uhhhhh, sí). I think I forgot most of it, but I also think I have discovered—based on how I learned Spanish—that I learn foreign languages much better by taking a class than by immersion. I think this class is helping to awaken any Hebrew skills that have been buried in my subconscious all these years.

My Hebrew professor studies the Bible frequently, so sometimes he peppers his language discussions with his findings and opinions. During a recent class, he said that in the Bible story of Abraham being instructed to sacrifice his son Isaac, English Bibles mistranslated Genesis 22:8 in which Abraham tells Isaac, “God will provide.” According to my professor, at this point in the Genesis narrative, God is fed up with Abraham (presumably because of the way that he handled the situation with Hagar and Ishmael) and decides to test him and see if He really wants to build a nation out of him. So, Abraham didn’t tell Isaac in verse 8 like a good little Christian, “God will provide”; a more accurate translation is actually “Let’s see what God does.” I think my professor’s interpretation makes sense. To me, this explains this verse in the New Testament a little better:

“Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.” (Hebrews 11:19 NLT)

Why would Abraham think that God would raise Isaac from the dead if he thought that He would just provide a sheep in the first place? And yes, this part of Abraham and Isaac’s story mirrors how God would give up His only Son Jesus later, but my professor’s interpretation has gotten me thinking... “Let’s see what God does.” That seems to be the attitude of an expectant heart.

This season in which I am attending graduate school part-time and working only one part-time job (plus borrowing my guts out in student loans) has been fantastic. Instead of filling nearly every hour of the day with multiple part-time jobs or with a back-breaking course load, I am able to balance work/school with rest. I have time to be a student and an adult. I feel human. And as a side effect, I’ve been feeling a lot of emotions. God showed me recently that He took so much stuff off my plate so that I could deal with my issues—because they have been surfacing in full force. (Good thing the devil knows that I don’t take his crap anymore, and good thing Jesus is with me.)

Something else has been happening recently that I think might be related. I told a coworker years ago that the weekend is like exhaustion detox: You’re going a million miles an hour during the week, so your body gets used to flying high on exhaustion, and then you come down from that high on the weekends when your body is like... Duuuuude, you better sleep this off. So, while I’ve been in this metaphorical “weekend” of sorts, with a lighter load for the moment, I wonder if my body has just been taking its sweet time unwinding and detoxing. Over the past few months, I’ve been dealing with foot pain off and on. One horrible afternoon a few weeks ago, I had legit IBS; as in, while I was just pooping as usual, my intestines suddenly decided to spasm, as if I were getting repeated charley horses in my gut (my belly was sore afterwards as if I had just completed an intense workout, and I never, ever, ever want to repeat that painful experience ever again). Then I had that stubborn migraine yesterday. All of this has had me wondering if I’m way more stressed than I think I am. Or maybe I’ve been stressed all along, and my body thinks that it finally has permission to express/release it.

At any rate, grad school/seminary is fun, and I’m having the time of my life, but poverty will always be a stressful thing, no matter how much faith you have. I have everything that I need, but my budget is extremely tight, and I’ve been thinking through ways that I can reduce certain expenses. Meanwhile, the plan is still to keep doing what I’m doing until God opens a different door. But in crunching some numbers in my head, I’m wondering if I may need to get a full-time job sooner than later (possibly next summer).

I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. In the meantime, I know that God will take care of me, and I know that He likes to show off the cool things that He can do, but waiting for Him to provide can be a cliffhanger. Will He provide a fitting full-time job? Will He provide a second part-time job again? Will He multiply my current money sources like Jesus multiplied the five loaves and the two fish? Will He bring an anonymous benefactor? Will He miraculously pay for stuff? Will He drop money from the sky?

Hmm. Let’s see what God does.

Casserole6

If you’re not familiar with my “Casserole” posts, each of them is a collection of hopefully deep thoughts (not the SNL kind). It’s been almost five years since my last such post.

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I usually blog after I end a fast so that I can share what I learned during the fast. I haven’t blogged immediately after ending fasts this year partly due to time constraints and partly due to my not having learned anything that would take up an entire blog post. In January, I fasted for twenty-one days from meats and sweets; the biggest thing I learned is that it is possible to live without meats and sweets. It’s something that was actually profound and metaphorical that God needed to etch on my heart. (In the top half of the photo above, I’ve shared pics of nice meatless meals that I enjoyed at restaurants.) On the Sunday before Memorial Day, I did a salad fast—I ate only a salad for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with no snacks, like I used to do for fourteen straight days—and remembered that, well, salad fasts are hard because I can get pretty dang hungry. (In the bottom half of the photo, I’ve shared pics of the pre-packaged salads that I ate.) I was reminded that what I was praying for needed to happen more than I needed to eat a burger.

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After several years as a freelance editor, with mostly students as clients, I have now closed my editing business primarily so that I can focus on my schoolwork and other opportunities.* I’m not an editor anymore. When I went on social media last night to make it official there, I kind of felt naked not seeing “editor” on my list of current jobs anymore—as if a part of me is now missing as I interact with the world. 

How long will that feeling last? Well, when I think of how I’ll no longer have to answer a ton of emails from potential clients whose questions I’ll never get paid to answer, or get a text from a client about a project on my day off, or not receive any projects when I really need some income, or receive a deluge of more projects than I can handle when I have my own schoolwork coming up, or deal with a client who says that they won’t pay me because they supposedly didn’t receive my edited file and supposedly turned in their school paper without my edits and I want to reach through my computer and strangle them... You know what? That feeling is kinda gone. Maniacal laugh!

(But in the future, if a full-time editing job ever presents itself in a very cool environment, and the door is open, and God is beckoning me to walk through it, and I’m broke, I wouldn’t say no.)

I like the idea of having only one job for a change. I’d like to relish that for a little while.

*opportunities = being available for ministry jobs or just having enough time to lead worship, which is not a hobby—it’s a heartbeat

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So, what am I doing now? Still working at my school, still being a grad student, still working on one of my multiple dreams. I have learned that it is OK for life to move slowly. Right now, my life is kinda like a list of downloads that are in progress: one dream has been prepared and is ready for God to click on the “OPEN” button, the preparation for another dream is a download in progress, and the preparation for yet another dream isn’t quite ready to download yet. 

My job is to wait until the downloads finish, stick with the process, and cling to the One who initiates the downloads (and the One who can cancel the downloads at any time).

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I probably don’t have to tell you, reader, but theology has a very bad reputation in many Christian circles. You mention the word “theology” or “theologian,” and you instantly think of a stuffy, snooty, suited jerk who tries to dissect God as if He were a lab rat. In these Christian circles, theologians aren’t known for loving God or being passionate about Him.

However, the opposite should be true. Theology is the study of God, and God is the lover of our soul, and He has commanded us to love Him with every fiber of our being, and He is love. Therefore, theology should have a bit of romance associated with it, spiritually speaking, even as an academic discipline.

I think what ruins this potential for this kind of romance is theologians’ writing styles. OH MY GOSH WHY ARE THEOLOGIANS SO BORING??? Put Wikipedia or social media in front of me, and I can read for hours. Put a textbook that compiles various theological perspectives about soteriology, Christology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, and any other ology that you can think of—especially if it’s poorly organized or written—and I’ll fall asleep after a few minutes. I’m still working on reading through a small pile of textbooks that I didn’t finish reading during the past year (although I think most of this year’s editing projects did put me behind on my reading assignments).

Good grief, man! Would it kill you to be more concise when you write about theological or historical concepts? I keep feeling like I’m reading the same thing over and over and over and over and over again (although your wordiness has motivated me to learn how to speed-read). I mean, gosh. Where did you learn how to write? Did they not teach you about how to organize your ideas? Who edited your work? Were they not brave enough to tell you that your ideas need to flow in a certain direction? Or did you just not listen to them, and a publisher published you anyway because you have more degrees than a thermometer? Frustrated sigh!

So, if I ever write a theology book, please remind me to not put my readers to sleep.

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God told me recently that my mind is like a toddler. He didn’t mean it as an insult; He just showed me that it’s OK to let my mind do some controlled exploration whenever it needs to. Otherwise it’ll throw a tantrum.

About a decade ago, I baby-sat my cousin’s little boy and followed him around his house as he did his toddler-exploration thing. When our time together was nearly over, he instructed me to sit on the living-room couch. Then he threw a toy at my face and laughed. “You are definitely related to me,” I said.

As I’m sure you know, toddlers put things in their mouths, they knock things over, and they get into things that they don’t need to be getting into, so you need to keep an eye on them. They’re not trying to be bad people; they’ve just learned how to use their legs, they’ve discovered how powerful they are, they want to learn about the world around them, and they have no idea how to do so properly or safely until you show them how. (And if they refuse to follow your leadership or accept your authority, they’ll scream bloody murder.)

My mind is like a toddler, and it’s good for me to know that I need to let God follow my mind around as it explores things. I’ll give you an example. Recently, after I finished a long day’s work and my mind was tired from working and I think also from trying to read for school, I got ready to attend a special church service that evening. I ate dinner at a deli, and while I was enjoying my meal, a song played on the radio that I wanted to identify.

So, I downloaded the Shazam app on my phone and learned that the song was “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship. Of course. I should have recognized their sound, because lately I’ve been listening to Starship and other 80s tunes while I’ve been working on a clerical project at my job. (Not to mention, I’m pretty sure I heard “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” a million times on 97.9FM in Odessa.) This made me think of the song “We Built This City” (which I heard for the first time when I was hanging out with friends in Odessa in the 90s), which many people on the internet consider to be one of the worst songs of the 80s.

So, I read online about how the song is actually a lament of the closing-down of clubs where music used to be performed in California. Knowing this helps some of the lyrics make more sense (some of the lyrics still seem nonsensical to me, but so what? the song is otherwise mindless and very danceable—perfect for playing in the background). Then I got curious about how one of the lead singers was around my age when the song was recorded, so I read online about how she has actually gotten into trouble with the law several times, and about how she had been a lead singer in the band basically since the 60s. (In a nutshell, Starship used to be Jefferson Starship, which used to be Jefferson Airplane, and I believe the group went through even more changes after the 80s.)

So, I finished my deli meal and drove to church. While I was hanging out in the parking lot, I decided to listen to Jefferson Airplane’s song “White Rabbit” for the first time on YouTube. (I couldn’t help but think of Neo’s instruction to “follow the white rabbit” in The Matrix.) I could tell from the first few lyrics that the song is about drugs, and then I read online about how the song was about drugs (duh), and that tied a nice little bow around my mind’s toddler-exploration thing. Having thoroughly enjoyed some introvert recharging, I walked to the church building happy and a little lighter on my feet—ready to greet people and enjoy the evening.

So, that’s how my mind is like a toddler. (It has explored things not-so-safely in the past with very horrible results as my mind has dabbled in some very bad things.) I’ve learned that if I don’t let my mind toddle around and explore, and if I don’t let God be part of this process, my mind could throw a screaming-bloody-murder tantrum. By that, I mean that I could fantasize about punching somebody out, telling somebody off, or basically doing something that could get me arrested if I were to actually do it in real life. A toddler needs to be toddler, but within safe, healthy boundaries.

Hopefully this random life skill will come in handy when it’s time to write a thesis or dissertation later. 

Reflecting on the Changes

A few years ago when I was struggling through a difficult season of emotional healing and taking a step back from some of my favorite activities, a friend prayed 1 Peter 5:10 over me:

 

“... may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you” (NKJV).

 

My word for 2022 was “settling.” I hoped that that would mean that I would be settling into a new job, a new season of life, but 2022 seemed to unfold a bit differently for me. God shook things up in my world, and often after things are shaken, they need to settle down—outwardly and inwardly. 

If you’ve followed my blog over the years, perhaps you remember that I left the bottom shelf of one of my bookcases empty so that I could fill it with textbooks when I went back to school. As you can see, that shelf is full and has overflowed onto the shelves above it! Those are my training-to-be-a-worship-pastor textbooks and grad-school textbooks on the bottom shelf, grad-school textbooks and worship-degree class notes on the second shelf, and grad-school class notes on the top shelf (along with some VHS tapes and CDs). Not pictured are the textbooks that I sold back and the Kindle textbooks. Even though my future is more of a giant question mark than ever before, I know that I have/will have degrees in writing, worship, and theology... and I suspect that all three of those disciplines will be in my future somehow.

 

 

All of the Changes

 

Since the whole point of me going back to school was to receive training to be a worship pastor, I had hoped (and still hope) that God would place me in that type of role. Meanwhile, as I have been waiting—and attempting to put myself in a better place while I wait—2022 ended up bringing me changes in nearly every area of my life:

• new apartment
• new work building 
• new work desk and cubicle
• new degree plan
• new phone
• new glasses 
• new second job (which I quit, as described in a previous post)
• new Bible (graduation present)
• new way of doing choir (something awesome that I’ll learn more about in 2023)
• new vet for MeepMeep (just for her dental care)
• new way of brushing my teeth (due to tooth extraction)
• new wave of bitterness (as mentioned in previous posts)
• new entertainment obsession (as described below)
• new educational interest (as described further below)

When the Harry Potter movies were first released, I was hanging around a group of Christians that was very hypersensitive with their entertainment (if they ever enjoyed any type of entertainment). I’m sorry, but these folks were just anti-fun. Specifically, since witchcraft is forbidden in the Bible, they condemned anything related to Harry Potter, so I was programmed to avoid it, too. But as the years went by, I noticed that Christians whom I respected were fans of the movies and books. Around the early part of summer 2022, I got very curious about Harry Potter and watched several movie clips on YouTube... and I was like OH MY GOSH THIS IS AWESOME!!! So, I found a cheap used set of all eight Harry Potter movies on Amazon and have been bingeing them ever since. (Movie #6 is currently in my DVD player.) Turns out, the author of the Harry Potter books is a Christian and uses Christian symbolism in Harry’s story. So, in 2022 I became very acquainted with the movies, and maybe in 2023 I’ll get to start reading the books!

 

God had warned me that I would reach a low point in 2022, and I ended up doing that with a brief bout with depression, etc. (I’m actually still working through some bitterness issues.) Harry Potter has been a healthy source of cathartic entertainment for me. Besides the symbolism and the ingenious storytelling, it has also nurtured in me a desire to learn and to teach others (Harry is a student at a boarding school). It reminds me that school is a time to learn about myself and discover my passions.

 

 

A Discovery

 

So, on paper, I’m qualified to write/edit and to be a worship pastor, and I’m currently working on the qualifications to become a professor. This past semester, as I began to learn about theology and church history, I also discovered something new about myself: I like history.

 

Wait. What?

 

I know that I’m artsy-fartsy, and I can sometimes express myself better with music than I can with English, but I didn’t realize that I actually like learning about history. As I’ve thought about this, I’ve realized that I learn about history for fun (OverSimplified is one of my favorite YouTube channels), and I remembered how much time I spent reading for my AP History class in high school. 

 

More specifically, after my Christian history class ended in October, I found myself bored while reading through regular theological materials. Okay, okay, so lots of different theologians believe differently than I do. I get it. But where’s the action? Getting to read about historical events is more exciting for me. Even more specifically, I’ve discovered another new thing about myself: I like learning about heresies. 

 

Wait. WHAT???

 

I’ve realized that I love to learn about heresies—unorthodox beliefs that I really don’t agree with such as Gnosticism, adoptionism, any other -isms that teach that Jesus isn’t God, isn’t human, or isn’t One with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Realizing this about myself alarmed me: Won’t I get messed up if I dig deeply into this stuff?

 

Nope. I know that all of that stuff is false, so reading about it is like reading a science-fiction novel. (I even read a book awhile back that was written by a lady who survived life in a cult.) Heresies are exasperating and entertaining all at the same time. Church history and heresiology: my new interests. 

Macho and Choochie weren’t around when I was in school, but MeepMeep has been here. She’s the perfect study buddy.

 

 

Pottery and Pastry

 

But meanwhile, waiting for God to place me in a ministry job has been very difficult. Watching people around me getting promoted while I’m still either doing entry-level work or waiting in the wings has sometimes been torturous. Watching other people get chosen while I feel rejected yet again has felt awful... but God reminds me that He sees me, He’s already chosen me, and I just need to be available. (Even if I’m just a doorkeeper in His house, Psalm 84-style.) Sharing my heart and my dreams with someone only to have them not listen is always awful... but God reminds me that He’s always listening.

 

He’s shown me that 2022 was a year of “unwelcome change” for me. Some of those bigger changes that I listed above were definitely unwelcome, but I think He’s been changing me in the process.

 

You know that “You are the potter, we are the clay” verse in the Bible (Isaiah 64:8)? It might not be as warm and fuzzy as you might think. Lately, I’ve been watching pottery videos on YouTube and observing what the potters do. Pottery is not a quick and easy task. The potter chooses the clay, beats the heck out of it, smacks it onto a wheel, adds some water to soften it, forms it, shapes it, forms it, shapes it, forms it and shapes it some more, lets it dry a little, trims it, decorates it, glazes it, and then burns the heck out of it. It’s a long but delicate process. If the potter is too harsh with the pot, he or she will ruin the design or break it. When that happens, the potter doesn’t repair the pot; he or she has to start all over again. But it’s a process that the potter is willing to embrace; he or she has the patience for it.
 
I know that in this season, God has been preparing me, pruning me, refining the heck out of me, and preparing and pruning and refining some more. I think a great deal of the “settling” in 2022 has actually been in my soul. Rather than getting worked up about how things aren’t going my way, I’ve increasingly caught myself being okay with them, talking and grieving through them with God, and being more able to accept them.

 

I didn’t do that. God did.

 

While I was at church one Sunday this past year, a lady whom I recognized from the church’s prophetic team introduced herself to me during the video announcements and said that she had a word for me. She saw a picture of a cinnamon roll and said that there’s a lot of work involved in making cinnamon rolls, but in the end it’s worth it. She said that I’ve asked God why He’s been rolling up things in my life, hiding them, and cutting them away, but it’s all part of the process. In the end, He’s going to pour out a sweet anointing.

 

Cool, I’ll take it!

 

 

Looking Ahead

 

For me, 2022 was a year of “unwelcome change,” but 2023 will be a year of “welcome change.” At the beginning of last year, I felt a sense of warning when God would talk to me about 2022, but at the beginning of this year, I feel a sense of excitement as He talks to me about 2023. 

My word for this year is “fantastic.” According to the dictionary on my laptop, it’s a word that means “extraordinarily good” or “imaginative or fanciful,” and it comes from a Greek word that means “visible.” Maybe that means that the awesome stuff I’ve been waiting for will be revealed. Or maybe I’ll end up going through some really huge trials that will be way more than I ever imagined. Hopefully the former, or perhaps a mixture, but God will help me through it all. I know that He has good things planned for all of us!

 

Happy New Year!

 

What I Learned During the Past Four Months

As I mentioned in my previous post, I needed to get another part-time job so that I could make ends meet. During the interview process, I agreed to work there for at least four months, so I did that and have now moved on. Time to rest! This has been a mighty exhausting ride. I learned some things—and not just in seminary. (OH MY GOSH THE APOSTLE PAUL WAS NOT A GNOSTIC JUST BECAUSE HE WAS MORE SPIRITUAL THAN YOU ARE DOESN'T MEAN HE WAS A GNOSTIC SO JUST GET THAT THOUGHT OUT OF YOUR HEAD) What I’d like to do here is share some of the big highlights.

1. God’s grace really can pull you through stuff. I have just lived through one of the most exhausting seasons that I have ever lived through. I would peel myself out of bed in the mornings (after hitting the snooze button multiple times), drive to my day job to work 10-3, then drive to my night job to work 4-9, then drive home and finally take a break, then do grad-school homework, then have a quiet time, and then fall asleep so that I could wake up and do it all over again the next day. In between all of that, I would need to read for my classes. On Saturdays, I would rest. On Sundays, I would do even more homework, try to catch up on reading, and try to do a tiny bit of housework. There wasn’t really much time for adulting or being human. (I took a few days off here and there from my night job, which helped, but it was still rough.)

That was August-October. From June-August, I did all of the above minus the homework, plus an hour and a half of vegging out after I’d get home at night. And I haven’t even mentioned needing to squeeze in some editing work for clients a couple of times. June-August was exhausting, but August-October was exhausting upon exhausting.

But I made it through. The only explanation I have is that God pulled me through. I honestly didn’t think that I’d make it this long with such an insane schedule, but God helped me—every step of the way.

2. A little perspective can go a long way. After years of not being able to read up close, wearing reading glasses over my regular glasses like that crazy lady on a reality TV show, and needing to take my glasses off so that I can read my phone, a very generous friend blessed me with bifocals! They’re very convenient, and I love them.

 

But I couldn’t quite see right away when I first got them. I thought maybe my eyes just needed to get used to them, but then I noticed that if I elevated them a little bit off my nose, I can see much better out of them. So, I grabbed some cotton and stuffed them under the frames one night so that I could see well enough to finish a homework assignment. (I snapped the above photo to document this event.) I got some adhesive nose pads the next day. Turns out, my eyes need to look into a particular part of each lens in order to properly see the world.

I like bifocals. They give me variety. If I look into one lens type, I can see far away. If I look into another lens type, I can see up close. (Trifocals someday will be triple awesome!)

While I was researching the pros and cons of bifocals, I learned that some folks are vehemently against bifocals. One site claimed that bifocals are the cause of elderly people falling, because the lenses cause perspective issues. (Um, I thought the elderly tend to suffer falls because of their vulnerable frame.) A previous nurse practitioner of mine said that she had trouble seeing with bifocals while she was walking down flights of stairs. (OK, so it’s a little blurry, but I can see stairs and my feet moving on them; mission accomplished.) One website said that the best way to see is to actually carry around two types of glasses. (Uh, have you ever tried living a normal life while your reading glasses clunk around in your purse?) Wow. Not sure why bifocals have so many haters. (Sorry, Benjamin Franklin.)

But none of these haters has my perspective. Why? Because none of them is me. In order to understand why my bifocals work for me, they’ll need to look through them with my eyes. In order to understand why someone is or acts a certain way, I’ll need to at least try to imagine what it’s like seeing the world through his or her eyes.

Adjusting your perspective can be a very healthy thing. Or sometimes you just need to adjust your expectations. (I’ve been told this before, but now I’ve experienced how true it is.) If you expect brilliance from someone who has proven himself or herself to be incompetent, you will be frustrated. If you expect compassion and understanding from someone who has never been in your situation, you will be hurt.

You’d think that working for a prayer ministry would make you feel appreciated because you’re helping people, right? Not necessarily.

 

Turns out, praying for people over the phone in a call center isn’t like praying for people at the altar at church. At the altar, people don’t walk up to you and complain about the church. (At least, I hope they don’t.) At the altar, people don’t take twenty minutes to tell you their prayer request, interrupt you while you’re trying to pray, or try to keep you at the altar after you finish praying so that they can shoot the breeze with you. (Do they?) At the altar, the prayer captain doesn’t tap you on the shoulder during your prayer to warn you that you’re taking too much time with someone who needs prayer. (I mean, really.)

 

In all of my various experiences in working at call centers, I’ve learned that people or customers don’t always treat the phone representative like a real person. They tend to be extra rude to that person because he or she is just a voice on the phone. But if you’ll try to imagine phone reps as actual human beings who took call-center jobs because they need the paychecks, maybe you’ll see through their eyes that the experience on the phone is just as unpleasant for them as it is for you.

 

I’ve heard it said—and I agree—that sometimes experiencing something unpleasant is meant to just be filed away in your brain as an example of how to not treat people.

 

 

3. Sometimes I just need to shut up. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been dealing with bitterness. That has gotten better, but the journey hasn’t been pretty. Sometimes thoughts will fly through my head, and I’ll find myself telling people off in my head—and it’s very ugly. I’ll shock myself with what I say in my head, and I’ll hear myself say out loud, “I just need to shut up.” Some things are just better left unsaid...

 

... especially during PMS. Here’s a little list that I wrote for myself one day while I was in the meltdown phase of PMS. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. And there’s a reason for that.

 

 

4. One tough season can prepare you for another tough season. While I was earning my second bachelor’s degree, I worked multiple jobs while I was going to school full-time and participating on multiple worship teams. Even though I was having the time of my life, it was ridiculously exhausting, but God helped me through it, and it helped to remember that school was only temporary.

 

Now I’ve worked multiple jobs while I’ve been going to graduate school part-time online, but I had to take a break from singing on worship teams so that I could work evenings. At my night job in the call center, worship music would constantly play in the background. Sometimes between phone calls, I would hear a song playing that I had sung on the platform with a previous team, or that I learned how to play on the piano while I was in school, and I would miss being on worship teams... and I would try to not cry. (My non-crying attempts weren’t always successful.)

 

God helped me through it, and it helped to remember that my time away from the worship platform was only temporary.

 

During all of that, I needed to hone my time-management and administrative skills, and I needed to dig deep and find some extra stamina. I wonder if there’ll be something in my future that will require all of that, too.

 

 

5. There’s a reason why youth can be despised. In 1 Timothy 4:12 (NKJV), Paul exhorted Timothy, who led the church in Ephesus: “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” (The NLT version of that verse says, “Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young.”) During these past four months, when every single one of my supervisors at all of my jobs were not only younger than I am, but also in a completely different generation that I am, I thought about this verse.

 

I was reminded of what it was like to be that young. During my early 20s, I was told that because I was young, I was very idealistic. That statement hurt me at the time, but in a way it was correct. When you’re young, you tend to do everything by the book. If you do, and if you’re in charge, people will despise you and your immaturity. When you get older, you’ll realize that you simply can’t do everything by the book—when life itself happens to you, it couldn’t care less about any book. It just happens, and you adjust. Situations come along, and you need to adapt or else you won’t make it. 

 

But younger people haven’t necessarily learned this yet. During these past four months, I got treated in ways that made me wonder: Am I reaping all of those immature things that I sowed when I was a young leader in my early 20s? If so, everybody who I knew back then, please accept my sincere apologies.

 

Not everything goes by the book or will follow a rule. People and their situations are organic. They need to breathe. They need your common sense. They need for you to love them.

 

 

6. God really does see you. Just let that sink in a little. He’s nearer than you may think He is.

 

 

7. Waiting can be extremely hard, but if waiting is the right thing to do, it’ll be worth it. I’m saying this in faith. I keep feeling like God says to stay here and wait, so I’ve been waiting. If I’m not ready for what God has for me yet, then I’ll let Him keep molding me until I’m ready... and I’d like to enjoy life while I’m waiting.

 

 

(P.S. OH MY GOSH PAUL WAS NOT A GNOSTIC)

Continued Adventures in Poverty

Here on my blog, I’ve shared the spiritual things that I’ve learned while I was on my annual fasts (salad fasts, soup fasts, etc.). That kind of stopped after 2019 (it’s hard to find time to blog when you’re working and in school), but during those times of eating only certain foods and using what I had available to me, I’ve learned how to improvise in practical ways that continue to help me now.

Except for a few years while I was in my mid-to-late 30s and early 40s, I’ve been broke—so, I've basically been poor for most of my life. During that time, I’ve had to make do with whatever I had. When I was broke in Waco while I was in my 20s, I usually only had around $10 to buy two weeks’ worth of groceries. It was awful, but in times like that, you just grab a couple of cans of tuna and a dozen eggs and use them to make all of your lunches and dinners until your next paycheck.

Although I thankfully have more than $10 now for groceries, I still have to be extremely frugal­—especially now that food costs have skyrocketed. I’ve learned that homemade soups are still a very economic way to eat during the week (even after a fast ends), I’ve almost perfected my personal style of cooking chili (no matter how hot the weather is), and I’ve learned to grin and bear it when all there is to eat for lunch is a peanut butter and banana sandwich (I’ll eat two sandwiches if needed). There was one week when I didn’t have enough money to buy ingredients to make chili, so I decided to buy a bag of rice instead (so I could eat rice and beans that week). There was another week recently when there would have been exactly $0 in my bank account after everything cleared, so I wrote myself a not-so-subtle reminder on my wallet to not touch my debit card until I got paid.

I have two bachelor degrees now. I didn’t think that I would still be living like a starving artist at this point in my life. I think I’m getting too old for this. This post-graduation season reminds me of what my life was like right after I graduated from Baylor. I didn’t have a car, so I walked to and from two part-time jobs. If I remember correctly, after I would walk to a part-time morning job in downtown Waco, I would walk to my steadier part-time job at the TV station that was on the Baylor campus. (A coworker started giving me rides to the downtown Waco job after a while, and I quit that job shortly before the TV station hired me full time.) That was a crazy time in which I got mistaken for a homeless person, I was learning how to write worship songs on my guitar, and I was still extremely involved in church. And since I was very young and idealistic, I was having fun and was thankful for everything. (But life got even more fun after I got a car.)

Now that I just finished another college degree, I’m finding myself in a similar situation. Two of those three part-time jobs that I worked while I was in school have changed (I felt led to quit one of them, and the other one is my editing business which suddenly dried up after the Spring semester), but my rent has gone up a total of about $400 since January, and I don’t have to tell you how expensive gas has gotten. So, I decided to get another part-time job. And—just like I did right after I graduated from Baylor—now I have two part-time jobs. After I work a five-hour shift at my school job, I drive to my second job to work another five-hour shift. (I’m planning to quit the second job when things get going again during the Fall semester or whenever I find full-time work, whichever comes first.) This new setup is exhausting so far, but at least I get to drive through the part of town where you get to pick your own speed limit.

 

I wish I could say that I’m having fun and am thankful for everything—like I was when I was a 21-year-old Baylor grad—but now I’m a crotchety 46-year-old lady who’s having a hard time not being bitter. There was one evening in which I sat down and yelled quite angrily at God about my financial situation because frankly, I’m REALLY tired of being poor, especially after working my tail clean off. But it was good that He gave me a chance to puke out my feelings to Him (as He’s always awesome about doing) before they festered into something worse. And I know deep down inside that He’s going to put me in a better job someday—a job that I’ve spent years training to do.

And, of course, it’s not all about the job. There’s a lot of character that I’m sure God wants to continue to develop in me. There’s still a lot of maturity that I think still needs to happen before I can be fully ready for everything that God has for me. I’ll be a seminary student beginning in August, so there’s still some educational, spiritual, and practical/character training to go. And my second part-time job (I work at a call center at a TV ministry) has been basically giving me some extra ministry training.

So, even though I’ve officially finished going back to school so that I can train to be a worship pastor—which, if you’ve followed this blog over the years, you know has been a longtime dream come true—it seems that I’m still undergoing some training of sorts. I don’t want to despise this season of small beginnings (Zechariah 4:10), even though I feel like I’m living through yet another such season all over again, but I want to learn everything I can while I’m here. And I want to be ready to walk through any door that God wants to open for me.

Yes, I’m probably getting too old for this, but I’m doing this thing, anyway. Y’all know I’m a survivor.

Remembering the party

When I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, I remarked that 2020 and 2021 were like a package deal. I had never thought about it that way, but I think it’s true! 2020 and 2021 were like a package that we didn’t order and that we weren’t expecting, but suddenly it landed on our doorstep, and we had to deal with it.

You know how sometimes we’ll pray near the beginning of a year and ask God to give us a word for the year so that we’ll know what to expect? Or so that we’ll have something to hold on to throughout the year? If you read my post from December 2020, you may remember that my word for 2021 was “party.” I was expecting that to mean that I would have a lot of fun in 2021, and I was expecting simultaneously to die to myself (in the Matthew 16:24 sense of the word).

I did see and experience all of that, now that I think about it. When everything started opening back up again—church and school especially—it did feel like a big party, because we all got to finally see each other again. I got to hang out with people from choir this year, I met a bunch of new people at a different church this year, I got a lot of new editing jobs this year, I got to spend time with friends when they gave me rides this year, and I got to participate in my church’s Christmas musical this year. One big party! Lots of fun!

But there was also a lot that happened in 2021 that I (or we) did NOT expect. The word “party,” which basically means a collection of people, also began to mean to me (I’m not sure that this is in any dictionary) a collection of issues or problems.

At the beginning of 2021 (I think on January 1st?), the electricity went out in my apartment, and I think it foreshadowed the electricity-less horror movie that most of us Texans would experience that February. I believe many of us called it “Snovid” because it was that bad. We couldn’t go to work, we couldn’t go to school, I didn’t want to shower in freezing-cold water, I had to read a textbook by candlelight, and it was 45 degrees in my apartment when I was finally whisked away to a house that had electricity and warm water (that’s how I got to hang out with people from choir). Also, the congregation where I used to sing on some Saturdays suddenly fired/let go of its worship team due to a decrease in finances due to COVID—which later prompted me to apply for a part-time gig at another church where I now sing and play on Sundays (that’s how I met a bunch of new people at a different church.) I thought that my new pet-sitting gig would take off, but it didn’t, but thankfully God provided a way for me to earn money, anyway (that’s how I got a lot of new editing jobs). My car was in the shop from August 11th until November 29th, and I needed to get rides everywhere (that’s how I got to spend time with friends while we were en route to school, work, other places, and back home again).

We all had such high hopes for 2021! But those hopes were dashed to pieces bit by bit as the “party” of issues and problems came at us.

But I think I learned a lot. I did have to die to myself, in a sense, when I had to ask people for rides everywhere. (In fact, when I look back on 2021, this is probably the part that I’ll remember most vividly.) I missed my car, but I missed my independence more than anything else. I suddenly went from being an independent middle-aged woman to a chick who kept asking for rides like some little kid. It was a humbling experience, but I think I learned how to be more resourceful than ever. If someone couldn’t give me a ride, I had to move on to the next person on my mental list. If no one was available, I had to be prepared to hire a Lyft. I also learned that not everyone is as generous or as nice as you think they are. OK, if you can’t give me a ride, fine, but don’t treat me like a problem that needs to be solved. I’m a human being. If you prick me, I bleed.

I found myself needing to work through rejection issues again. I heard people saying “no” an awful lot in 2021—in ways that I didn’t expect to hear. I cried a lot on God’s shoulder, and He showed me that a delayed answer isn’t always a “no.” It might just be a delayed “yes.” There’s no reason to freak out in the meantime.

So, my world getting shaken up in those ways kind of forced me to die to myself. Good things happen when you submit to that process.

Take my car situation, for example. When I (finally) got to pick it up from the shop, and I was waiting for it to be delivered, another customer came into the shop and explained that his wife’s car had been there for two months. (Hmm. That situation seemed oddly familiar.) He wasn’t yelling, but he was calmly wondering what the heck was the holdup, and I couldn’t help but overhear. The shop’s new manager explained that the shop’s staff had been experiencing significant health issues. There had been a recent COVID outbreak. The owner of the shop (who wasn’t there that day) also had been struggling with serious health issues and was about to lose his feet (I presume he’s diabetic). All of this had put the shop ridiculously behind.

For months, while I was waiting for my car to be fixed, people had been telling me that I should pitch a fit at the shop because of the unusually long repair, get my car out of there, and take it somewhere else to get repaired, because I was getting taken advantage of as a single woman.

But God was telling me to wait.

Hmm. I’m glad I listened to Him. Apparently, there was a whole situation happening behind the scenes that no one else knew about.

 

So, the package deal of 2020-2021 was a huge nightmare-collection of stuff that we had to live through. But we made it!

ABBA, one of my favorite groups, released a new album in November (with singles releasing earlier in the year). One of the songs is a remastered version of an older song, but the rest of them are all-new songs! After their 1981 breakup, and despite their ingenious marketing techniques, this new album was a complete surprise to me. Forty years later, their music still sounds the same, and I fell in love with it all over again. I’ve shared a photo of me dancing to my favorite new song from the album.

Someone on YouTube commented that ABBA came back at a time when we needed them the most. I think in a way, that’s true. For me, their music is a fun break from the horrible experiences that we’ve all had these past two years. The fact that we made it through is cause for celebration, right? So, why not dance? I mean, it’s a party.


What about 2022?

Keeping in mind that things don’t always turn out like we think they will, I think my word for 2022 is “settling.” Since I’ve spent the past few years earning a worship music degree, I hope that I’ll be settling into a new job after I graduate. Since I’ll have to move out of my apartment in May (oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that my apartment complex made quite a few of my neighbors move out of their apartments in 2021 for renovations), I’m sure that I’ll be settling into a new home. I hope that my leftover emotions from 2021 will settle as well.

I also feel like we’ll get to see a lot of miracles in 2022. I’m looking forward to that!

You know how 2020 and 2021 unfolded a little bit at a time, in a bad way? I think God has been showing me that (at least for me) 2022 will unfold a little bit at a time, in a good way. I’m looking forward to that, too!