Unemployment, part 2

In my previous post, I shared a picture of my pantry. This is a picture of my freezer. Today at Target, I found some TV dinners marked down to 51 cents each. Jackpot! I'm currently chowing down Michelina's Shrimp with Pasta & Vegetables. It's pretty good.

I guess you could say that's my manna.

"Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, 'Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.' Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not. And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily." (Exodus 16:2-5)

I've been officially unemployed for about 20 days, but I've been looking for a new job for about 11 months. I think I'm starting to get discouraged, but I haven't been keeping track of my emotions very well. (Perhaps I've still been euphoric after exiting employment hell?) As always, my Daddy comes to the rescue and holds a huge mirror in front of my face.

I am a very random person, so God often interacts with me in very random, offbeat ways. For example, this past weekend I spent a lot of time hanging out at church. During one of these days, I was sitting quietly in a room full of boisterous choir people. I wasn't talking to anyone, and then I realized that I wasn't conversing with God. So, I initiated a conversation with Him that went something like this:

ME: I'm sorry. How are You doing?

GOD: No.

ME: What?

GOD: No.

ME: No?

GOD: No.

ME: What do You mean, No?

GOD: No.

ME: [thinking He's resisting me] Did I do something wrong?

GOD: No.

ME: Jesus, what's wrong?

JESUS: No.

ME: Holy Spirit?

HOLY SPIRIT: No.

ME: [almost starting to freak out] Uh-oh.

GOD: Ask Me if I've forgotten you.

ME: Have You forgotten me?

GOD: No.

Then He and I played this sort of Jeopardy-ish Yes/No/Maybe game for part of the day. It was kinda fun. But what was extremely cool was that shortly after He and I had that "Ask Me if I've forgotten you" conversation, our choir had a family time. One of the leaders/pastors prayed for us and said, "Some of you think God has forgotten you." That would be confirmation.

Then earlier today, God randomly dropped Psalm 88 into my head. That isn't a pretty psalm. He randomly surfed to different verses in the psalm until He got to verse 12: "Shall Your wonders be known in the dark? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" That would also be confirmation.

"But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.' Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.' " (Isaiah 49:14-15)

So, God is cool like that. He's my Father-Mama who takes extremely good care of me and doesn't kick me to the curb when times get rough.

Earlier this evening, I realized that I don't have an official Bible verse to lean on during this season of my life. So, our conversation went something like this:

ME: Which promise should I lean on?

GOD: All of them.

ME: [silent]

GOD: [silent]

ME: You're pretty laidback right now.

GOD: Are you OK with that?

ME: [chuckled affirmation]

GOD: [silent]

ME: [enjoying da peace]

GOD: [still pretty quiet]

I think He and I are like an old married couple. I'm definitely not complaining. I'm just relieved that He hasn't zapped me off the face of the earth for being so unevenly matched with Him. In fact, I'm pretty sure He designed it that way: I'm a teeny-tiny human being who's vastly flawed, and He's the Ultimate Supreme Being of the Universe who's 100% flawless, all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere I need Him to be, even hanging out in my past, present, and future.

So, this is who I lean on when times are awesome and when times are terrible. This is who I follow into the unemployment wilderness. This is who takes care of me. I need to lean on Somebody like Him, because this wilderness is pretty wild, crazy, and unpredictable. It's kind of a silent torture, actually, in some ways.

I wonder what sort of company the Israelites had while they were wandering around in their wilderness. I wonder what sort of questions they got asked. I wonder what sort of reputation they had. I wonder what sort of awkwardnesses they had to overcome socially with foreigners. I wonder if their conversations went something like this:

FOREIGNER: Hey, there! What are you doing wandering around here?

ISRAELITE: Uh, I followed my God out here.

FOREIGNER: Aw, that's too bad. It really sucks out here.

ISRAELITE: No, it's OK. My God is really awesome.

FOREIGNER: Oh, yeah?

ISRAELITE: Yeah. He feeds me.

FOREIGNER: Cool. Hey, I'm looking for a job. Do you know if Egypt is hiring any slaves? I heard they just let go of their entire brickmaking staff. Can you believe they did that?

ISRAELITE: Um, heh, heh. I actually, uh, used to work there.

FOREIGNER: What kind of benefits do they have?

ISRAELITE: Well, meat and fruits and vegetables, but--

FOREIGNER: Cool!

ISRAELITE: No, not cool. Their quotas are impossible.

FOREIGNER: I don't mind a quota. Keeps me on my toes.

ISRAELITE: They took away our straw, and they treated us like pigs. It was terrible. Please stay far, far away from Egypt.

FOREIGNER: Aw, you're no fun. I'm gonna go apply for your old job. See ya!

ISRAELITE: Sigh. See ya.

Yep, seeing my old job advertised on LinkedIn was a little weird, but remembering that whole no-straw-for-your-bricks thing was a sober reminder.

I think the cats have enough food to last them for a few months. I think I have enough cash to last me for almost another month. God has brought me this far. He'll keep taking me wherever I need to go. He'll keep letting me know which step I need to take, which direction I need to turn, which pace I need to pick up. He's never let me down ever, and He won't let me down ever. I think I'm good to go.

When you look up at the sky and see clouds, do you ever see them filled with manna? No, of course you've never seen manna-saturated clouds. The whole concept is unnatural. It's impossible. And yet, God made it rain manna in the wilderness while the Israelites were in the desert. God sent miraculous breadmaking materials from the sky just for the Israelites to gather so that they wouldn't starve to death in the wilderness. He made a way to supernaturally feed them, even though they had to work for it. He took extremely good care of them, and they returned the favor by spitting in His face. I don't want to spit in His face. I want to remember Him. I don't want to forget Him.

He definitely hasn't forgotten me.

Why I hate hymns

My educated guess is that the title of this post has already made some readers angry and/or shocked. I apologize for making you angry or for freaking you out. I also don't mean any disrespect toward any of my musical forefathers who composed hymns. My intention in writing this post is to simply express myself honestly. In the past, I've written a little bit about my hatred of hymns, and I even wrote a Lemonchicky story about my struggle to worship with hymns. As you can see in this photo, I own a few hymnbooks (that little red one is a Spanish book that has lyrics only), so I'm not launching a campaign to end all hymns. I'm just being honest when I say that I hate hymns in general. And I feel like it's a good idea to simply tell my hymn-hatred story in its entirety here, from beginning to (ongoing) end. Perhaps an alternative title for this post is "How I learned to worship with music."

I was raised in a Pharisaical home. My father was a pastor who had perfect pitch, was very proficient in playing the piano and organ, and who directed church choirs, knew all the parts, and translated choir cantatas into Spanish. My mother was a soprano who usually sang solos. Both my parents grew up in Baptist churches, and they knew the hymnbook backwards and forwards, especially in Spanish.

So, when I went to church, we all sang hymns. Depending on which church we attended, we either sang the hymns in English and/or Spanish. I was an antisocial little girl who refused to attend children's church, so while my little sister went to children's church, I sat at the front of the sanctuary by myself while my father played the piano or organ and while my mother sang in the choir. Anytime we sang hymns, it was all about the music for me. Whenever my grandfather was in town, he would sit next to me in church and share his hymnbook with me, and I would follow along while he would sing bass. I honestly couldn't have cared less about the message of the hymn lyrics. I just went to church because I had no choice but to show up. I got saved when I was 10 years old, but nothing changed about how I felt about church music.

When I was about 15, one of the church deacons/ushers approached me and explained that it was getting harder for my father to play the piano during a worship service right before delivering a sermon. Our church had other pianists, but they were not always reliable. The deacon/usher explained that he knew I could play the piano (I think maybe by that point I was playing Scott Joplin and/or The Carpenters during youth events?), so he said that I was the only one who could do the job. It was up to me. Now I suspect that the deacon/usher's approach may have been mental abuse, but that is how I became the church pianist. My father trained me, I practiced, I compared myself to other pianists, I made many mistakes, I sweated and shook with nerves, I got better, I fell on my face anyway, but I was still the church pianist. The hymns were still just music to me. I didn't have time to learn the lyrics, and I honestly didn't care about what the lyrics were saying. I knew I was saved, I knew I wasn't going to hell, but I didn't have affection for God, and I just wanted each church service to be over so that I could hang out with my friends or go home and watch movies.

That was my life. But when I was 18, I went off to college, where everything changed.

Me being Little Miss Pharisee, I criticized the churches that I visited when I first arrived at school, especially that one charismatic Baptist church that I visited where everybody was raising their hands during the music. However, there was a problem. These people at the charismatic Baptist church had a sincerity and a genuineness that I couldn't criticize. There was something inside them that I admired, that I wanted. It was the same something that many of my fellow students had during my first week of school -- the students who talked about giving their problems to God and who sang to God about how much they loved Him. These people loved God. I knew that I didn't, but I knew that I wanted to.

So, at the charismatic Baptist church that sang praise and worship music while their hymnbooks collected dust in the pews, I learned about the Holy Spirit, who definitely did NOT stop working after the Bible was canonized. One night, I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, and I haven't been the same since. Any tiny little spark inside me that was wanting to love God was suddenly doused with kerosene, and I was smitten with Him forever. My heart had been wrecked. I was ruined. And church music would never be the same for me ever again.

During worship services, we would sing Dennis Jernigan songs, Vineyard songs, Kevin Prosch songs, Keith Green songs, and tons of other praise and worship songs. They were all new to me. I soaked them up like a hard, dry sponge that was dead and damaged with dehydration. I remember being extremely cautious about singing the lyrics. I would hesitate and make sure that I meant what I sang before I would actually sing. I remember closing my eyes and imagining God's ear being right in front of me while I sang. One time during a break from school, I was playing a Dennis Jernigan tape on my boombox, and my uncle came into the room and asked me to turn down the volume. I was on fi-yah.

People everywhere (mostly men) were leading worship with guitar. Being a nonconformist, I did not want to simply follow the crowd, so I resisted learning the guitar, even though I could tell which chords were being played. So, after I started a youth lifegroup at home one summer, I led praise and worship songs on our piano. I didn't think that worked very well, because it didn't seem practical for everybody in the group to crowd around me while I was sitting at the piano and staring at the wall. So, my father taught me a few guitar chords and gave me his classical guitar, and I learned the rest of what I needed to know about simple guitar chords from the back of a hymnbook.

The rest is history. But I still hate hymns.

I think hymns work best when you have people singing all four parts. I think hymns work best when you have a piano and/or an organ to accompany them. I think hymns work best when you're dipping into music history. I don't think hymns work well on guitar -- at least, I personally can't play hymns on my guitar without sounding like I'm playing a country song at a campfire or unless I'm home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play-eee.

All that should be enough for me to vow to never sing a hymn ever again for as long as I live. Except...

"When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." (Matthew 26:30)

...God likes hymns. I don't understand why, but He does. This particular verse I just quoted happened immediately after Jesus took the Last Supper. I haven't dug into this verse yet, so I don't know if "hymn" really means "psalm," like the kind that are included in the Book of Psalms, or if it means something like "Onward Christian Soldiers" or "Estad por Cristo firmes."

People can truly praise God and worship Him with hymns. That's awesome. I, however, have struggled to be able to do so. Perhaps when you hear a hymn, you get warm fuzzies from your childhood or from your youth, and you know all the words and all the harmonies. I, however, feel like loading my hymnbooks into a cannon and firing them at a Pharisee convention. Hymns don't give me warm fuzzies at all (unless they're Christmas carols), and I barely know any of the words, and the harmonies make me think of nice old ladies in dresses who smelled like cheap lotion and who cooked food that was too spicy for me to eat. So, hymns aren't pleasant for me.

But God likes them. They're a vehicle for connecting with Him. I usually have to remember that whenever I sing a hymn to Him now, because I usually struggle to connect with Him via hymns. Their lyrics usually don't express how I feel.

But God tells us in the Bible to sing a new song to Him, and I appreciate how many contemporary composers have modernized old hymns. Hillsong's "Cornerstone" is an excellent example of this, and I often catch myself singing it just for the fun of it. Zach Neese's "God & King" is my favorite example, and I like it so much that I lead it myself on my guitar any chance I get.

So, singing hymns is definitely NOT in my comfort zone. Hymns stretch me. Honestly, I will possibly continue to hate them until the day I die. But I'm open to learning how to sing them to God as sincerely as I can.

Because He likes them.

The highway bully

In this post, I'm going to write about tailgaters. I'm going to meditatively ramble.

I'm posting a picture of my cat because I don't have any pictures of tailgaters. But I have plenty of pictures of Macho. Perhaps you can't tell from this photo, but he is definitely a bully. (He looks adorable with his halo, doesn't he?)

He's twice as big as Choochie, and he has a very bad habit of crowding her, shoving her, stalking her, pouncing on her, and, well... he's an animal. Choochie can definitely hold her own, but Macho is a bully nevertheless. Honestly, whenever I catch her beating the crap out of him (e.g., trying to bite his foot), I won't always stop her, because I can relate to her, and, well... she's an animal.

As I mentioned before, this post is about tailgaters. Reader, if you have a habit of tailgating people while you drive -- especially on highways -- I don't mean to hurt your feelings or wrongfully accuse you of being a bad driver. Please understand that I'm writing from the perspective of somebody who's regularly had the crap scared out of her while she's failing to speed in the fast lane. I just recently noticed a stunning similarity between the drivers who ride my tail on the highway and the enemy who rides my tail on the highway of life. (Does anybody else besides me hear a trumpet solo?)

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rules of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:10-12)

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world." (1 Peter 5:8-9)

Years ago, I used to try to make drivers go faster, too, and sometimes I still do it (e.g., if the driver is going 55 in a 60 and I'm running late for work). But I try to do so from a relatively safe distance. Many years ago, when I had my first wreck, I learned firsthand how dangerous it can be to drive way too close to another car's tail on the highway. I don't think every driver has learned this lesson yet.

Last weekend, I took a daytime road trip to visit a relative. From what I can remember, I was already going 9 miles over the speed limit (because the police usually begin to issue tickets at 10-11 miles over the limit), and I was in the fast lane because I knew I was going to pass people who were going slower than I was. But I would still get tailgated. Sorry, but I'm not going to risk getting a speeding ticket just so you can go 20 miles over the limit and supposedly never get caught. And I'm also not going to slam on my brakes so that you can rear-end me, which is automatically your fault in Texas, even though it can be very tempting to do just out of spite. But honestly, tailgater, I know that as soon as I get out of your way, you are going to zip past me at the speed of light and never be heard from again. I can't take it personally, because I know you bully everybody like that on the highway.

Yeah, that's right. A tailgater is a highway bully. A tailgater may not push me around and make me give them my lunch money. A tailgater may not parade around my desk at school and say, "Ooo, you scared of me." A tailgater may not prompt me to report a sexual harassment incident to my employer. But a tailgater bullies.

A highway bully invades your space, violates your boundaries, and disrespects your safety. One false move from either of you, and both of you are toast, or possibly all the other drivers on the highway are in danger as well. Even after decades of road trips and years of driving in the Metroplex, highway bullies still annoy me, scare me, and anger me.

And yet, I think I know how to handle them. As soon as I see an opening in the next lane, I signal and move over, and the highway bully claims the fast lane and leaves me alone. When I was a kid, my relatives used to yell in Spanish at speeders, "¡Váyase y mátese!" That is basically a Spanish command that means, "Go on and kill yourself!" My relatives were quite gracious, weren't they? (Sarcasm.) Of course, my relatives would usually get mad at the actual people who would offend them on the roads. It took me a while to understand that my battle isn't against people; it's against demonic forces that influence the people, just like Ephesians 6 explains.

Yes, a highway bully's behavior reminds me of the devil. He suddenly shows up in your rearview mirror and threatens to plow into you if you don't get out of his way. You think you can let him abuse his highway power for a little while, but then you realize that if you give him an inch, he'll take a million miles. He won't leave you alone until you resist him. So, the first chance you have to escape, you move away from him and let him zip away from you at the speed of light, aimed for his next ready-to-be-devoured target. Whew. Relief! Exasperation! Thankfulness! Peace! The highway bully is gone, and you have to keep an eye on your rearview mirror in case another bully decides to repeat the process.

And yet, it's a helpful process to familiarize yourself with.

I've mentioned previously that I used to be heavily influenced by a Jezebel spirit (both as a power-hungry controller and as the victim of a power-hungry controller). Jezebel is basically a bully. Even though I was the victim of bullies, I still have all these bullying skills inside me. Whatever am I to do with them? (Sarcasm.)

Yeah, that's right. God redeems pretty much anything you let Him redeem. My spiritually abusive/abused past has warped my perception of prayer, but one thing that God has been using to unwarp it is spiritual warfare.

So, the devil is my enemy. One way I can fight him is to resist him (like it says in James 4:7), and I'm not sure I'm actually doing this correctly or safely, but I enjoy bullying demons sometimes when I pray. "Uh-uh. You stay away from my friend. I bind you in Jesus' name, and I command you to go to hell and stay there forever." "Wait a minute. This is a spirit of infirmity. No way. You stay the [bleep] away from my friend. Get the [bleep] [bleep] away from her. I don't care what you do to me. You leave her alone, in Jesus' name." "No way. I'm not going to take this. In Jesus' name, get the heck out of here. You're not welcome here. Uh-uh." I haven't heard God rebuke me yet for tailgating hell. But that might just be my personal style. Yeah, that's right. Hell isn't welcome in my house, in my life, or in my friends' lives.

But I definitely can't do spiritual warfare on my own strength. It definitely isn't my physical muscles that bully the bullies away from me or my friends. It's the Holy Spirit -- the One who's powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead -- who empowers me. I use His power. He doesn't tailgate me. He just hands over His tools and lets me use them. And I think He likes it. At least, I hope He likes it, because I like it.

The highway is a dangerous place. It's important to know what the rules are, where the boundaries are, where the other drivers are, and where the rest stops are. It's important to watch out for bullies. And it's important to know who created the highway in the first place. Don't mess with His children.

And don't mess with Texas. (Does anybody else besides me hear a guitar solo?)

Confessions of a former orphan

I'm going to ramble pretty hard. My brain felt a bit clogged a little while ago, so I would like to unravel it here. It might not be pretty, but it will be how I feel. (I might even keep mixing metaphors.) Thank you kindly in advance for reading.

A little while ago, I almost wrote a status update on Facebook that probably would have gotten lots of attention: "I'm tired of feeling like I don't matter to anybody." The idea of me not mattering to anybody is a lie, of course. I matter to God. Yes, the Bible tells me so. Yes, I matter to my Father because He sent His Son Jesus to die for me, and many of us around the world are going to celebrate that truth this coming weekend. Yes, I have faith that I matter to God. But it's more than just faith. When the rubber meets the road, when everything else is burned away, I'm going to need more than just faith. I'm going to need more than just The Greatest Story Ever Told. I'm going to need more than just biblical truth. I'm going to need relationship. I'm going to need companionship. I'm going to need a Friend.

I know in the core of my being that I matter to God because He's my Friend. And I think that's something that gets cemented pretty hard when you're unemployed and your days move slower than molasses running uphill and you stay inside your apartment to save gas and, frankly, nobody ever checks on you. That last part bothers me, not necessarily because I need checking on but because of my old neglect wounds that are still healing, and also because of a deceased family member. My second cousin died of a heart attack about 25 years ago when he was in his fifties. He was a very nice guy, an artist by trade who lived alone and never bothered anybody. So, I think his landlord was the one who found him dead in his apartment, I think about two days after he had passed away. There wasn't anything violent about his death, but I don't get why more people in his life didn't keep him in the loop. He had a huge family -- he was one of about 12 siblings, and he lived in a town where he had nearly a dozen relatives to hang out with. And yet he died alone, and nobody knew what had happened to him until long after it had happened.

This freaks me out. I don't want to follow in his footsteps. And yet, I don't want fear to influence my thinking, either.

I'm probably not rambling about anything much different than I've already written about here on this forum. In recent years, I've learned the very rough lesson that even the people who care about you the most can barely remember to check on your well-being when life gets busy for them. I hate that. I've always hated that. And it doesn't comfort me to know that I'm probably freaking out because I'm a rabid shepherdess who checks on people ad nauseam and not everybody is like me. Sorry, but I am not chopped liver.

And there's a balance to this, of course: I am not a baby, either. I don't need a relative to call me from 500 miles away to tell me to be careful because The Weather Channel predicted rain in the Metroplex. I hate that, too. My weather forecast here in the Metroplex is always going to be more accurate than what a national weather center is going to predict from hundreds of miles away. If The Weather Channel says it will rain, and I see sunshine and dry streets when I look out my window, um, I'm going to be fine, honest.

So, I guess I'm working through my old neglect wounds still, and I guess I'm accepting the fact that I am not always going to matter to everybody all the time. People who have wonderful intentions are always going to possibly let me down, simply because they are human and they have the same capacity for wounding people that I do. Life gets busy, and unless I am joined at the hip to somebody, I am going to have to be OK with being independent whenever it's necessary.

I like my independence. I value my independence. I would rather have this than somebody calling me from 500 miles away to tell me to not go anywhere by myself. Um, I'm sorry, but I have a life to live.

And I would rather have a healthy interdependence on people, and I'm still learning what that looks like.

Going back to the idea that I had for a status update, "I'm tired of feeling like I don't matter to anybody," I'm glad I didn't post it because I dread the responses I would have gotten. I think somebody would have done some spiritual warfare in a comment: "Lord, I just rebuke the lie of the enemy right now! Tirzah is blessed and highly favored! No weapon formed against her shall prosper! In Jesus' name I declare this, amen!" Thanks, but can you please just give me a hug the next time you see me?

Or maybe people who barely know me and never interact with me would come out of the woodwork and try to encourage me: "I love your posts! Have you quit your job yet?" Thank you.

Or maybe I would accidentally offend somebody, of course, who may leave an angry comment or rebuke me via private message instead: "What is the matter with you? Do you need someone to prescribe you medication? How can you possibly think that you don't matter? You have a degree from Baylor University! You are so intelligent!" Thanks, but I don't think you get it. Sorry for offending you. Sorry for being too vulnerable on Facebook. I tend to do that. Or even worse: "How can you possibly feel like you don't matter to me? You're my friend! Of course you matter to me!" I'm sorry. Just feeling, hurting, and venting.

Going back to the idea that God is my Friend, well, if you've been following my blog, perhaps you remember that I have issues with intimacy and I have issues with prayer. Those issues have slowly been healing, and it's amazing what God will use to burn away my fear of intimacy and heal my perception of prayer. When I'm by myself in my apartment (and it doesn't have to be just now), I can have a running conversation with God all day long. He and I can ramble to each other as often as we like. I know that I matter to Him because He doesn't slap me away when I have a question about something. He doesn't lecture me when I freak out. He listens, He waits, He listens some more, He advises, He warns, He shows up, He hangs out, He stays, He never leaves. Am I the only person in the universe? No, I don't think so. But I think He treats me like I am. I think He treats all of His children that way. Each and every one of us matters to Him, simply because we're His. Even if we don't belong to Him, we matter to Him because He created us, whether we believe it or not.

Hmm. I feel better now. Thank you for reading my rambling.

Aw, yeah, the writer can still write, even when she's unemployed. She's still got it. Sizzle sound effect!

A telling story?

I've heard that a child's personality is set by the time he or she is 5 years old. I think this explains a lot. Instead of saving this for Throwback Thursday, I would like to share a blast from the past with you now. Thank you in advance for reading.

On September 8, 1981, an extremely awesome relative gave me a book that had blank pages in it. Perhaps to celebrate the occasion, I wrote a story for my new book. I was 5 years old, and I think I was a creative storyteller at that age. But I wasn't old enough yet to sit at a typewriter (which we had back then instead of laptops) and type out a coherent story on my own. So, in my book that had blank pages, I drew the pictures (and I drew even more pictures later), and I dictated the text to 4 different adults over several days' time. What you are about to read is this story which I created when I was 5 years old, and which I will retype here verbatim 32.5 years later. I will also include all applicable artwork. I think you will find the story to be hilarious yet sad. In fact, I might share it with my therapist later.

JIMMY AND JULIE

By TIRZAH. T.

Once upon a time a time there was a boy named Jimmy and a girl named Julie. Jimmy was nine years old and wore a T-shirt with a number 9. Julie was three years old so she wore a T-shirt with a number 3. They lived with their parents in a white house.

They would always play football together - on tuesdays.

One day Julie made a touchdown but messed up the vegetable garden. So -- their parents asked them to go to the forest to live -- and stay there. After they left, the parents fixed the garden and it was perfect.

In the forest the "kids" found beautiful flowers and some wood and tools and some paint and brushes, too. So they built a house and lived there.

When the kids were in the forest they painted a house. So they decided to live in the forest all the time. Next day they were searching for food, so they went to a store and bought lots of food and had lunch. Then they went back to the house. Soon they took a nap.

This is a story about about Jimmy and Julie. When Jimmy and Julie went to the eating store they ate carrots and delicious meat, and the man gave them some delicious milk. Jimmy ate some tomatoes and Julie ate some green beans, and the food was delicious. They went to their old wooden house in the forest where their mother and father lived all by themselves. No, the mother and the father lived in the town and the kids lived in the forest! -- where they played football, and Jimmy made a toutchdown.

The next day they went to the grocery store and got some more food. The man opened the food store at 7:30 in the morning, and the kids went at 8:00 o'clock. The kids went to the store and the boy had the money and they waited and waited. Later, when they went to play, they played and played. And, when they went to the house, their food was ready. They lived in the forest for a long time. On the next day they took the food store man some flowers.

So when Jimmy and Julie went back home to live, when they opened the door the mother and father were still there. Their parents noticed the children still had the football and they were very sad. So, the little boy and the girl went back to the forest.

When they got back to the forest, Jimmy and Julie found more beautiful flowers. But they had to live there, because when Julie made a touchdown, she messed the vegetable garden all up.

The next day the parents decided to get rid of the garden because they wanted the children to come back home because they missed them so much. So they hurried and hurried and got the number to call the kids.

So -- the kids went back home to live with their parents. And they were very happy but the next day it was their birthday. So they had a birthday party and all the grandparents and aunts and uncles were there and everybody was happy.

So the kids played football when Jimmy came home from school and there was no vegetable garden any more.

Yeah, that's right. In my opinion, this story was written by a little girl who was already messed up but didn't know it yet. Did anyone else notice the bald father, the anxious obsession with the consequences of committing a mistake, the senseless rejection, the abandonment, the orphanhood, and the budding hostility toward football and vegetables? (Also, I'm not sure why every retail establishment that showed up in my childhood artwork was named Pop Tomz. Hmm. Perhapz havingz a Z in my namez scarredz mez for lifez? Whatevz.)

I'm not sure I saw it then, and I'm pretty sure the adults in my life didn't see it then, either, but I was already hurting from my toxic home environment at age 5. Gosh. All the issues were already right there in black and white (and blue). I was the older of two daughters. The older sibling in my 5-year-old story was a boy. I am so glad that my heavenly Father has already been fixing my gender confusion issues. And yes, I don't think we had a garden when I was that age, but I don't doubt that a crummy garden would have been more important than me.

Take a deep breath, Tirzah. Breathe it out. Yeah, that's right. Vindication feels good. You've got a new Daddy now, and He's taking very good care of you. You're welcome to live in His house forever. You belong there. He won't kick you out of there. You're stuck there. And you like it.

Unemployment

"In the house of the righteous there is much treasure." (Proverbs 15:6a)

"She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come." (Proverbs 31:25, NIV)

I don't know how long I'll be unemployed (hopefully an extremely short amount of time), so I would like to take this opportunity to jot down some thoughts about unemployment while they're fresh and funny. As a writer slash starving artist, I've been around the unemployment block a time or two, and I've noticed some patterns that I hope to not repeat, and I've also noticed some patterns that I'm glad are still there from previous unemployment seasons. I would like to arrange them in lists below.

IF YOUR FRIEND IS UNEMPLOYED, DON'T ASSUME...

- that she is starving. In the past few days, I hit the discount store circuit pretty hard. My freezer and my pantry have been adequately stocked by Target, Family Dollar, and Dollar Tree. I've displayed a picture of my pantry here. I'm good to go. Also, I once fried lasagna in a moment of misguided desperation many years ago, so my tummy will always find a way to find a meal.

- that she is willing to work anytime, anywhere. If you approach me and say something like, "Hey, I just met you and I don't know you from Adam, but I have a job for you!" that's creepy. Take it from the chick who graduated with a writing degree and got recruited to market a guy's idea for a laminated address book in 1998. Listen, buddy, if the guy at the small-business office didn't buy your idea from you, why would he buy it from me? Weirdest $40 I ever earned!

- that she is perpetually hopeless and sad. After I lost my job a few days ago, I danced in my living room with my cat. I think losing CurrentJob was kinda like losing a rotten tooth.

UNEMPLOYMENT CAN MAKE A PERSON DO CRAZY THINGS, SUCH AS...

- daydream about vacuuming the carpet.

- plan trips to the bank to swap pennies/nickels/dimes for laundry quarters.

- be jealous of your cats. I have to be frugal, but they get to spend over $100 on heartworm medicine? What the heck?

- get excited about making trips to the Dumpster, in the middle of the afternoon, on a weekday.

- alleviate boredom by surfing YouTube and realizing that the internet really isn't all that entertaining after all, unless you want to educate yourself about a Karen Carpenter scandal that was unearthed in 1993. Drama!

So, while I'm in employment limbo, I've been keeping myself busy with projects (e.g., closet cleaning and eBay listing) that I didn't have time to do while I was in employment hell. Hopefully I'll finish before I get to employment heaven. But if I don't, it won't be a big deal. After all, it'll be heaven.

Also, for the past couple of days, my big cat has been snuggling on my lap any chance he gets. I'm suspicious. Does he want food or warmth?

Don't complain, Tirzah. Just enjoy it while it lasts!

Bomb

I can be a very socially awkward person, so I'm usually very comfortable dropping bombs. So, when I told some friends yesterday, "Hey, guess what? I got fired," some people were shocked, of course, but the people who are closest to me knew that my news was a reason to rejoice.

Oops. I just dropped a bomb on you, too, didn't I, reader? Heh, heh.

Awkward pause.

I've noticed that God my Father likes to drop bombs, too. Or perhaps it's just the fact that God is the most powerful Being in the universe: Anything He says will more than likely be pretty weighty and will feel like a bomb regardless. But one cool thing about being His friend is getting to hear the bombs when He speaks them... and then following Him around like a lovesick puppydog until He explains what they mean.

My relationship with Him has been very much like that, especially in recent years.

About three years ago, if I remember correctly, God was tucking me in one night. It was around my birthday, and I was enjoying my life. I don't remember His exact words, but He suddenly said, "Things are going to get serious now." Then I began a very long twofold journey: 1) identifying Jezebel spirits in my life (inside me and inside the people around me) and ousting Jezebel away from me and 2) detaching myself permanently from my immediate family. This was a very heavy journey. God was definitely right about it being a serious one. (When is He ever wrong? I won't leave that as a rhetorical question. He's never wrong.)

Three summers ago, I went on a very long road trip (which I always enjoy doing), and I went alone, so I had lots of time to chitchat with God. While He and I were hanging out, He gave me a nickname. He started calling me "knucklehead." At first I was like, "Yeah, I know I'm a knucklehead. I've done some really stupid things in the past." But He wouldn't stop. He kept calling me "knucklehead." I got offended. I think it was that evening when I finally asked Him, "WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME 'KNUCKLEHEAD'??!!??" Then He explained that my head is like a fist. If I clench it, my head becomes like knuckles, and my head becomes a weapon. I think this blog is an example of how I can clench the fist of my head and punch my word-knuckles in the face of anyone or anything that needs a good knockout. So, when God explained to me what He meant, I went from being offended to being encouraged. (Just to be clear, only God is allowed to call me "knucklehead.")

I think my past job journey has been me listening for God's bombs and following Him around like a lovesick puppydog to find out what He meant by everything. I think I've already shared some of them on this blog. Until Thursday morning, pretty much everything He had said about me leaving my past job happened, except for getting fired. That hadn't happened yet. I was wondering when that was finally going to happen. (He had instructed me, "Let them reject you.")

So, on Thursday morning when I was in my employer's parking lot and about to leave my car, God said, "I'm going to come with you today." (I've often had to pray to and/or negotiate with Him because He'll say something like, "Nope, I'm not coming with you today" and I'll be like, "BUT I NEED YOU!" Sometimes He'd change His mind and come with me; other times He'd chitchat with me in the ladies' room at work; other times He'd wait to greet me again after work.) I thought it would be awesome to have Him with me, of course. He added, "I'm in this job now, because you're on your way out."

So, when my boss called me into a spontaneous meeting on Thursday morning with her boss and the call-in HR guy, everything suddenly made sense. They were like, "You missed a deadline, so, we're terminating your employment." I didn't argue, even though the deadline wasn't completely mine, completely my fault, or completely a deadline. (Have I mentioned that this job was extremely weird?) I'm happy to report that I left without incident, everybody was polite, of course the atmosphere was awkward, and I felt very good about leaving.

I still feel mostly good, actually. I've had one of the Brady Bunch songs stuck in my head for the past couple of days. Whoo-hoo!!!

Honestly, I hope my termination serves as an example to my former coworkers: If you work hard for a certain company, you will be rewarded with rejection. (Have I ever mentioned that one of my spiritual gifts is martyrdom?)

Awkward pause.

"And it happened, as He was alone praying, that His disciples joined Him, and He asked them, saying, 'Who do the crowds say that I am?' So they answered and said, 'John the Baptist, but some say Elijah; and others say that one of the old prophets has risen again.' He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Peter answered and said, 'The Christ of God.' And He strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, 'The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day." (Luke 9:18-22)

Like Father, like Son. I think Jesus was very comfortable dropping bombs, too. He was like, "Hey, have y'all noticed that I'm the Son of God? Cool. Well, I'm going to be killed, and then I'll rise again on the third day."

I'm guessing there was an awkward pause...

Right before Peter gave in to whatever demonic force that belched into his ear and prompted him to rebuke Jesus, who never did anything wrong...

And then Peter had to endure the King of the universe saying, "Get behind Me, Satan" right to him, or probably to whatever demonic force was influencing him, which I'm assuming was Satan himself.

Bombs can stir up all kinds of trouble. Or they can be the beginning of a healing process.

Sometimes before you can rebuild something, you have to demolish it. You condemn the building, and then you bring in a demolitions team, and then bombs away, and then you bulldoze all the rubble off the property, and then you start rebuilding. (I've never done any construction work, so I'm using my imagination.)

So, the King of the universe is the most perfect Bomb-Dropper in existence. I fully intend to follow Him around like a lovesick puppydog for the rest of my life. I need to know what the bombs mean. I need His bombs. I need Him.

I think I'll go for a walk outside now. The summer sun's callin' my name. I just can't stay inside all day...