A whirlwind update

Whew! Life has been a crazy whirlwind these past couple of months. There are several updates and, of course, some things that I’ve been processing through. So, instead of giving each element its own blog post (which I usually do), I thought I’d condense them a tiny bit and group them all here.

This post turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would, but it’s the internet. You don’t have to read all of this in one sitting if you don’t want to. But I hope you like pictures, because I’ll be sharing a few. As I usually tell my customers when I deliver their food, “Enjoy!”

It’s a salad

During the first two weeks of June, I did my annual salad fast as usual. For this particular fast, I felt like God showed me that I could define “salad” as different things mixed together in one dish, rather than just lettuce, tomatoes, carrots -- you know, regular “salad” stuff. (Long after my fast, I watched a British cooking show in which the host stated that salad nowadays isn’t just traditional stuff. She showed us how to make a salad out of quinoa and fresh herbs mixed together.)

This definition especially came in handy because my extremely tight budget meant that I didn’t always have traditional salad stuff around. But I did have plenty of spinach and avocados (which I can get messy with, but accidental guacamole in a salad is pretty delicious). I also used fruit, and I used a lot of bread to make homemade croutons (just toast that I sometimes cut with a knife and sometimes just shredded with my hands, because my stomach doesn’t mind). Basically, I just took what I had, mixed it all together, and made the best of it.

Isn’t that what life is like? Isn’t that what God does if we let Him?

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

School and delivery adventures

Earlier this summer, I took a class online so that my schedule could be freed up for work. This was the first time I had ever taken summer school. I’ve heard that summer school can be intense, but it was cool to experience the intensity firsthand. I ended up developing an actual routine: Work at my office job in the morning, make some deliveries at lunchtime, come home and do schoolwork in the afternoon, make more deliveries in the evening, come home and do even more schoolwork before bed, and read for class during deliveries or between deliveries. (And if I had freelance work to edit for a client, I would usually do that instead of making deliveries.)

In my summer school class, we learned that our society has been reading the Bible the wrong way. We tend to just pick out the verses that we like, read them out of context, and think that that’s enough for us. We tend to think that studying and analyzing the Bible and picking it apart is more important than simply reading it, enjoying it, and understanding it in the context that it was originally written -- with the understanding of the original audience that it was originally written for. It’s important to read the Bible first and THEN study it. That way we’ll get to understand God’s HEART better.

So, while I was sitting in parking lots waiting for the delivery app to send me somewhere, or while I was sitting in restaurants waiting for the kitchen to cook customers’ food, I was reading for class and my paradigms were exploding. In a good way.

Another thing about delivering food: I’ve discovered that delivery drivers are kind of at the bottom of the food chain in the restaurant business. I’ve felt talked down to and patronized by restaurant staff and customers in ways that have rattled me a little bit (one time I cried on the way home) but have also challenged me to forgive and walk in grace. And, not to mention, when I’m treated like royalty by restaurant staff or shown tremendous appreciation by customers, it makes it that much sweeter. I’m pretty sure it’s one way in which God has been humbling me, like He humbled the Israelites in the desert when they were learning how to worship Him and depend on Him.

I think it’s also preparation for becoming a pastor. Of course.

 

Also during deliveries, sometimes I’ve gotten to see some cool wildlife or livestock (yes, I’m from Texas, so livestock is cool to me) while I’m either driving or walking around. I’ve also seen horses and llamas (or alpacas?), but I haven’t taken any photos of them yet. I’ve seen some awesome sights like very expensive-looking houses, quaint bridges, and breathtaking avenues saturated with gorgeous trees.

Sometimes when I see something extremely beautiful like that, I’ll say something like, “God, that’s breathtaking” or “That’s gorgeous,” and He’ll respond with something like, “So are you.”

Which kind of transitions into my next section.

Multifaceted health update

The quest to lower my blood pressure has resulted in the doctors prescribing three blood pressure medicines that I now take daily (two in the morning, one at night so that I can sleep through the crazy side effects). The quest to analyze my heart murmur caused the doctors to order a few tests. The stress test showed some abnormalities in my EKGs, but the nuclear stress test (where they injected a tracer into my bloodstream and then took pictures of where the blood was flowing in my heart) showed that my blood vessels don’t have any blockages or any deprivation of oxygen. So, that’s very good news. I also have minor thickening on part of my heart, more than likely due to high blood pressure. I did suspect that there was some damage, but it was good to have it confirmed.

During an echocardiogram, I got to see and hear my heart beating, which was an incredibly awesome experience for me. I mean, you don’t get to do that every day. I got to hear the murmur which, to me, sounds like “Rock and Roll Part 2” (aka “The Hey Song”), so hopefully it’s benign. Or just something cool to brag about. (Hey! My heart beats like that song they play at football games. Ha, ha!)

I’ve continued with my low-sodium diet. I also recently switched to decaf because caffeine can raise your blood pressure. (I did that gradually instead of cold turkey so as to avoid the caffeine-withdrawal migraines.)

Why so much trouble just to take care of my health? It finally hit me one day: Oh! This whole thing is about my HEART... my physical heart and my emotional/spiritual heart. Duh.

I haven’t returned to platform ministry yet. I’ve needed some more time away because I’ve needed some more healing. I won’t go into details here, but there are a few things that I’d like to mention.

One thing that God has spoken to me specifically is that I’ve seen some bad things in the body of Christ -- the Church at large. (And those things have hurt me.) But now He’d like me to see some good things in the body of Christ.

For instance, I think in late April or early May (when it’s rainy in Texas), I couldn’t find one of my umbrellas. It was the umbrella that I would keep in the backseat of my car. I figured that I took it either to church or to my group/study and just forgot it there. I checked with the receptionist at the building where my group/study would meet, but it wasn’t there. I checked with different people at church, and I found out that the security guards take care of the “lost and found.” One Saturday, I had two security guards and about two or three volunteers from the visitor center checking on my umbrella for me. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find one that matched my description, but they spent what I felt was a significant amount of time helping me. Since it had been about a month and a half or so since I had lost it, they said that unfortunately, unclaimed items are donated after about a month. I followed their suggestion and checked at the umbrella holders that were located by each entrance and couldn’t find it there. I figured that it if was donated, maybe somebody got it who needs it more than I do.

 

I went back to my car that evening and looked one more time. I reached WAY back into the floorboard of my backseat... and I discovered that my umbrella had rolled all the way to the bottom of my front seat and had gotten wedged in there! Now I keep it at the floorboard of my front seat so that I’ll always know where it is.

I felt a little silly that my umbrella wasn’t lost after all, but the fact that several people at church dropped what they were doing to help me look for it meant a lot to me. In my church -- a megachurch -- I wasn’t lost in the crowd, and I wasn’t treated like a number. I was treated like a human being who was important enough to help. Even if it was for a silly little thing like an umbrella.

It meant a LOT to me.

I think sometimes it takes a trial for me to get to see stuff like that. Yes, in my past I’ve been hurt by church people -- I’ve been spiritually abused, talked about behind my back, rejected, insulted, manipulated, used, etc. But during the trials that I’ve walked through these past couple of years, I haven’t walked through them alone. Church people have checked on me to make sure that I’m OK. Church people have prayed for me without me asking them to. Church people have generously given me money or given me a truckload of food when I’ve been in need. My pantry is full, I haven’t gotten evicted, and I have some people who I can count on.

It’s hard to hate people who are loving you. It’s hard to be bitter against people who are going out of their way to help you. It’s hard to feel lonely when you know that you’re surrounded by family.

Princess or orphan?

One major thing that God has been teaching me is how to be a princess -- His princess, like the kind in Psalm 45. But I think before officially giving me regal lessons, He’s been parked on letting one specific truth absorb into me as deeply as possible: He adopted me. He’s my Father. I’m His daughter.

God has been in the process of healing my orphan spirit. I’ve received some healing regarding this issue in the past, and I blogged about it several years ago in this post. But I’ve needed to address this issue again, and God and I have been taking our time with it. “Orphans” are basically tough people on the outside who feel like they don’t need anybody because they can’t trust anybody. But on the inside, they’re just wounded little kids. So, I think the main way to heal this way of thinking is simply to develop a close relationship with the only One who can melt the orphan’s heart.

So, God and I have been talking to each other a lot while I’ve been driving around and making food deliveries. One thing I’ve been doing is listening to Brian Doerksen’s album Father’s House in my car every day that I make deliveries. Sometimes I sing along to one of the songs and change the words so that I can sing it to God: “You are my Father / And I will always be Your very own / Here I will find You / Waiting for me / You are my Father / I am Your daughter.” Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I just enjoy the peace and quiet in the midst of the hectic-ness.

The other day, God showed me that I still don’t completely trust Him, and He showed me a picture of a huge mountain -- that was the stronghold. He showed me a small piece of the mountain that He had already chipped away at and that there’s still some work to do. I also got the impression that it isn’t like an “I rebuke you and tear you down in the name of Jesus and presto, change-o, rearrange-o, now you’ve been delivered” kind of stronghold. I think it’s more like something that will take time to chip away at, break apart, and hopefully disintegrate forever.

It seems like this process will take some time, and I’m OK with that. For example, in this season, I’ve had to trust God to provide for me financially. My sources of income are small, and my food delivery job is unpredictable and sometimes unreliable, so I can’t technically depend on my jobs to provide for me. I have to depend on God to help me pay rent every month, even if it’s a few days late. I have to depend on Him to help me pay my growing pile of medical bills. I have to depend on Him to help me pay for my car’s maintenance. I have to depend on Him to help me pay for school.

A good Father provides for His children, right? Sometimes when He comes through for me yet again, He’ll remind me: “Have I ever let you down?” No, Papa, You’ve never let me down.

And the huge mountain cracks a little bit.

The garden

When I finished participating in my group/study for abuse survivors, I was given a small red oak tree. Since I live in an apartment and can’t plant my tree in the ground, I’ve been taking care of it on my balcony. I stopped owning plants shortly after I became a cat person (because Choochie would either eat the leaves or use the planters as litterboxes), so I’ve had to make an effort to learn how to take care of my tree.

 

In the process, something cool ended up happening. When I was growing up, my father had a green thumb, so learning how to garden has kind of awoken something that’s probably been buried in my DNA. (When I was a kid, we used to plant beans and avocados in the soil of our house plants all the time, just for fun and curiosity.) While I was repotting my tree, I ended up planting other things as well. And I’ve made some mistakes, but I hope I’ve been learning from them. I planted some avocados, but the pits had already dried out, so they didn’t germinate. I planted some pinto beans, but I overwatered them and they didn’t germinate, either. I planted a peach tree, and I found out that it could germinate in the spring, so we’ll see what happens. I planted some pinto beans again and have finally seen some new growth. Even my tree sprouted a little offshoot of his own. I typically don’t like to spend time outside, but gardening has been pretty fun so far.

Also in the process, the parts of the Bible that talk about planting seeds, sowing/reaping, pruning, bearing fruit, and gardening or growth in general have new meaning for me. Living things take time to grow. They are fragile, and they require a lot of care, especially if they depend on you for their needs.

But there’s so much joy in the process for the gardener. He doesn’t mind waiting, because He knows that growth is happening -- even if you can’t see it right away.

And sometimes you just gotta wait for results. It’s worth the wait, because you know that you’re growing something that will be sturdy, strong, fruit-bearing, and life-giving for years to come.