“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.

----------------------------

 

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.

----------------------------

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

----------------------------

 

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).

----------------------------

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.

----------------------------

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!