GPS for My Blessing, Please

I need to sit down and calm down. Period.

I was so proud of myself last week when our water heater decided to take a dive. I didn’t do my usual production of “Woe is Me,” or “God Must Hate Me.” Nope. I just calmly said, “Well, we’ll ask my mom to use her credit card and get a new one.”

The reason I suggested that as our solution is because it’s been our only solution for nearly three years. When we moved into her house and took over her mortgage, a lot of work and renovation needed to be done, so we charged about $500 to get the supplies we needed. When we finally got that paid off last summer, I wanted to carry inventory for Passion Parties and bought about $800 worth of product. Then Jared wanted to get his captain’s license, and she offered for us to use her card again for the $1000 course and materials. We were $600 closer to paying her off when the water heater broke, and I knew the only way we could fix it was to charge it again. So we tacked on another $315, bringing us back up to over $900 with a 17% interest rate. But I wasn’t going to fret over it, because there was nothing we could do.

Then when I tried to register my car, I realized it had to pass emissions, which means we need to purchase a new muffler. And then today, getting ready to go to church for the monthly prayer meeting, I sent Tavin in the living room to watch some Nick Jr. in hopes of occupying him while I got his dinner ready. Our three year old, $800 flat screen TV decided it no longer cares to show us what’s on, but instead will merely give us sound. As if that will occupy Tavin. So as I’m trying to figure out what’s going on, Tavin is literally tossing himself too and fro, landing haphazardly on my back, or into my ribs. I say, “Tavin, stop please. The TV is broke.” So he runs up to the TV and continually spouts, “The TT is broke. The TT is broke. The TT is broke…” Well, you get the picture; I don’t, because my TT doesn’t.

Just as I’m texting Jared on my Motorola Blur smartphone, it decides it’s going to freeze so I can’t do anything. I nearly threw it against the wall. All the while, Tavin is banging his head against the glass window on our French door. I wasn’t sure what I was more concerned with: his head crashing through the glass or the thought of having to replace the door at $300.

I should have gone to the prayer meeting, but I’m not sure how to stop being upset and go to church and put on a Praise God face. I never have. So instead I got mad at God and angry with Tavin and texted Jared about how livid I was. I stormed upstairs and put Tavin to bed after another throw down tantrum, and nearly told God, “I quit!!” I wanted to, because that’s what I’m good at: quitting.

But instead I focused on something besides God and besides the TT and besides the increasing debt we are quickly falling into again. I found myself drooling over recipes. My comfort is food, even if it’s reading about it. I find great pleasure in looking at photos of food, analyzing recipes and imagining myself preparing them (because these are three things I very rarely get to do anymore).

As I began to calm down with visions of cherry cakes and cherry pies, I eventually found my center with God again. Sometimes I can’t find my peace in God alone, because He is sometimes the One with whom I’m incredibly angry with. It’s like trying to find peace in Tavin when he’s slamming his head into a glass window and continually telling me the TT is broke. I will not find it there. (Doesn't that look GOOD? http://www.biggirlssmallkitchen.com/)

Tavin is now relaxed and calm and sleeping for the night. I stepped away from it all and indulged in a bit of food porn, if you will, and in the process regained some self-control. I’m still angry, but not nearly as I was an hour ago. I’m still frustrated and confused and incredibly tired.

I’m desperately trying to make sense of it all. We’ve been tithing and giving to Joyce Meyer Ministry, just as God asked us to do. I was even faithful this Sunday when He asked me to put that last $5 I had until payday into the offering bag. But this morning I found Tavin trapped in his crib. He had broken off more springs and the mattress fell in between the frame. His poor knee was stuck in the bars of the crib and his foot was smooshed between the frame and spring. I had to run out and spend my last $10 in our account for bungee cords in hopes of fixing this endless problem we seem to have with this deathtrap of a crib.

I hear it over and over again that when things start to get really bad, the blessing is right around the corner. But things have been really bad financially for me, personally, ten years, and for us as a couple for three years. How many corners does my blessing have to turn before it finds me? Has it been rerouted? Is it on a detour? Is it taking the scenic route, stopping at every landmark, or pulling off the interstate to gawk at a big ball of yarn like my dad used to do (and still does)? Does the road to my blessing have some construction being done on it? Because one blessing has only led us to the newest disaster. Jared gets a raise and everything begins to fall apart so that the raise doesn’t even make a dent in the everyday problems.

Joyce Meyer once said that when King David wrote the psalm, “This is the day the Lord had made, I will be glad and rejoice in it,” that she’s almost positive he probably didn’t have a very good day after that. That’s how I feel sometimes. As if everything I believe in causes more setbacks. For a long time I even quit praying because quite honestly, everything I prayed for, the complete opposite would happen! I began to wonder if my prayers were cursed or if God just hated me.

King David probably really wanted to write something like this: “This has been a day. I am ticked and I’m ready to call it quits.” I know that this is exactly how I feel today. Tomorrow will be another story. Although tomorrow my problems will still be the same, hopefully God will give me some shelter. Hopefully that blessing will find me on Its GPS and get here soon!