120. A Word from God.

In the last 11 years, since my marriage fell apart, I’ve learned to listen for God’s voice (metaphorical) and what He has to say to me.  I’ve learned to dare to believe that He will speak specifically to me and have a word for my situation.

Now, I thought for a long time that God was telling me that my husband would come back and I should wait for him.

If I was wrong about that, does that mean I’m not hearing God’s voice at all?

But I’ve been thinking about that lately — I’d been asking God about something else, something personal.  Did I even dare believe what I thought He was saying?  Since I’d been wrong about the other?

And God’s answer again involves waiting — Am I hearing right?

(But I’d been thinking.  Even if I was wrong about the eventual outcome, the *action* I felt God was asking for back then, 11 years ago — to wait — was a good thing.)

Today, in the sermon, a verse was mentioned — and posted up on the screen — that was one of the first verses I believed God gave me for my husband.

In fact, I had even closed my Bible, opened it and pointed!  I was that far gone in wanting direction.  I had prayed specifically for a verse for him.  (This was 11 years ago.)

And I’m not going to get specific on a public post.  But this is also a verse that I have never, ever before heard mentioned in a sermon.

When it was mentioned, my first thought was — Is God telling me this verse still applies?

And the section of the sermon was called “God’s Apparent Delay.”

And then, in the next sentence — the preacher gave an interpretation of God’s delay (in the sermon context) that cast a whole new light on that verse.

And that new light applied to my life and what I’m waiting on God for today.  But it *also* fit with the previous situation and showed me why waiting was important back then.

It was amazingly specific — and convinced me that God was speaking directly to me.

(If friends want more details, you can ask me.)

And WOW!  That’s a blessing.

 

 

 

118. My Dentist

Yesterday, there was a cracking sensation when I chewed my lunch.  Today my dentist got me in to see her tomorrow.  (It’s not hurting, but I think something’s going on.)

At work after I made the appointment, several of us got to talking about Awful Dentists Who Only Want to Make a Buck.  For awhile I went to one because I thought I needed an “in program” dentist.  Well, being in program meant they weren’t supposed to charge me if the insurance wouldn’t cover it — but they got an awful lot of money from me before I figured that out.  Silly me, thinking if the dentist said something needed to be done, it needed to be done!

But then I went back to Wanda Garrett, a wonderful dentist in Herndon.  She’s gentle.  She listens.  And she thinks about what will be good for me.  Some work that the other dentist said my son needed — she determined he didn’t need at all, and he has been fine.

Anyway, though I’m not happy I have to go to the dentist tomorrow, I am very happy that I have such a good dentist to go to.

 

116. The Feeling After a Good Decision

I made some decisions today.  I’m an INFJ.  I love making decisions!

One of them was to continue my sabbatical from online dating for awhile longer, or perhaps forever — until I can jump in whole-heartedly and enthusiastically.  I’m just not interested in giving it my time and energy right now.

And, once I made the decision, I feel happy about it.

The same is true of the other decisions I made today, including one to apply to be a Cybils Award judge again this year.

And that’s just a nice feeling.  To know in your heart that a decision was right for you.

112. Cleaning House

It’s kind of funny to list this.  I’ve never liked cleaning up after other people, and resentment about cleaning was a source of conflict in my marriage.

But today, playing my music, I caught myself truly enjoying cleaning my house (or part of it — no rush) and knowing it’s going to stay clean longer when I’m the only one here.

And it’s fun to clean while singing, and it’s lovely to have a clean house, and how nice to have a lovely, cozy home of my own.

I am blessed.

111. Happy Coincidences and Disaster Averted

Yesterday, we had a Computer Deconstruction program scheduled at the library to be run by TechShop.

I found out fifteen minutes before the program was to start that they weren’t coming.

That was the potential disaster.  Here are all the happy coincidences:

  1. This is the only TechShop program that doesn’t use their fancy equipment.  For this one, they do bring lots of screwdrivers and automatic screwdrivers.  They also bring old computers.  But this one was not dependent on their equipment.  I looked in our supply cabinet, and we did have two toolboxes with lots of screwdrivers.  We had been collecting broken electronics from the staff for months and even had a laptop computer and a notebook computer.
  2. I’ve seen this program done twice before.  I knew that mainly the facilitators cheer the kids on and encourage them to figure out how to get the machines apart.
  3. For some reason my co-worker Amanda was scheduled to host the program with me.  (Usually we only have one host scheduled when a performer is coming.)  So I didn’t have to scramble to get some help.  The two of us together could run the program!
  4. One of the mothers of the kids who came happened to have an old computer in her car!
  5. If I had found out they weren’t coming sooner, I might have been tempted to cancel.  As it was, the kids were arriving — and we did the program.

And it was awesome!

I love this program because I love watching the kids figure out how the things are put together and succeed in taking them apart.  It’s empowering!

(In fact, I like to tell the story that it was because of this very program that I dared to look up youtube videos and take apart my own film scanner and fix it!)

Here’s a girl working on a printer:

printer3

And here’s how the printer ended up:

printer4

Thanks to all those happy coincidences and awesome kids, the program was a huge success!

We think we’ll probably plan to do one on our own next summer!