On Provision

A friend recently wrote a blog post about discovering the ways that God will bless him this year. I read it and wished that I would start to see that in my life.

And then my car broke. And life was paused.

And so my wife and I prayed for miracles, for solutions, for answers. We didn't have 3 grand to fix the car, but we needed a way to get around. We shared our need for cash and our need for rides with our communities, and lo and behold, our needs were met and answered.

Over the space of three weeks, we only took the bus three times. Neither of us needed to miss work or school once - because people blessed us with rides.

After making our needs known, we were gifted with 1500 dollars to help repair our car - with only 300 needing to be paid back.

And then, to top it off, I found an auto-repair shop that would be able to save me about 800 dollars on the repair. I brought the car there to get the repair done (a head-gasket replacement).

They called me about four hours after I brought it in. They couldn't find a leak in the head-gasket. Instead, there was an issue with the fan-cooling relay that would cause the car to leak fluid and look like a head-gasket issue. They repaired that for about 10% of the original estimate. I saved 2800 dollars, and was able to afford to repair the brakes as well.

We'll even be able to give back a majority of the money that was gifted to us.

Sometimes you have to sit back and be thankful. Jess and I have been so thankful for our friends and family that have supported us in this time. Thank you so much.

A List of 50 Things I Cannot Do

1. Start a fire by rubbing two sticks together.

2. Clean a deer.

3. Slam dunk a regulation hoop.

4. Skate, blade, or ski.

5. Hotwire a car.

6. Change my own oil.

7. Do a backflip.

8. Climb a sheer rock wall.

9. Impersonate a celebrity.

10. Grow a uni-brow.

11. Make beef stew.

12. Ride a motorcycle.

13. Create an igloo.

14. Crack a whip.

15. Hack a website.

16. Build a tree-house.

17. Speak another language.

18. Swim the English Channel.

19. Create an origami swan.

20. Rebuild an engine.

21. Make lasagna.

22. Avoid tearing up while watching Up, The Iron Giant, or The Return of the King.

23. Repair a lawnmower.

24. Draw a straight line.

25. Take a gunshot without flinching.

26. Talk my way into a villain's lair.

27. Eat a 96oz steak.
28. Bring my car into a controlled spin.

29. Hang-glide.

30. Jump across rooftops.

31. Read someone's bluff in poker.

32. Name a player on the Yankees.

33. Sing in a public setting.

34. Win a drinking contest.

35. Use a pogo-stick.

36. Train a falcon.

37. Tell you who won the World Cup.

38. List the lyrics to "It's the end of the world as we know it."

39. Drink Guinness.

40. Build a Millennium Falcon.

41. Ride a unicycle.

42. Ride a horse.

43. Throw a knife.

44. Fly-fish.

45. Outrun a bear.

46. Wrestle a gorilla.

47. Grow a ZZtop-style Beard.

48. Play a bass guitar.

49. Build a computer from scratch.

50. Give a speech to inspire America to fight off the alien invaders.

Life: Paused

There is something so frustrating about the pause.

That moment where you have to stop where you are and pick it up again later. It drives me crazy when I have to pause a movie and stop in the middle of some cool action scene (or more accurately, when my wife pauses the movie).

What's worse is when you pause the movie and get so engrossed in something else, that you forget about your movie until a few hours later. My DVD player will shut off about twenty minutes after you pause it, if you don't do anything. Then you have to try to restart, figure out where you were, and hope the beginning of the movie remains fresh.

Life pauses too. And my life has been in a (meta)pause, and a (mini?) pause.

Last week, my car blew a head gasket. The repair will cost between two and three grand - money I just don't have. It's been so frustrating, because I've been thinking about all the things I wanted to do this year - look at my New Years Resolutions, for jeepers sake! And without a car, a lot of those seem unreachable or unattainable. I felt like I was growing and in a good place, and all of a sudden it was three steps backwards.

Isn't there a cruel irony in finally paying for YMCA membership and using it to get in shape and then your car breaks and you can't get there?

So my life is in a (mini)pause.

But my life is also in a (meta)pause.

My life had forward momentum until I got married. Now I'm married, but there isn't a momentum in my life, because I'm in the "supporting spouse" role right now. I'm not complaining - I love my wife, I love being married, and I love being in Seattle. It just seems strange that I haven't taken an active role at a church in two years. I haven't applied for a pastorate type position in about a year and a half.

And that's not necessarily bad. I think I burned myself out in those roles for a long time. Perhaps instead of using the word pause, I should think of this time in my life as a breather?

Breather: A moment of anticipation where you stand on the edge of a slippery dock and wait to jump into the icy water.

When I think in those terms, it's helpful. Pause, for me, is so negative, but breather is beautiful and full of hope. So currently in my life, I'm in a (meta)breather and a (mini)breather.

I don't know. Hopefully these thoughts are helpful - what do you think?

Postscript: I struggled to not make (meno)pause jokes the entire time I was writing this.

Tune in later for: The church experience I'm in currently versus Imagine Church