wide awake

So before the days of blogs and the WWW, what did people do when they woke up in the middle of the night and were wide awake?

As you can determine from my brother's comment on the post below, I celebrated my 30th birthday last Friday. It's a funny thing sliding into another decade. My last slide was bumpy and I was extremely unsure of myself. 10 years later it was less bumpy but I am still unsure of myself. However, after my last comment, I have been trying to intentionally see God in the small things of life which has been rewarding but yet I have still slipped back into the blinders so easily from time to time. For example.... (names have been changed to protect those who I have not asked permission)

Last Thursday God taught me a valuable lesson, it was a refresher course but boy did it pack a punch. I am working a part time job to help pay off my car bill from my trip to IL (see Odysey post below) and they scheduled me to work from 6-midnight but for the past week they had cut the shifts short due to lack of work. SO here I was thinking about all the money I wasn't making and the things I was missing out of because I did not know I was going to have the night off. So around 7:30 I walk in the door grumbling to myself, not really wanting to be home but home nonetheless. I check my email and there is an email from a dear close friend,Lilly, who was checking up on Kitty, a mutual close friend. (Can you follow that?) Anyway, I regret to say that I was even frustrated at that because since when am I am the checker up on people...ok ok...I know I am always checking up on people but at that current moment in time I did not want to check up on anyone. So I started watching a movie and Lilly called. Of course, I first complained about work and how they are wasting my time and blah, blah.Well, Lilly herself has been having a real rough couple of weeks and I guess the rubber had met the road and she needed to talk. So after about an hour we finish up with me still somewhat foul but nonetheless less hard-hearted than when I placed the call.

I then move back to the couch still in a bad mood but trying to watching a movie so feeling a little better. But then Adam (my roommate) comes in and hands me my birthday present, yes, almost a week late, but it is wrapped beautifully in a Winn-Dixie bag. He hands it to me and I sit up, throw off my Cub's blanket and begin to unwrap. I can tell it is a shirt and then when I open it up I stare at it for a minute. I can feel/sense Adam's anticipation to see if I like it. I just turn my head and stare at him with a confused look. He bought me a Boston Red Sox t-shirt. His face was all smiles, so I looked at the shirt again, thinking perhaps I had misread it but nope it was still Boston Red Sox. I then looked down and I was even wearing a Cub's t-shirt to go with the Cub's blanket. He finally realized what had happen, yelled and snatched the shirt out of my hands and hastily apologized and ran into our room mumbling about wrong shirt/size and having to return it. It was quite funny, but I felt like a jerk because I did not even thank him (I did the next morning) but I did not know how to thank him for a shirt that I no longer had and wasn't even a shirt I would wear. I mean come on...if you are an Auburn fan, could you really thank someone for getting you an Alabama shirt?

So I resumed my movie for the third time still frustrated that I was not working. When one my of my best friends called. He needed a brother to talk to. Before I could get anything out, he said, I really need to talk first. So he shared his heart and it was in that moment that all the pieces fell into place. I understood that it was not about me. A lesson I must have flunked more times than not. Lilly called because she needed a friend to talk to. It was truely the thought that counted for Adam, and now my best friend needed me. So after I listened and said a few things, I prayed for him. All the past few hours seemed to become so less important and i realized that God will work his will even through my part -time job to put me in place on where I need to be.

I came back to the couch refreshed and a lot more humble, finished my movie and went to sleep thanking God for my friends and for his Son.

I am sure that I will need to be hit on the head again to remember this lesson but right now it is fresh on my mind.

Peace and blessings
Duer