The story of how I freaked out and received a car anyway.

It was 9:32pm at the end of a long Tuesday. Work was still in crazy mode from the move, laundry sat in forlorn piles in our bedroom, and the empty fridge could not be ignored another day. My calendar was ballooning out of control with unexpected social engagements, and my head ached.

I called hubby on my way to the grocery store, hoping for a pep talk. Instead I heard:
"So, the car place called. They said it's the engine. The guy said they could probably sell our car for parts."

I gripped the steering wheel of our one working car. How could they offer so little for my faithful little Camry with the awesome gas mileage? And we'd just replaced the air conditioning that summer.

Suddenly, out of my mouth were coming fearful, panicky words that flung accusation on my man and fuel on my fear. It wasn't pretty.

Fear leaves little room for trust, especially when I speak it out loud. 

The next night I was still tense. I drove to the gym, popped in my earbuds, and clicked on a podcast by one of my favorite Bible teachers.

My legs and arms began to move in rhythm, and she started to tell a story of a whole nation who panicked. They looked into a new land, and instead of feeling excited that God had finally brought them to this beautiful place, they freaked out because the current residents made them feel small. They worried that they and their kids would be squashed like grasshoppers if they so much as stepped over the border.

The fear fostered amnesia. They forgot how God had rescued them out of slavery. They forgot how He'd fed them for 40 years. They forgot how He had already destroyed two nations for them.

I stepped off the machine and walked to the mats, feeling like the story was mine.

Those Jews looked at their smallness instead of God's bigness, and they shrunk back. Then she said something that made my pounding heart pause: "Their fear was rebellion."

After wiping away the tears that threatened to spill all over the exercise mat, I had an internal dialogue with God.

God, I'm sorry for not trusting you. I'm sorry for panicking instead of remembering how faithful you've ALWAYS been. You will always give me just what I need, even if it's not what I want. I don't want to forget your goodness. I don't want to rebel. 

There in the sweat and clang of the gym, I heard him say, Daughter, I forgive you. And I will always be your shepherd. Trust me. Stay close to me. Don't let your circumstances make you freak out. I am bigger than your circumstances.

A few days after my realization in the gym, hubby and I were actually feeling pretty excited about the one-car thing. After all, it was something we had seriously considered before. It meant less insurance to pay, less gas to buy, and less money to spend on up-keep. And it wasn't like we would be stranded. We have a bike, and we live a mere five minute walk from the University bus route.

We had just about decided that having only one car was the coolest move we ever made when my dad called. He said they had a car they weren't using, and wanted to know when they could drive it down to us.

"Aww, thanks, Dad! You're so sweet to let us borrow it for a while!"

He started laughing on the other end. "Oh, no sweetheart. We want to give you this car."

My jaw dropped, and I almost dropped the phone with the weight of what was being offered. After all my freaking out, my clenching and grasping at control, he was giving us a car.

So unexpected. So extravagant. So undeserved. And I thought to myself, this is what grace looks like.


Ok, I have to add this disclaimer--I don't share this story to say that God is good BECAUSE He gave us a car. Even if we had lost both cars at once, with no replacement, God would still be good because that is who He is. He is good, and He has already shown that goodness and mercy with crazy extravagance on a cross where He died in my place. 

I share this story because I want to remind myself to trust my Shepherd, and I hope that it can encourage someone else too. 

This month as the Christmas lights go up and the stores vie for our attention, I want to hope in Jesus, and not my circumstances. I want to cling to Him, the rock-solid constant, so that finances, social engagements, lack of sleep, or messy kitchens don't throw me for another crazy loop. 

Sock Monkey in a Shoebox

Some things come full circle and smack you surprised.

Our homegroups have a tradition that plops Christmas into our consciousness a full week before Thanksgiving: the annual Operation Christmas Child shoebox-filling-party.

Picture if you can, a swarm of college students dashing around Target and Wally World collecting slinkys, teddy bears, coloring books, t-shirts and other school supplies and hygiene items. Each one is trying hard to think like a kid. Now, what did I like at age nine again?

Then it’s back to the rendezvous. Bulk items are parceled out, Christmas paper flies, and someone’s Pandora station is set loud on A Charlie Brown Christmas as the boxes are lovingly filled.

Even before becoming involved in homegroups, I remember filling shoeboxes with my family. Each box had a note from me, including my address, just in case.

One year it happened! A Venezuelan girl received my box and actually replied. Her letter sparked a pen-pal-ship that lasted several years. To this day, we are friends via social media.

I was telling this story in homegroup the week before the box-filling party when one of our new freshman girls piped up.

"I got one of those boxes when I was little."

Every head swiveled to her, and eyes got big.

She told us that when she was eight or nine, her church in Central America distributed the boxes. It was a complete suprise. "I got a sock monkey," she said. "He was so cute!"

She told us she felt so loved knowing that someone she'd never met had given her a gift. 

If you'd like to get involved in Operation Christmas Child, click here for information and fun videos of kids opening their shoeboxes!

Doing the dare

Last week, the week of thankfulness, I began the joy dare. I resolved to notice the gifts He gives and make the noticing real through writing.

In the silent moments at work usually filled with mindless boredom or discontent, I wrote.
In the seconds before the green light as the car hummed, I wrote.
And let me tell you, it felt good. Fresh wind through my thoughts, carving new channels of thankful joy.

Here are a few of my jotted thoughts. Hope it encourages you today to notice the true, the lovely, the admirable, and whatever is excellent or praiseworthy.

1. Piercing sunrises that stop the heart with their beauty

2. Floor-to-ceiling windows at work that let the outside in

3. A unique wedding ring that allows me to brag on my husband often. ;)

 4. A chance to hike in the gray dawn with my love.

5. The cheapness and yummy-ness of oatmeal. 

6. Quiet pockets of wilderness next to the office

7. Firesmoke, laden with happy memories of past campouts

More Than We Imagined

I am floored. I am blown away. I don't know whether it's more appropriate to jump up and down or to kneel--so I'm sitting here, shaking my head in amazement as I type. Have you ever asked God for something so huge that you felt nervous to ask, only to have Him completely dwarf your request with His generosity? Then you can understand. 

Yesterday, JC called an old friend. Just to chat, catch up, reconnect. I have always been amazed and challenged by my husband's talent for maintaining friendships through the years. This one in particular stretches back to high school.

New Isuzu transmission

As they traded recent stories, hubby shared the epic saga of last week's anniversary adventure: the car trouble, the attempts to fix it, the late-night rescue by our friend, the need for a complete transmission rebuild, and the reasonable price we found at a local shop in Denver.

We have been car-less ever since returning to Estes while our poor Isuzu has been in the shop, but we were just so thankful that the price was less than the $2,500 we were originally quoted. Yikes! We were thankful for savings to cover it, thankful that good friends came to pick us up, and thankful that to live at the Y, where walking is not only feasible but fun. Just a good story for a good laugh later.

But at the end of the conversation, our friend said, "I know you didn't ask, but I'm looking at our bank accounts. We have some money set aside for stuff like this..."

Yes. Our friend paid for our new transmission.

Not only did he pay for it; the amount he and his wife had saved to give away was the exact amount quoted to us by the repair shop.

I'm realizing all over again that God is bigger, richer, and more generous than I had imagined or hoped for. Here I was, asking for a fix that we could afford, never imagining that He wanted to do something like this!

If you're facing something that looks like it will drain you financially, emotionally, or in some other way, I hope that this can encourage you too!

The God who holds you is bigger than that giant.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Gifts from Jesus

If stress is an odor, then this week reeked of it. My emotions were out of whack, the mountain of laundry loomed ever larger, and my job felt like I was trying to juggle 200lb dumbells. Wearing a blindfold. And rollarskates.

It's interesting: Jesus didn't take away the situation. I still have a to-do list longer than the Amazon. Instead, he reached down into it, purposely, thoughtfully, and left me some beautiful gifts as if to say, "I am still here. I still love you. You are known and treasured by Me. Trust me."

Gift #1: Check out the picture! I opened the mailbox earlier this week to find an envelope from my parents. Inside, was a gift card to Wally World for twenty smackeroos and instructions to buy plants for my garden. My heart craves fragrant, green, growing things, and Jesus knows it.

Gift #2: I found a beautiful $40 sweater marked down to $10. Once I used the $9.47 gift card that I had saved from Christmas, I bought it for only fifty-three cents! Jesus knows that I love to feel beautiful while saving $$.

Gift #3: It stopped raining this morning just as I mounted my bike to ride to class. Jesus cares about the fact that I forgot an umbrella.

Gift #4: My sweet husband folded clothes for me the other night. Aww....

Gift #5. My boss called to tell me that one huge source of work stress is NOT due today, as I had feared, but at the end of March! At that news, I could almost feel my nerves unknotting themselves. Jesus is my Shepherd. He gives me rest.