Memory lane
It was very kind of Google to text me a photo I'd taken two years ago today while camping with the boys in Montana. It was of a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park, on a trip where rain ruled the day. My kids, I'm sure, will never forget their dad cooking sourdough pancakes on a Coleman stove in a drizzling rain. Nor will they forget the dutch oven ribs we had that night in a rainstorm. The trip was memorable. What they remember is the food and their dad.
Something else happened that day. The youngest of the people who live downstairs was born today. They're pretty much downstairs now. The physical distance between us right now, if you drew a straight line through my floor and their ceiling is about five linear feet. That five feet away might as well be a million miles away.
Been thinking a lot about my NO! lately. I wonder why we do that. I recall a camping trip 20+ years ago where I had a cell phone and service and shots of Jaegermeister were flowing around the campfire. As the night wore on, my cell phone was used several times to drunk call either current or former sweethearts by several of my friends. Incidentally, since we're talking about memory lane, the first girl I ever had a crush on, her last name was similar to the beverage of choice that night. I saw her at a concert in Park City one night years later. I was with Shellie then. She was working at an auto parts store in Bountiful. Man, that was a long, long, long time ago.
These days, Facebook snooping has probably replaced the drunken phone call, and in some ways that's kind of sad. You say a lot drunk you might not otherwise say, though. So on second thought, maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.
I try not to be a Facebook snooper. Mostly because there isn't really anybody to snoop on. My NO!, although on my mind because all of this stuff I'm going through now has caused me to start to wonder if all that stuff meant NO! that I went through with her. I know it meant NO! (more on this later). If it didn't, what happened when she kissed me wouldn't have. But the sad part of it is that I really liked her being my friend and I'd love to tell her what's going on in my life. She'd be the one person in the world who would see things nobody else would. But that will have to wait until we're both at the feet of Jesus, unless He does something I don't see coming. Anymore, I discount nothing!
Her pastor years ago gave me a gift, a Quest Study Bible. I gave it to Tami instead because I was doing OK with the King James. I think it was a little better for her to have a different translation. It would be years later that I would finally acquire one, albeit on my Kindle Fire. And I'm glad I have it. It's not in depth as my print study Bible is, but it has questions related to the passages. I was reading Psalm 6 tonight, and it's a timely reminder that while on my mind, NO! is still NO! And honestly, I'm certain she's well past the point of any interest in me anyway. NO!, well that cuts both ways. And I'm good with that. That I have the Bible reminds me of my friend who is about 600 nautical miles which might as well be a million miles away.
That's reason and wisdom at work.
Things that I used to see that I thought were leading me down a certain path have made a reappearance in the last week or so. They kind of died down, but they're back. My reply to them is that I'm surrendered to God's plan for my life and I'm moving forward. If that's for me, it's going to have to catch me. So far, that's not happening.
It might seem so, but I'm not stuck in the past. I am, for lack of a better description, very lonely. And I'm going through a bunch of stuff. The thing is about this stuff, I don't deem it as punishment. Just stuff I need to go through because it seems that although I have to go through it, the severity of each thing is being mitigated. My feet are getting better. I think another week and I'll be a lot closer to healed up than I am tonight. My tooth broke, but the dentist fixed it in 30 minutes until I can get in for a regular appointment for a crown. No pain, no shots. Just a quick fix until the down time for the proper one can be scheduled. In aviation, this is known as a temporary repair. It's a perfectly safe repair on a plane (or a Dale in this case) until the down time can be scheduled to effect a permanent repair for what's broken. I have some other stuff going on, too. That story will have to wait, but the temporary measures seem to be holding the problem in check until the permanent solution can be put into place.
So it's easy to get discouraged, because I feel like I'm going through all this alone. Except I'm not. God has mitigated stuff, as I said. While my car got backed into on Friday, He kept me out of three accidents in the truck on the same day. I almost got run over by a mailman. I got cut off by a little white car on Riverdale Road who from the middle lane, decided at the last second to turn into the Olive Garden parking lot. She got the angry blast of the horn. I almost hit her and it scared me. There was another close shave on 36th.
The bank account is also under attack. My health has been also. And it's those things happening all at once that make me think back to eight summers ago, when I first met my NO! It was about this time eight years ago that some difficult circumstances in my life led me to meet her in the first place.
But I remember all too well, why we're not together and I'm not in the mood to reach out to her and hurt her again. Enough is enough. The last time didn't go well. It also didn't end well.
I can't help thinking about the Who, either. It's a fight I fight daily because so many things remind me of (and/or point to? At this point, I really don't know.) her. But she's with someone else and that's the way it is. She chose not me and I'm still following the directions I last got about her. Somebody told me that I should see what happened if I told her no to something she asked me for three times. I've done it more than three times, but I think almost a couple of months ago I told her no one too many times because I haven't heard from her since. One night we're having dinner, the next, poof, she's out of my movie.
And then there's this: A woman smiled at me tonight at the grocery store. She was pretty, younger than I am, I think, and she really smiled at me. I said hi, but she just kept walking. She distracted me so much that I walked clean past the salad dressings and stopped half way down the row in front of the barbeque sauces. She kept going, and I turned around to find my Bleu Cheese dressing. I was behind her and I noticed as she turned the corner, she looked to see if I was still looking at her.
I was.
But just like that, poof! she was gone, too. I didn't see her during the rest of my shopping adventure.
I'm reading this reading plan about the unexpected in life. I know God is in control and I see something that might be at play here. On Valentine's Day, I started a prayer challenge and the thing I circled in prayer was a verse from Joel 2:25 "I will restore to you the years the locusts ate." What I didn't realize was that maybe the way for God to answer that prayer in the affirmative was for Him to send "Locusts" to finish eating so the job could be done. With what's gone wrong lately, by the time July 1 rolls around there is gonna be a bunch of new stuff up in this joint.
I see God at work in the battles and I think it keeps me going. I almost had a breakdown at Walmart yesterday. I had to spend money I didn't have to buy stuff to fix something at the house. It took a lot more than I thought it would. It was almost the 1000th papercut in the proverb "death by 1000 papercuts". I had to ask God for more strength right there in the store. It took all I had to get out of there and I needed much more just to get to the truck. He gave it to me freely though.
I didn't have any of my own.
Those are memories too. The times that God intervened. The time He sent a word, or one for me and one I could share. A movie came on TV on Friday that was a blessing to me, and then I got to share that same word with someone who is recovering from a surgery I went through myself when I was about 24. It's those things that keep me from going down memory lane and to places and activities I need not visit again.
The past is just that. I'm moving forward. I'm kinda hopeful that somebody's trying to catch up so I'm kinda slow walking that forward right now. Besides, how do I explain the family unit in my basement to someone. I suppose the right one would understand, but in that case, she's gonna have to find me. I was told that there was someone who was interested but I do absolutely know that of all the things I DO NOT need in my life, it's that.
And God is keeping me from other things that aren't for me as well.
I'm just doing my best to trust and obey.
Sometimes I write this thing to help me think. I think I'm glad I could share this with y'all.
God is good! All the time! Even in the bad times.
Something else happened that day. The youngest of the people who live downstairs was born today. They're pretty much downstairs now. The physical distance between us right now, if you drew a straight line through my floor and their ceiling is about five linear feet. That five feet away might as well be a million miles away.
Been thinking a lot about my NO! lately. I wonder why we do that. I recall a camping trip 20+ years ago where I had a cell phone and service and shots of Jaegermeister were flowing around the campfire. As the night wore on, my cell phone was used several times to drunk call either current or former sweethearts by several of my friends. Incidentally, since we're talking about memory lane, the first girl I ever had a crush on, her last name was similar to the beverage of choice that night. I saw her at a concert in Park City one night years later. I was with Shellie then. She was working at an auto parts store in Bountiful. Man, that was a long, long, long time ago.
These days, Facebook snooping has probably replaced the drunken phone call, and in some ways that's kind of sad. You say a lot drunk you might not otherwise say, though. So on second thought, maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.
I try not to be a Facebook snooper. Mostly because there isn't really anybody to snoop on. My NO!, although on my mind because all of this stuff I'm going through now has caused me to start to wonder if all that stuff meant NO! that I went through with her. I know it meant NO! (more on this later). If it didn't, what happened when she kissed me wouldn't have. But the sad part of it is that I really liked her being my friend and I'd love to tell her what's going on in my life. She'd be the one person in the world who would see things nobody else would. But that will have to wait until we're both at the feet of Jesus, unless He does something I don't see coming. Anymore, I discount nothing!
Her pastor years ago gave me a gift, a Quest Study Bible. I gave it to Tami instead because I was doing OK with the King James. I think it was a little better for her to have a different translation. It would be years later that I would finally acquire one, albeit on my Kindle Fire. And I'm glad I have it. It's not in depth as my print study Bible is, but it has questions related to the passages. I was reading Psalm 6 tonight, and it's a timely reminder that while on my mind, NO! is still NO! And honestly, I'm certain she's well past the point of any interest in me anyway. NO!, well that cuts both ways. And I'm good with that. That I have the Bible reminds me of my friend who is about 600 nautical miles which might as well be a million miles away.
That's reason and wisdom at work.
Things that I used to see that I thought were leading me down a certain path have made a reappearance in the last week or so. They kind of died down, but they're back. My reply to them is that I'm surrendered to God's plan for my life and I'm moving forward. If that's for me, it's going to have to catch me. So far, that's not happening.
It might seem so, but I'm not stuck in the past. I am, for lack of a better description, very lonely. And I'm going through a bunch of stuff. The thing is about this stuff, I don't deem it as punishment. Just stuff I need to go through because it seems that although I have to go through it, the severity of each thing is being mitigated. My feet are getting better. I think another week and I'll be a lot closer to healed up than I am tonight. My tooth broke, but the dentist fixed it in 30 minutes until I can get in for a regular appointment for a crown. No pain, no shots. Just a quick fix until the down time for the proper one can be scheduled. In aviation, this is known as a temporary repair. It's a perfectly safe repair on a plane (or a Dale in this case) until the down time can be scheduled to effect a permanent repair for what's broken. I have some other stuff going on, too. That story will have to wait, but the temporary measures seem to be holding the problem in check until the permanent solution can be put into place.
So it's easy to get discouraged, because I feel like I'm going through all this alone. Except I'm not. God has mitigated stuff, as I said. While my car got backed into on Friday, He kept me out of three accidents in the truck on the same day. I almost got run over by a mailman. I got cut off by a little white car on Riverdale Road who from the middle lane, decided at the last second to turn into the Olive Garden parking lot. She got the angry blast of the horn. I almost hit her and it scared me. There was another close shave on 36th.
The bank account is also under attack. My health has been also. And it's those things happening all at once that make me think back to eight summers ago, when I first met my NO! It was about this time eight years ago that some difficult circumstances in my life led me to meet her in the first place.
But I remember all too well, why we're not together and I'm not in the mood to reach out to her and hurt her again. Enough is enough. The last time didn't go well. It also didn't end well.
I can't help thinking about the Who, either. It's a fight I fight daily because so many things remind me of (and/or point to? At this point, I really don't know.) her. But she's with someone else and that's the way it is. She chose not me and I'm still following the directions I last got about her. Somebody told me that I should see what happened if I told her no to something she asked me for three times. I've done it more than three times, but I think almost a couple of months ago I told her no one too many times because I haven't heard from her since. One night we're having dinner, the next, poof, she's out of my movie.
And then there's this: A woman smiled at me tonight at the grocery store. She was pretty, younger than I am, I think, and she really smiled at me. I said hi, but she just kept walking. She distracted me so much that I walked clean past the salad dressings and stopped half way down the row in front of the barbeque sauces. She kept going, and I turned around to find my Bleu Cheese dressing. I was behind her and I noticed as she turned the corner, she looked to see if I was still looking at her.
I was.
But just like that, poof! she was gone, too. I didn't see her during the rest of my shopping adventure.
I'm reading this reading plan about the unexpected in life. I know God is in control and I see something that might be at play here. On Valentine's Day, I started a prayer challenge and the thing I circled in prayer was a verse from Joel 2:25 "I will restore to you the years the locusts ate." What I didn't realize was that maybe the way for God to answer that prayer in the affirmative was for Him to send "Locusts" to finish eating so the job could be done. With what's gone wrong lately, by the time July 1 rolls around there is gonna be a bunch of new stuff up in this joint.
I see God at work in the battles and I think it keeps me going. I almost had a breakdown at Walmart yesterday. I had to spend money I didn't have to buy stuff to fix something at the house. It took a lot more than I thought it would. It was almost the 1000th papercut in the proverb "death by 1000 papercuts". I had to ask God for more strength right there in the store. It took all I had to get out of there and I needed much more just to get to the truck. He gave it to me freely though.
I didn't have any of my own.
Those are memories too. The times that God intervened. The time He sent a word, or one for me and one I could share. A movie came on TV on Friday that was a blessing to me, and then I got to share that same word with someone who is recovering from a surgery I went through myself when I was about 24. It's those things that keep me from going down memory lane and to places and activities I need not visit again.
The past is just that. I'm moving forward. I'm kinda hopeful that somebody's trying to catch up so I'm kinda slow walking that forward right now. Besides, how do I explain the family unit in my basement to someone. I suppose the right one would understand, but in that case, she's gonna have to find me. I was told that there was someone who was interested but I do absolutely know that of all the things I DO NOT need in my life, it's that.
And God is keeping me from other things that aren't for me as well.
I'm just doing my best to trust and obey.
Sometimes I write this thing to help me think. I think I'm glad I could share this with y'all.
God is good! All the time! Even in the bad times.
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