Who's nosy?... this girl.

I went to Barnes & Noble the other night because I wanted to read more of "Cold Tangerines," by Shauna Niequist. While I was waiting for my peppermint hot chocolate, I noticed two men talking to each other at one of the tables. One was a guy in his mid-late 20's who had his Bible out in front of him and the other was probably in his 50's somewhere. The 50-something one looked like he had lived a hard life and it seemed obvious that the younger guy wasn't his son. I was pretty sure the only reason they were hanging out at the B & N Starbucks was because the younger guy wanted to witness to the older man about Christ.


*Spoiler alert*... I was right.


Since I knew what was probably happening, I sat two tables over to hear their actual conversation. I really did try to focus on my book, but that ended up being too difficult because of what I could hear. 20-ish did a lot of talking and 50-ish seemed to be getting more and more annoyed with what he was saying. I was getting annoyed with what he was saying, too, even though it seemed like his life had been similar to mine. 50 was saying he just wasn't sure whether he could believe in God because of the things that have happened in his life. He also said something about Christians being hypocritical, which was another reason why he had trouble putting his faith in Jesus Christ. 20 made the point that he can only put his confidence in God because life's circumstances are temporary.

The thing that bothered me while I was listening to the two of them was how obviously different their life stories were. 20 talked about how he had been a Christian since he was 4; he's currently in seminary; he had been madly in love with a girl in college, but she dumped him and he realized his hope could only be in Christ; he sins, just like everyone else and, "even felt lust while he was on his way to Barnes & Noble today." I'm pretty sure 50 didn't even have a car because he asked 20 to drop him off somewhere when they were about to leave the store.

My point in writing about this is to give my opinion on what should have happened. I've heard it said many times, "Your greatest area of brokenness can become your greatest ministry." 20's areas of brokenness weren't nearly the same as 50's and I'm pretty sure that's the reason why 50 seemed so closed off. 20 needs to be sharing his story with high school and college students who are more likely to relate to what he's saying. It would have been great if 20 knew someone with a similar story to 50's and had asked that person to talk to him about Jesus. I think 50 would have been a lot more open to hearing from someone who had struggled financially or who had been through drugs, alcoholism, a difficult marriage, etc. (I don't know if those had been his problems, but, like I said... he seemed to have lived a hard life).

This is what I took from eavesdropping on that conversation: everyone has a story and they should share it with people. In doing so, they can connect others who have similar stories and allow them to relate to each other. I guess that's the thing that bothered me about what 20 was doing... I didn't hear him ask 50 any questions about what he had been through in life and it just sounded like he was preaching at him. If he had asked questions and seemed interested in the answers, he could have had the opportunity to point 50 toward people who had gone through similar circumstances. In turn, those people could have related to 50 and pointed him toward Jesus.

Broken

The last time I blogged, I was writing about a conversation I had at the plasma center about brokenness. That led me to believe that I should write about the things that have been breaking me in the past year or so. I'm sure it will be difficult to write, but it should also be worth it.

I would say that all of this started happening in October 2009. Looking back, this makes sense because these things started happening when I moved to Virginia from Kentucky. Living in Kentucky was probably the most spiritually transforming year of my life and I didn't take the time to be aware of the possibility of spiritual attack when I moved from there. I was aware of the fact that I'd be depressed and I'd miss Kentucky, but I didn't think about being vulnerable to spiritual warfare.

I moved to Virginia with the intent of living near Jeff and Emily and becoming a professional foster parent. In order to become a foster parent, I needed to earn more money than I owed, then I needed to quit that job once they had matched me with a child. I took on a full-time babysitting job in Yorktown (45 minutes away) in order to meet the income requirement. I was upfront with the family about what I was doing and told them I'd give them 1 month's notice once I was matched with a child. I went to the foster parent trainings for about 2 weeks and realized that I wasn't in the right state of mind to start caring for a child with severe emotional disturbance. I was a wreck because of leaving Kentucky and didn't think it would be the right time to start taking care of a kid like that.

I quit the foster parent classes and started looking for a "real" job. I found one as a supervisor at a place for adults with disabilities. I had a very bad feeling about that job because it was very similar to the supervisory position at my first job at Project Independence. I had always refused to take that particular job because I knew how stressful it was, but here I was in Virginia and thinking it would be different from the one in California. I quit the babysitting job to take that one, which made the mom mad at me for only giving two weeks' notice. She kept saying that she was going to send my check for the last week of employment in the mail, but that never happened.

My gut feeling about the "real" job was accurate and I was completely miserable because my gifts don't lie in administrative or supervisory tasks. The straw that broke the camel's back was when some morphine was missing from one of the ladies who was receiving hospice care. We all suspected that one particular employee had taken it, but there wasn't enough proof that it was her.

I also got a reckless driving ticket on my way back to Kentucky for Thanksgiving. I didn't know how bad that was until I called my mom and she told me, "You could have been arrested for that." Two months later, I went to court in Lexington, VA (3 1/2 hours away) and was charged with reckless driving, which is a misdemeanor. I got home that night to a note on my door from my landlord stating that the Directv dish wasn't allowed to be attached to my apartment building. This was also the month that my car radio and my sister's laptop had broken (it got a virus while I was borrowing it), so I felt like losing TV was going to put me into a bubble. I sat on the couch, cried for a half hour about everything breaking, felt all alone in the world, and also felt very aware of God's presence.

They weren't able to find a new place for the Directv dish and they told me that I owed them $440. This was because it had been installed and it was the remaining balance on my 2 year contract. I lost it again because I didn't have $440 to throw around on TV that I wasn't getting. I went back and forth with them a few times and was put on hold a lot. They finally reversed the charge when they found they hadn't had written permission from my landlord to install it in the first place.

Soon after that ordeal, I got up the nerve to quit my job. I felt terrible about it, but I knew it was better to quit soon after realizing I wasn't cut out for the job. I had no idea about what I was going to do, but was actually able to trust that God would provide the right job (something I should have done the first time around). Everything in my life was a gigantic question mark and I was lonely, depressed, miserable, etc.. I had never felt so alone and hopeless before, so all I really wanted was to sleep or be in heaven with Jesus. I knew that I needed help, but was so far gone at that point that I didn't have the strength or the energy to look for counseling.

Instead, I ended up talking on the phone every other night with a guy who had e-mailed me on eharmony and having long conversations with him. I was excited at the time because I had never talked that long on the phone with anyone and I thought this could be something different. For the first time, I chose not to analyze this guy that I was interested in because there didn't seem to be any red flags. He loved Jesus, had a job as a student ministries pastor, loved his family, was living where he'd settle down, and eharmony said we were compatible... what else did I need to worry about?

He ended up dumping me in order to pursue a girl who was 9 years younger and had a boyfriend. Said dumping occurred after I had gone grocery shopping with him that night at Walmart and watched the Dallas Mavericks game with him... in his house... 45 minutes away from my house... 10 hours before I was going to interview for any special education teaching job. I tossed and turned all night with the thoughts, "I'm so mad, I'm so angry... I HATE DALLAS!" repeating in my head. I kept thinking about how I needed to get some sleep because my interview was hours away, but sleep never came. I tried to eat something for breakfast, but the only thing that sounded good was Jell-o. I went to the interview after being up for 25 hours and with pretty much no food in my stomach. It lasted for about an hour, but I didn't feel great about how it went. Especially because I had to ask them to repeat a few questions when I couldn't grasp them or answer well on the first try.

I got the rejection letter from them a few weeks ago and it's official that I didn't get to go back to teaching this fall. I'm okay with this because I love doing ABA therapy and didn't really want to quit working at B.E.S.T.. I just thought that teaching was going to be an option when September came around.

Since my hours at B.E.S.T. have fluctuated so much, I've been taking on babysitting jobs to make ends meet. I've been on sittercity.com and have gotten to babysit for quite a few nice families. One of the moms had requested a background check for me (she did this for everyone and it had been almost 1 year since my last one). It came back with 2 case numbers from Orange County and said, "Charges: Not Provided." Sittercity sent out an e-mail to every person who had contacted me or saved my information that said something like, "do not contact this person because they have violated our terms of use," and then kicked me off their website.

I looked up the case numbers and they were from my brake lights being out- once in 2004 and once in 2007. I disputed the claim because my brake lights being out shouldn't affect my ability to work with children. They figured out they were wrong and allowed me back on the website. Of course, they didn't send out an e-mail to tell everyone that my background check had cleared. They just put my profile back up as if nothing had happened.

Then, in the past 2 weeks, I backed into a car in a mini mall and I got a speeding ticket. The speeding ticket led to him telling me that I need to register my car in Virginia. This would be fine, except for the fact that my car has been on the brink of death recently and has to be inspected in order to be registered. I'm sure they're going to have a laundry list of repairs when I take it in :(.

Those are the random, bad things that have happened in my life since last year. They keep happening and probably won't stop until I'm broken again. The lessons I've learned through all of them, though, are that God takes care of me and He's allowed these things to happen for a reason.

Conversation at the Plasma Center

I have been attempting to donate plasma at different points during the past couple of months and this is what happened there about a month ago. I was sitting in the bed with the book, "Christianish," by Mark Steele in my lap. I had turned it over to make sure that no one could see the title, just in case I flipped out or got mean while being stuck with a needle. As I was sitting there, needle in my arm, book in my lap, and trying to watch the recap on ESPN of the Lakers winning the NBA Finals, they brought a guy over to the bed next to mine. Here's a synopsis of what happened:

Josh: What book are you reading?
Jenna: It's called, "Christianish"... it's one I've already read, but this guy is a really funny writer and I figured it would help the time pass quickly while I waited here.
Josh: Can I see it?
Jenna (passing it over to him): Sure!
Josh (taking the time to read the back of the book): Is this about holiness or something?
Jenna: It's more about the things the writer has been through and how he's lived out his faith during those times.

Josh started thumbing through the book, so I figured he was actually interested in what it was about. I told him, "Here, you should read this chapter because it's really funny." I usually hate it when people ask me to read something that's good or funny in front of them, but I felt confident that he really would think it was hilarious.

I turned it to the chapter that is about his sons' reactions to pain in life. He wrote about how his sons, Jackson and Charlie, got into trouble one night for lying about playing with their toys when they should have been in bed an hour before. He told them they were going to get spankings and witnessed a major difference in their reactions. Jackson became very upset and was going to do anything to avoid getting spanked. Some quotes of his while he was about to get spanked were:

"I MUST HAVE A GLASS OF WATER FIRST! I'M THIIIIIRSTY!"
"NOW I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!"
"YOU CAN'T SPANK ME BECAUSE I'LL PEE! I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM FIRST!"
and my personal favorite... "YOU'LL WHACK THE PEE OUT OF ME!"

The kid became so upset about getting spanked that he ended up vomiting because of his anxiety. Once it was over, though, he was fine. He felt bad about breaking his parents' rules and knew that the spanking was a consequence from that.

Charlie, on the other hand, is quite charming and covers up how he feels about getting spanked. My favorite part is the conversation that occurs between his mom and him.

Charlie: I'm not gonna do anyfing Jackson is doing when I go get MY spanking.
Kaysie: You're not, huh?
Charlie: Nope, I'm gonna walk wight in and jus' get spanked.
Kaysie: That's a good idea, Charlie.
Charlie: I do not wike it when Daddy spanks me.
Kaysie: I'll bet you don't.
Charlie: I wike it when you spank me.
Kaysie (nonchalantly): Oh really? Why?
Charlie: Because when Daddy spanks me, it hurts- but when you spank me, it does not...
I pwobably should not have told you dat.
Kaysie: Tell you what, son. From now on we'll let Daddy do all your spankings.
Charlie (sighing): Yep. I definitewy should not have told you dat.

Josh was laughing out loud at certain points during the chapter, so I knew he was enjoying it. He even read one part to a nurse who was walking by because he thought it was so funny. When he was finished with the chapter, he handed it back to me and said something along the lines of, "It's true. There are so many Christians who cover up what they're going through and they don't let their real feelings show." I told him that I agreed because there have been a lot of times in my life when I've pretended that everything was all right, instead of allowing myself to be honest about how I feel. I didn't get to say much more to him because I was finished with my donation, but I was glad that we had talked to each other and that I got to share that book with him.

I guess the moral of the story is that people who aren't Christians are more likely to listen to a Jackson than a Charlie because the Jackson's of the world are willing to be honest about their feelings toward difficult situations.

Sweet Victory!

Last night, Emmy and I watched the Lakers win the NBA Finals for the 2nd year in a row and it was glorious. The reason I'm writing this, though, is because of the random events surrounding the game...

I texted her to see if she wanted to watch the game at Applebee's because they have a sweet ice cream cookie sandwich and it would be nice to watch it with a lot of people around. I also knew that they'd be playing the game there because Kim and Jenny had been kind enough to watch it with me when they came to visit a couple of weeks ago. She wrote back and said that she'd rather watch it in the Student Center at Regent in order to keep from spending money. I was about 14% disappointed because I figured that no one else would be watching the game there, but I was 86% okay with it because it meant that I wouldn't be spending money, either.


I got to the Student Center at exactly 9pm and there was a man who was probably in his mid-late 50's who had the TV on. I was worried for a second that he wasn't watching the game and asked, "You're going to be watching the game, right?" (thinking back, it's not like he seemed the SYTYCD type.) He said that he was going to be watching the game, then asked if I was rooting for the Celtics or Lakers. I told him that I was wanting the Lakers to win because I'm from California and he immediately told me that he was a Celtics fan. He was quite the talker and I started to think that it was going to be a rough night.


During the 3rd and 4th quarters, he started coaching the Celtics from his seat on the couch at Regent. Some lines yelled at the TV by him:
- "You need to get out there and coach, Doc! They're tired and they need someone to coach them right now!"
- "Don't pass it to Ray Allen! He's ice cold and missing everything!"
- "See! They're all afraid to shoot and that's why they're not winning!"


Emily texted me at one point during all of this to say, "this guy miiiight drive me nuts." I laughed and made sure not to read that aloud (thank you, Miss Kim, for teaching me that last year).

During the span of the game, a few other people showed up. There were 2 cops, Tyrone and Dave. Tyrone is a Lakers fan and was excited to watch for awhile. Dave doesn't care about basketball, but he was nice enough to bring candy back for us from someone's office. Then, Mike (another Lakers fan) came in with a pizza from Little Caesar's and shared it with us. He said to just make sure to leave 2 slices for him. After that, he insisted on getting waters for us from somewhere, which was very kind. Jeff and Buster also got there at some point during the game and I think the Celtics fan was kind of annoyed by Buster. That, of course, made Buster want to be near him during the rest of the game. The night ended up being more eventful than expected, we got free food, we met new people, and the Lakers won!

Goals

I found an old journal entry from 10/31/2001 entitled, "Things I Want To Do In My Life." I wrote down the goals that I had for my life and kind of forgot about it after that... on another note, I think it also shows my love of Halloween since I spent that evening writing in my journal, instead of trick-or-treating or hanging out with friends. Here's what I wrote and here's what has actually happened in the past 9 years:


Goal: Take a road trip by myself.
Reality: I've taken quite a few road trips by myself now. The longest one being from California to Kentucky with stops in Tuscon, AZ; Midland, TX; Dallas, TX; and middle of nowhere, AR. Unfortunately, I didn't take the time to stop at places like Graceland and the world's biggest ball of twine.

Goal: Write a book about the people that I talked to on my road trip.
Reality: I didn't do it and I should have when I had the opportunity.

Goal: Take lessons of some kind (I'm thinking piano, hip hop, karate, or ballet).
Reality: I took a hip hop class and plan to again. I got a piano for my 25th birthday and played it almost every day for 3 years until moving to Kentucky.

Goal: Take a cruise to a tropical island.
Reality: I took a cruise to Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada with Andrea.

Goal: Be a camp counselor at Hume Lake for an entire summer.
Reality: I was a camp counselor for 1 week per summer at Royal Family Kids' Camp for 4 years and 1 week at Camp Shawnee last year.

Goal: Become a guidance counselor for my career.
Reality: Became a special ed. teacher for my career and may go back to it eventually.

Goal: Become a missionary in a foreign country for 1 summer (0r maybe longer).
Reality: Went to Haiti for 3 weeks and held babies. Volunteered in Kentucky for one amazingly magical year.

Goal: Have a really cute dog.
Reality: I have to settle for a cute nephew-puppy until I have the space for my own dog.

Goal: Have season tickets for the Lakers.
Reality: I apparently thought I was going to be independently wealthy when I was 21... I'm okay with watching them win the Finals on TV every year, though.

Goal: Find the man of my dreams and marry him.
Reality: I know that will happen.

Goal: Possibly being a foster mother.
Reality: I came very close, but chickened out when I thought about how much responsibility it was. It was also at the time when I realized that I needed to take time to grieve leaving Kentucky and volunteering.

Goal: Volunteer at a hospital and play games with the kids who are sick.
Reality: This didn't happen, but I was Cameron's CASA for 4 years and I wouldn't change that for anything.

Goal: Be a sponsor in a youth group and be able to join them for any of their activities.
Reality: I've helped out with youth group activities at Essential, but not to the extent that I could.

Goal: Live in a nice place with a swimming pool.
Reality: I've lived in 4 places with them.

I think everyone should make a list of their goals occasionally because it's really fun to look back and see what's actually happened.

Consecration

I started to read "The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life," by Hannah Whitall Smith yesterday. I've owned that book for at least 5 years and a ton of authors reference it in their books, but I had never taken the time to try to understand it until now (it was written in 1870, which is probably why I never gave it much of a chance). In one of the chapters, she talks about consecration and gives a wonderful example about it. Her explanation was that if a doctor was trying to cure a patient's illness, the patient would have to trust the doctor completely. It couldn't be that the patient isn't telling the doctor all of their symptoms or that they decide to take some, but not all, of the medications the doctor prescribes. The patient needs to tell the doctor everything that is going on in their body and follow all of the doctor's instructions in order to get better. Her main point was, "God must have the whole case put into His hands, and His directions must be implicitly followed." Not a little bit of it, not some of it, but ALL of it.

She goes on to explain how scared Christians are of giving everything over to God because they are afraid He'll make them miserable. She gave the example of a mother with her child and asked what it would look like if her child chose to obey everything that she asked of him because he trusted her completely. She asked the mom, "Would you say to yourself, 'Ah, now I shall have a chance to make Charley miserable. I will take away all his pleasures and compel him to do that which is impossible." The mom said she wouldn't say that at all because she loves her son and only wants the best for him. God wants the best for His children, even more than that mom wants the best for her son, and He would not do anything to harm us.

All of this made me think about the fact that something in my life always falls apart when I sing the words to "Take My Life" and truly mean them. Especially the phrase, "Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee." Even when I'm singing it, I realize that something bad is going to happen soon, but I know those are the times when I truly mean those words. That song came on my iPod last week as I was driving to Elizabeth City. I sang along with it wholeheartedly and T.J. broke up with me later that night. I've felt pretty upset about it, but I'm also very confident that God prepared me for what was going to happen by having me sing along with that song. He's showing me that all of this is because He loves me and wants to protect me.

As I've thought about it more, the areas in my life that need to be consecrated to the Lord are my love life, my jobs, finances, where I should live, and how I should be serving others. All of it needs to belong to Him and it does not belong in my hands anymore.

Time to count my blessings

I borrowed Season 3 of Gilmore Girls from Emily on Saturday because I'm a little tired of watching Ally McBeal and HIMYM. I have seen all of this particular season before, but I didn't remember any of the story lines. Anyway, Lorelai's or "Mimi's" monologue hit very close to home and even caused me to tear up. Right now, I absolutely feel the same way that she does, but I have to realize that all of this is for the best.

I also need to follow Luke's advice and think of the things in my life that I do have. I have an amazing, supportive family who love me unconditionally and pray for me. I have close friendships with Kim, Jenny, and Jess that have continued since volunteering in Kentucky together. I know that God led me to Essential Church because of building relationships with the people in our "Crazy Love" small group and getting to work with the preschoolers. I have a couple of jobs that I love because of getting to work with kids and still being able to do teaching. When Caitlin, one of the kids that I babysit for, runs out of the house to hug me and say, "Jenna, I missed you!" because I haven't seen her in 4 days, it's an awesome feeling. The bottom line is that I am loved and I will continue to love others.