Stories

So I have a few stories to tell.
I hope they're interesting.
Maybe they only are to me.
But I figured I would share.

In each story,
I had the choice to complain
or
the choice to be thankful.
I'm not going to lie,
I started each with the attitude of
grumbling and complaining.
I didn't understand
why God would let me go through
that situation.
But after a little bit,
God changed my attitude.
He turned it into one of
thankfulness.
I am so thankful that I've been blessed
to go through each of what I am
going to be telling you about,
because through it all,
God is sanctifying me
and purifying my heart.
He's getting rid of all bitterness,
malice,
rage,
selfish ambition,
jealousy,
and discord.
And He's replacing it with love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness,
and
self-control.
I still have a long way to go,
but He is still moving and working
in my life.

These are stories of
my foolishness,
God's faithfulness,
and
God's provision.
He is good.

The first one happened about
two weeks ago.
I was driving home from
South Carolina,
where I was visiting some friends for the weekend,
when I looked in my rear view mirror
and saw flashing blue lights.
Oh my gosh!
I started freaking out.
Seriously.
Freaking out.
I never get pulled over!
And I had no idea what was wrong!
My speedometer said
I was going 75.
As far as I knew, that wasn't enough to get pulled over.
But, I did what the flashing blue lights recommended,
and I pulled my car over to the side of the road and
stopped.
The cop got out of the car
and ended up telling me that
I had been travelling a whole lot faster than
I originally thought I was.
Not a good thing at all.
I explained what my speedometer said,
and he gave me a lot of grace.
According to the laws in SC,
a person travelling as fast as I was
should have been taken directly to jail
and the car should have been impounded.
But, instead, he just gave me a ticket,
a rather large one at that,
and told me to get my speedometer fixed.
God is so good. 
That day when I got to church,
I was still really shaken up,
and everyone kept trying to tell me that
 it was okay.
I didn't believe them.
And it's taken me a while
to see how God worked in this
situation.
But I'm getting there.
He showed me a lot of grace
that morning.
And He protected me from getting into an
accident.
With how fast I was travelling,
if I had gotten in an accident,
I probably wouldn't have made it.
So, long story short,
God is good.
And my speedometer is broken.
Haha.

Story #2:
Really, this is just a continuation
of story number 1.
But, it's a story in and of itself.
So, because my speedometer is
broken,
I now needed to get it fixed.
I wanted to be able to show
the judge at my court date
(you never would have thought
I would say that)
that I was responsible and
got the thing fixed
so this kind of thing would not happen
in the future.
I took Lucy (my car)
into the local VW dealership on Monday
to get checked out.
One of the technicians
took her out for a spin to
get a better handle on what was wrong
with her.
Well,
he got back and came and talked to me.
He told me that I was not crazy.
Something was very wrong with Lucy.
He said that at a cruising speed of 60
(according to my broken speedometer)
he was actually going about 100.
Lovely.
He thought that it was something
in the transmission that needed to be fixed/replaced,
maybe a bolt that was stripped
or something to that effect.
So, they checked it out.
And sure enough,
it was as he thought.
I will be getting this fixed.
Yay!
I will have a speedometer that works again!
However,
it is costly.
But, God is provider.
And He has already provided for me
in this.
And I am so thankful.
I am having to depend on God
for my needs.
And it's such a great thing.
It's so hard to stay dependent,
but it's something I need to learn.
So I'm glad He's teaching me.

Story #3:
My fundraising letters for
American Samoa
went out last week.
And God has moved in a great way.
He has done
so much more than I thought in
a little more than a week.
There's still a long way to
go before I have all the
funds I need.
But, nonetheless,
God is provider.
He is proving that to me
over and over
this semester.
And it's such a great lesson to learn.
Also, He's teaching me
that when He has His hand in something,
He won't let anything stop it from happening.
His hand is definitely in my
going to American Samoa
this summer.
And I can't wait to see what
He has in store.

Story #4:
I can never seem to find a guy
who's genuinely interested in me.
Ha, this seems so trivial.
But I'm going to tell it anyway.
Here's the general progression
of crushes that I have on guys:
1. Girl sees guy.
2. Girl observes guy to see if he might be someone to be potentially interested.
3. Girl becomes friends with guy.
4. Girl starts to open up to guy.
5. Girl confirms that he is okay to be interested in.
6. Girl patiently waits for him to possibly be interested in girl.
7. Guy starts to flirt with girl.
8. Girl keeps a tight reign on her heart.
9. Girl attempts to flirt back.
10. Guy spots a different girl.
11. Guy pursues other girl, and they end up dating.
12. First girl is left confused and hurting.
This has happened a lot in my life.
And it's happened again.
In the past,
I've always grumbled and complained.
I always blamed God
and told Him that I was so angry
with Him for doing this to me.
But not this time.
I'm not going to give in to that temptation.
It hurts, yes.
But instead of complaining,
I'll be running to my Healer.
I've been crying out to God
for the past couple of weeks
about this.
Because He is the only one
who can take my hurt and pain
and change it into joy and love.
So.
Even in this,
God is teaching me.
He's never left my side.
And He never will.
I trust Him fully and
completely.


Well, that ends the epic stories.
At least for now.
God is good.

Blessings.