This week has been difficult. Not because it's been overwhelmingly horrible or because it's been overwhelmingly amazing. Instead, it's been overwhelmingly... both. I've always recognized one of God's affirmations to be financial provision. That's usually a very large green light to me that this plan is good and right because my family rarely has the finances to provide for anything. I'm not complaining, I'm stating a fact. So when something happens and finances start turning up from unexpected sources or there seems to be a better management of our general family funds so that something can be provided, I see God speaking through that.
At this time last week, I still believed I'd be going to Rockford. I have, as of yet, to stop being amazed by how clear hindsight always is. My parents seem disillusioned with it. When anything happens, they always know that they'll look back on it with so much more clarity, reasoning, and understanding. I'm still learning that. Nothing much remarkable happened on Monday. On Tuesday, I began to realize that the financial provision for my trip to Rockford just wasn't there. I had fifty-some dollars and I needed money for about five meals, gas for there and back four times, a $45 registration fee... I've gone into all of this before. I had seen this coming for two or three days, I just didn't want to recognize it because that meant I really HADN'T found what God had for me, and that made me angry.
I get angry much too easily. I get impatient and I think that I've got it all figured out and that I know how it's all going to go down. I like to make myself believe that I've got God all figured out. Needless to say, as the Rockford trip began to fall to pieces, I began to get anxious. I do that a lot, too. I beg God. I was begging for Him to just reveal SOMETHING to me, to throw me a bone. I've felt so lost lately, as though I'm useless. I told my sister I feel as if my day consists of computer, TV, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom. I clean, I cook, I watch TV, I go online, I read, I shower, I go to the bathroom, I do devotions and/or read the Bible, and I go to sleep. There's nothing remarkable about it. I told her also that I felt as though I was sitting there waiting for the spark that would catch my life on fire... some kind of jump start that I believed wasn't coming.
I always eat my hat with God, it seems. I told her that spark wasn't coming. BAH! When I saw that email, I almost lost it. I can't describe the shock waves that began rippling through my body. I stared blankly at the screen for... oh, probably five minutes or so. It was like there was a traffic jam on the highway of my brain. It was unbelievable... literally, I didn't believe it. The idea even went through my head that it was some kind of cruel joke like a Senior prank played by the kids at UM-Flint.
I have a hard time realizing how much God actually cares about my dreams. He wants to see me happy, but in HIS way, not mine. Everytime I think of myself being happy, I think of being happy in my own way. I don't like to remember that my definition of happiness is a very different thing from His definition. So, of course, I started to question. This was my dream on a silver platter, basically, but I haven't paid the enrollment deposit yet which means I'm NOT committed. I told God that if this wasn't what He had for me then it was going to be a really hard blow, but He needed to make it evident... like, transparent, that this just wasn't it.
The first way that it wouldn't have been His plan for me was the obvious one. When I applied back in November, I was still in high school. Since then, I had to make the horrendous decision to release that dream from my grip and realize that graduation and everything that goes with it was not what God had for me. There's a certain social stigma that goes with the phrase: "GED", but God created me to be a survivor and a conqueror, and I felt confident and strong when I made that decision that He would see me through the stereotypes and make something of my life. Anyway, the obvious thing that I had to do was to call the Admissions Office and inform them of my situation and ask them if my admissions decision still stood. This is what the lady in the office told me, "You're good. All admissions decisions do still hinge on the receipt of second semester high school grades or the equivalency transcripts. So just take that GED test ASAP and get the transcripts to us ASAP!"
I couldn't believe it. A college -and not a community one, at that- was going to take me with a GED? No wayyyyy... that's exactly what I thought. I somehow see now how God could actually smirk. We doubt Him so much and then when we see His power and we're just so overwhelmed by it.... I bet you He smirks! Haha.
The next thing, of course, was my big green light; my very favorite affirmation. Money! I worry about it constantly. I actually wrote a journal entry/prayer that was begging God (again), to provide financially for this situation if it was what He had for me. I realllyyyyy learned a lesson about trust and believing that God can -and will- come through for us if it's His will in our lives. I had to make a billion phone calls, but I discovered that Battle Creek Public Schools does GED Testing for $125 or $25/test versus Sturgis at $200 and Three Rivers at $250, so I decided to go with Battle Creek... duh. Anyway, there's also a $50 enrollment deposit to consider and a $50 housing deposit to think of. I was trying to think of a way that my family was going to come up with $225.. after days of agonizing, I finally told God, "You know what? If this is what You have for me... show me ways to make it work and I know You'll make it work. You always do."
The next day I got a message from my Grandma on Facebook saying: "Ashlee, your papa and I will pay for GED testing. Just tell us how much and when. Love you, Gramma D."
So I cried. I had to. ;)
But there was bad this week, as well. Times that tested my will in ways I haven't seen before. I came so close to smoking but I'm proud to say that God grabbed me by the armpits and pulled me back. He wasn't going to let me quit that soon!
We had to put our dog, Cujo, down this week. My beloved little man, as I called him. Or little sir, or just sir... Cudie, Cujowski, baby boy... he had a LOT of nicknames. I'm grieving more over him than I did over some humans who've died in the past year, and I find that weird. He was my lovey-boy, though. I miss him so, so much. It's hard for me not to believe that animals won't be in Heaven, but this week I could see why, even with how much I wanted to believe the opposite. My little man didn't even know what was coming and barked 'til his dying day. Now, when I hear an Amish buggie or see someone ride by on a bicycle and I don't hear barking, I get pretty somber. I just miss his presence...
Also, I discovered that a wonderful man who I came to be good friends with while I was living in Ohio has an incurable, terminal form of cancer. It's everywhere... lungs, liver, kidney, I think. He and his wife are two of the most wonderful and sweet people ever. Paul and Karen both seem like people I would want to be my grandparents. They've only been married five years, but their marriage was one of the most firmly based on Christ's I've ever had the privilege to witness. I think the oddest part to me is that Paul is the definition of a "good ol' boy from Ohio". Played high school football, has been a Christian his entire life and somehow managed to keep his faith renewed and strong... he's never had a drop of alcohol, a puff off of a cigarette, or any kind of drug. And he has lung cancer. How weird.
Sometimes -most of the time- I don't understand God. What's funny to me, though, is realizing why certain things happened this week. I do believe I got accepted to U of M so that, even in these REALLYYYY trying times with Paul and the puppy and our money situation and everything else, God could still be showing me the power of His grace and redemption and just the awesomeness of the things He has for my life that I could have NEVER imagined.
I have GED Orientation Day tomorrow. There are two testing slots left in March, even though I can't remember the exact days. I'll be taking two tests on each of those days, so four out of the five. The last test I'll be taking on April 2nd. I'm having surgery on April 6th because I finally called and got it rescheduled. I'm nervous as heck, but I KNOW God's gonna see me through it. I have most of the Spring and then Summer time to convalesce, get a job, spend some time with the family, get a few things in order, get my driver's license... and orientation is on August 19th from 11 am to 7:30 pm. I don't know when I'll be moving up there, but I've got PLENTY of time to figure that out. Right now, I'm taking it one hour at a time. Otherwise, I'll go crazy.
If I had to name this season of my life, I would definitely name it "Spring". Death has happened, but things are being reborn. I am being reborn. And everything looks green and pastel and bright and beautiful and filled with sunshine... I fully expect to walk through the dark again in my lifetime. But for right now, I'm basking in this beauty... in HIS beauty. It's the best kind. ;)
Everything that's new has bravely surfaced,
Teaching us to breathe
What was frozen through is newly purposed
Turning all things green,
So it is with You and how You make me new
With every season's change,
And so it will be as You are recreating me
Summer... Autumn... Winter...
Spring.
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