Faith Recharge?

Last Friday I got a check in the mail.  $88.  I was dumbfounded.  After quickly making a needed purchase for school I was putting off, I decided the rest was to be a cushion until the end of the month.

Mom and Dad visited yesterday and worried when I asked for advice telling them how my car battery had died 2 times in the first week of school - and twice more since. I worried the alternator was going bad.  If what I thought was true, batteries only cost around $50.  I'd be okay.  There'd be enough left over for gas money until pay day.  Surely.

We stopped by the Auto Parts store to pick up a new battery and have it installed.  Simple.  Right?!?

umm...no.  It turns out my sweet little car is a teeny bit high maintenance when it comes to things like batteries.  The guy at the auto parts store said he couldn't put it in.  It'd take too long and was above his skill range.

Oh. 

After all the damage they've done, I couldn't take it to CarMax and I worried about being overcharged at the VW place.  So I called Richey Automotive.  The people who helped me  with my Mazda so much.
They found a battery for around $70 ... but then found them to be out of stock.  The 6 year battery was going to be 95.  I knew I wouldn't have any gas money left if I got it.  In addition, it would take an hour to put it in.  ....  which would mean a $55 more.

I asked the secretary if she thought the solar panel would help until September.  She didn't know and gave the phone to Chris.  I explained my situation and asked if he thought it would be okay to jump it when/if the solar panel thingy didn't work.   

"No.  That wouldn't be good on your alternator.  Can you pay 1/2?"

you know me....I cried.  

-not tears of relief, but ones that were rejoicing for Abba's provision, and at Abba's tenderness to me. 

 I could pay 1/2.

The Filling is the Best Part

"During these long years of waiting the father cried many tears and died many deaths.  He was emptied out by suffering.  But that emptiness had created a place of welcome for his sons when the time of their return came." Henri Nouwen 

I was cleaning out my email inbox and found an unread Henri Nouwen email from earlier this summer.  I'm not thinking it was an accident that I found it today...I *so* get what it is like to be emptied out by sufferings.  I too have cried MANY tears and died many deaths...but I'm thinking my deaths have been more like when Eustace became a dragon than anything else. Learning to die to myself so that Christ could live in my heart.  

...or learning to be emptied out like an eclair - because it's the filling that's the best part!



Because the thing that excites me most is the 'newly created place of welcome' Nouwen talks about.   I am rejoicing in the love I now have for others that is more supple and embracing and *empowered* than I used to be even before Kip's excursion into the tar pits. 

The last two mornings I put a song from my iPod on repeat for the duration of my drive to work.  Yesterday was a Chris Tomlin song about putting down idols (Give Us Clean Hands) and today my heart *overflowed* while singing "Day after day our God is reigning/He's never shaken/My hope is in the Lord/Time after time our God is faithful/Trustworthy Savior, my hope is in the Lord"  (Kirsten Stanfill - Day After Day)  My drive to school was the sweetest time of worship and supplication.  

Just 2 months ago, I struggled to pray and forced myself to sing.   I laughed, but it was like a dampened bell with a rubber stopper on the clapper.  My laughter didn't ring out with joy.   My tears were sometimes endless, as was my despair.  

Lately, I have caught myself singing because my heart is overflowing.  My laughter, at times, seems to contain sunbeams that fill my heart.  The bliss of the moment cascading out of my heart's cup.  You might have even catch me driving (top down, of course) with one hand stuck straight up in the air in worship.  

Another beautiful thing about this filling is that scriptures have become alive to me again.  Doesn't the Holy Spirit *ROCK*?!    I'm loving Hebrews currently, just as much as I have adored Zephaniah, Haggai and Habakkuk! (before, I struggled to read anything more than a devotional email) 

My journey to Hebrews came when a friend shared Hebrews 12 with me.  I told him I would have preferred to erase the part in Haggai 2 that speaks of the Lord shaking everything that can be shaken.  I had forgotten that Abba has my best interest at heart.  I had forgotten that Abba's purpose of shaking me was to remove the fire ants from my body.  I didn't want anything else to be shaken or disturbed. (I really wanted control - which seems silly.  I mean:  taking control from the Creater of the UNIVERSE! Laughable!  Right?!)

What are you being asked to let go of?  How are you being prompted to empty yourself of..yourself - so that you can be filled?  Want to share?