Downcast

Why do i feel so discouraged right now!?
I was incredibly encouraged this past weekend at the BIG bible study and then on Sunday morning as well, but now i am just heartbroken with no clue why!

Psalm 43

1 Vindicate me, O God,
and plead my cause against an ungodly nation;
rescue me from deceitful and wicked men.

2 You are God my stronghold.
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?

3 Send forth your light and your truth,
let them guide me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell.

4 Then will I go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the harp,
O God, my God.

5 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

It's a Boy!

This morning i became the proud aunty of a baby boy, born to Sam and Yvonne Davies. His name is Jonas Luke Davies and he weighed in at 8lb 13oz. My first nephew!
on a side note.....I WON THE BETS!! HAHA!!

Weary

Weary

1. Having the strength exhausted by toil or exertion; worn out in respect to strength, endurance, etc; tired, fatigued.

2. Causing weariness; tiresome.

3.  Having one's patience, relish, or contentment exhausted; tired; sick.

This word describes how i feel right now in respect to waiting.  I am weary of waiting.

Moe Window Troubles In The Lives Of Alpha, Jack, And Retta.

The strangest thing happened the other day.  

I got into my car after physio and fired up ye old engines, so far so good, but all of a sudden two of my windows (front driver side and back other side if you get my drift) ABORTED and COMMITTED SUICIDE.   ie they started going down.  No problem for the front window, its the one in my car that actually works and at the half-way point i pressed the button and up it came safe and sound.  Not so lucky for the back window!!  It is one of the three windows in my car that DOES NOT WORK (or, isn't supposed to work because the mechanic was SUPPOSED to have fixed them so they do not go down at all.....obviously he didn't).  and it didn't just slide down gracefully like a window should normally.  no. it dropped.  it plunged.  it plummeted. whichever word you prefer. just let it suffice to say that when it stopped it only had 1/2 cm showing.  

bummer! now what?! 

Well, i got out of my car and after about 2 minutes in the pouring rain i had coaxed the window up about 4 or 5 inches with my fingertips and then it just would not budge anymore.  Now sometimes if i press the button it will actually work and go up so i figured it wouldn't hurt to try it. I got back into the car and pushed the button.  No such luck this time!! I grumpily got out of the car and tried pulling it up again and it went up another inch but no further.  

Suddenly, out of the blue, randomly, a strange guy gets out of his car next to me (i had no idea he was there, probably laughing his head off at my efforts....) and strikes up a conversation by saying something like "having trouble with your window?",  'yes you dummy isn't it obvious' i thought (thankfully i didn't say it out loud),  and graciously said "yes it has a mind of its own".  really dumb reply i know.  but whatever, irrelevant to the story.  He tried his luck at pulling the window up but it didn't budge.  I had a strange feeling (prompted by the Holy Spirit probably) that i should try the button again, so while the strange dude stood by watching i climbed back into the car and pressed the up button.  

PRESTO!  IT WENT UP!

flabbergasted i got out of the car and went around and stood there like an idiot in the rain and stared at the window muttering under my breath and laughing at the same time in sheer relief.   "well thats that i guess!" i said.  The dude piped up "what you need now is a wedge".

what the heck is a wedge?  how would i find a wedge?  

Well guess what the guy does now?  Reaches into his pocket a pulls out a wedge!!!!  HOW RANDOM IS THAT!??  i was speechless. 

He reaches in the front right window and wedges this little wedge (Will called it a shimy? but who cares either word will do) between the glass of the window and the door.  "there, that should stay up now" the guy says.  I turned to him "dude. you are a freaking genius!!!" i say and thank him as he gets into his car and drives away.

And then i drove home safe and dry in my car with all my windows up!  That, my friends, was the high of my week.  Seriously the most random thing that has ever happened to me.  I felt like God had sent me help even before i'd thought to ask him, despite my bad attitude!  and boy did i ever change my attitude after that!!  

Happy Hunting!

Alpha

Pain, Advil, and Surrender

So what's the point of the whole "save your back, lift with your knees" if you not only have a bad back but bad knees as well?

i have discovered that being on advil all the time is not necessarily a good thing, no matter the pain.

After a few pills are popped you begin to feel a bit whoozy and then you don't really feel much at all. I'd much rather have the pain and laugh through it than be dizzy, out of pain, and out to lunch!

A super encouraging bible verse that i read the other evening is from Psalm 73.

"Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing i desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psa 73.25-26)

How easily we forget the simple fact that we have a strength that comes from God alone! And how much less stress and worry we would have in this life if only we learned to place our trust in Him. Because we do falter and our flesh is weak, but God has promised that He will not put more on us than we can bear.

How precious is that promise!

I am learning, bit by bit, day by day, to place my struggles, pain, rejections, and sorrows before the One who is the only one who can fully understand our problems and give us the strength to carry on.  Through the achy joints and creeky bones and advil withdrawls, God is teaching me to surrender to His Will.  No-one said it would be easy!  But we have God's strength on our side!!

"Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen!"  (Rev 7.12)

We're not in the Dark Ages anymore Jack...

I've finally taken a step into the world of technology and bought a MacBook.

it was a big step.

and expensive.

but altogether worth it. macs are great fun once you get the hang of them!

so for the more technological-minded folk, here are the specs on my new baby:

13-inch: White

2.1GHz

120GB Hard Drive

Combo Drive

nothing too fancy, but i don't really need something too high-tech. that would just be way too confusing...

as it is, it took me half a day to figure out how to set up the internet, WHICH I DID ALL BY MYSELF! and i'm still figuring out the just-beyond-the-basics.

s'ok, i have time on my hands every evening!

Oh, and my baby is named Jack, so if you want to refer to it in any way, use the name...otherwise it might get mad and go kibitz...;)

happy mac-ing and happy pc-ing folks!

"The Stuff My Toe Goes Through In A Regular Work Day Just To Stay Alive" and "The Undiet"

What is with my toe being such a heavy object magnet today!!?? i had a big water bottle dropped on my broken big toe which just about KILLED me, i almost had tears in my eyes! And then, approximately an hour later after i'd just about finished recovering and could feel my toe again, ANOTHER water bottle was dropped ON THE SAME TOE!! OUCH!! so after staying in the doubled up/in a lot of pain position for a couple of minutes i got on with my day (albeit a little numbly), kept pricing stuff and whatnot, had a few good laughs...and then, yes, the inevitable happened. A large box of Mott's Applesauce Cups slipped out of my hands, flew through the air (ie, downwards) and landed square on the previously so unfortunate toe!!!!!
the magnitude of the pain my friends was something else.
an experience i hope never to experience again.
i mean, it hurts bad enough without the broken toe (trust me, its happened more than once to me), but WITH?
So ya. Believe it or not i had a good day despite those tragedies. I got an uber ton of stuff done with Leslye on the shipment, laughed at an inordinate amount of hilariously random things and made a blonde idiot out of myself more than a couple of times...:D
In other news: i've decided that junk food is a thing of the past and am currently on a new "health kick" (as heather would put it) with my mom for a whole entire week! No chips, pop, chocolate bars, chewy dipp bars (a huge favorite of mine, especially the extraordinarily ridiculously swell tasting peanut butter ones), candies of any shape or form, and snacks at night time that fall under the names of almonds, sesame sticks, cheerios, raisins, fruitloops, croutons, daims, smarties, walnuts, peanuts, nutella covered bananas, icecream, etc etc etc.
its really hard.
its only been like 2 days and i'm already experiencing withdrawl symptoms. Leslye tried to convince me (by force) to eat a Wagonwheel at work today and i could smell it and boy did it ever smell good! i was sorely tempted...but i triumphed!! the night before the diet um i mean HEALTH KICK started i ate all the remaining Daims in my room. BAD IDEA! there were about 30 of them and i had a MASSIVE sugar headache all night long! but i knew that if i didn't eat them i'd be looking at them all week long while i wasted away to nothing and they'd be such a temptation.
still, not doing it again. 3 or 4 at a time is definitely enough.
I know it might sound like i'm going a bit overboard/melodramatic and all, but seriously when you work in a freight damage store there's SO MUCH TO EAT and it usually is not at all good for you. I didn't even fully realize how much junk i ingested in a regular work day until i stopped eating it altogether!
Well thats all for now folks, be sure to stop by later this week for another installment of my work day adventures!