God Brought Me Winter Tires

I'm not half-bad at playing house. I say playing house because that's what it feels like. Like not that long ago I was three feet tall and baking an imaginary cake in my imaginary kitchen and now I bake real cakes in my real kitchen in my beautiful house while throwing in a load of laundry, paying the bills, determining the most efficient heating strategy for the winter and trying to dust the living room before the timer on the cake goes off. I enjoy it. And like I said, I'm not half bad at it. I'm only around a 7 on the scale organizational awesomeness but when it comes to domestic ability it seems to do the trick most of the time.

The rest of the time it's not enough. Playing "real" house is hard work sometimes. Staying on top of everything requires vigilance, money and motivation. There are some parts of playing house that escape me at times, like changing the batteries in the smoke detector (whoops), keeping track of which week the town graces us with the favour of disposing of our garbage as it seems to change every month, shovelling my driveway and most sadly, keeping up with my car maintenance.

My poor car. I love it dearly though you would never know by looking at it. You'd think I'd be nicer to it considering its the only thing that's gotten me safely from point A to point B in the crazy-insane amount of driving I do. However, I usually take it completely for granted, that is until I start to feel that familiar vibration. You see, much like its owner, my sweet little car has a bit of an autoimmune disease that causes it to prematurely wreck its own tires. It can't be fixed. So my car and I, we go through a lot of tires. That's downright pricey.

I think any home owner would agree that home-owning in general is pricey and that when it comes to finances some months are better than others. This is not a particularly stellar month in the cheque book. In fact, I would describe this month as being a traumatic hemorrhage of money. Not a AAA per say, but not a paper cut by any means either. But what's a gal to do? I guess I'd rather have a financial hemorrhage than an ITLS case study with my name in it because I drove with bald tires through an early October snow storm (oh wait, that's exactly what I did). So I set out to my local OK Tire shop to get a quote.

One of the many great things about living in a small town is the local business owners. I walked in to OK Tire and my tire guy knows me by name and he knows the make and year of my vehicle off the top of his head. He's the only mechanic I actually trust when he says he knows what's wrong with my ambulance - so my tire issue, he's got that covered. Unfortunately, even with a good deal, the price of winter rims and tires, along with the knowledge that I'd need to buy new summer tires in a few bitterly cold months was enough to make my eyes water. So as I stood there, comprehending which route of credit debt I wanted to take, God intervened.

Seriously! Groan or shake your head or do what you will but its the truth. Sometimes we wait a long time for an answer to our prayers and sometimes the answer is "no". However, every once in awhile God answers our prayers in such a way that we can not even consider denying his absolute presence in our lives. In this case God answered my prayer lickety-split and my eyes were then watery from the awe of His goodness.

What happened? Well, my tire guy looked up from his paperwork and paused as he stared blankly for a moment before saying, "Wait a sec, there was a guy in here earlier who mentioned he needed to get rid of some winter tires for your model of car. Should I make a call for you?" My head was nodding faster than a bobble-head doll on a grader. Within 24 hours my amazing tire guy had contacted the seller, inspected the tires and negotiated a price for me. This intervention cut my cost in half. On top of that, the seller also had summer tires that had barely been used that he also sold to me for an awesome price.

I'm thankful that my tire-guy was willing to go out of his way to help me and that there just happened to be a man in the store earlier that day looking to sell some tires from a vehicle just like mine. Most of all, I'm happy and eternally excited that I have a Lord for whom no issue is too big or small for Him to care about and that He is teaching me to see Him in the little things, call for Him during the little things and trust Him in the little things.

Even if it's just a set of winter tires.

Enough

If you read this blog on a semi-regular basis and think to yourself, "man, she sure writes a lot of religiousy type stuff" I hope it doesn't annoy you too much. I don't mean to be preachy and I certainly hope I don't come off that way. I like to write what I know, what I wonder, and what I'm learning in the hopes that there's other people out there who can relate with me on these day-to-day things too. Thankfully for me, God is an every day, real part of my life, so He inevitably comes up in most of my writing. I can't really apologize for that. So if you're still reading this I guess you don't mind. Thanks for coming by here. I always enjoy reading messages or feel free to subscribe on the upper right hand area of the page. Anyhoo. . .

I don't know about you guys but when I was growing up I used to wonder what it was like to be an adult. When I was about 15, my mom helped me with a school project where we had to plan out a budget with a mortgage, bills, groceries etc. I don't remember the specific numbers but what my mom remembers was that I was in tears because based on the realistic budget I had created I was going to have to ride my bike everywhere as I wouldn't be able to afford car payments or gas.

Yes, on that day reality set in and I figured that being an adult mostly meant trying to balance a budget and deal with money woes.

A few years ago, I remember having the revelation that being an adult was all about problem solving. Which really it is, you constantly are solving problems and managing your time. However, I've decided that there's another facet to what adulthood feels like - inadequacy.

Do you ever feel like you're doing a less than adequate job in your life roles? My goodness, there's always something I feel I'm sucking at. If I don't feel like an inadequate friend than I'm an inadequate paramedic, an inadequate sister, an inadequate mommy to my my fur-baby, an inadequate Christian. 

On one hand it keeps a girl humble but on the other hand it's quite discouraging. I'm not smart enough, I'm not friendly enough, I'm not home enough, I'm not giving enough, I'm not helping enough, I'm not cleaning enough. I'M JUST NOT ENOUGH. 

It's enough to make a person nutty. So this week, when it just felt like I just couldn't keep up, couldn't do everything or know everything, when I couldn't give the love I wanted to give, find the time to meet with someone, keep up with the housework, get the car washed, run those long awaited errands or even get food I just had to stop.

Stop. Breathe. Forgive myself for not being what I expect of myself. Do what I can get done while I can do it. Then thank God, because God makes me enough. 

Truly, God knows that I can't do it and know it all. He just asks that I talk to him when I feel like a complete loser. He's the best person to talk to because He doesn't see me that way. Because Jesus died for me God only sees me with love. He is the one who makes me enough. 

Thank goodness for that. I may not be enough for another but I'm always enough for God. There's another saying I like to keep in mind too. "God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called." You might think you're not up to the standard needed to get a job done, but rest assured, if God calls you to do something and you allow Him to work in your life, He will empower you to accomplish what he seeks. I have found this to be true. 

So yes, being an adult usually revolves around managing money, always revolves around problem solving and sometimes revolves around just trying to be good enough to make it through. As long as it always, always, always revolves around God I think we'll be more than okay.

Now to get going on that massive To-Do list. . .

"I pray that from from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His spirit. Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and make you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. "

Ephesians 3:16-20