Life's Little Clementines

Friday morning; 7:30 am: alarm goes off.

Today was going to be exciting. Today I was starting off the day with an adventure! The night before I'd set out all the right clothes and packed a few things that I'd need into my backpack. And the letters. I double checked for those letters.

This morning I was going biking, and what a beautiful day for cycling it was! It had already been arranged with the Mission leaders that I would bike to the office in the morning because my mentor and house leader was away at his internship. I suppose that with only one student living way out in the goonies (that's me) it wasn't worth the trip or the gas, so I volunteered to bike instead. I had to be at the office by noon. No problemo! However, I was planning on making one stop along the way. Well...Not quite along the way.. Actually, it was fifteen miles out of my way, but that's insignificant.

See, the letters I had were, to me, really important letters. I had written one of them the night before and the other Wednesday night. There was a special retreat that my home church was holding for high school juniors and seniors. At the end of the weekend retreat, the youth received something special from friends and family (I'll try and not completely blow the secret for future attendees). These letters were my contribution to two of these people. I had the option of emailing them to those in charge of setting up this part of the retreat, but I really wanted them to get these handwritten. There's something different about getting a typed, emailed note as opposed to receiving a paper with a familiar scrawl upon it. I would've mailed them, but I don't think there's any sort of postal mailing system that will take a letter from a mailbox in one zip code and put it in another mailbox in a different zip code in the same day. So, without a car, I decided to bike them in..



I left the house at 8:30 am, leaving me three and a half hours. I'd mapped out my routes ahead of time and found that this should be a good amount of time with about a half hour cushion.

I started out fresh and ready to do some riding! The trip to the church proved difficult but not terribly challenging and I arrived without incident about twenty minutes ahead of schedule. Stepping off the peddles and looking back at the bike as I walked inside the church, I thought "I do NOT want to get back on the machine.." My butt was killing me, my shirts were soaked through with sweat, and my legs were pretty sore. But that wasn't important. I got there and I delivered the letters. I helped JZ, the youth pastor's wife, set up some things for the retreat while I chatted with her son, Wyatt, as he munched on his cheerios. Then, before I left, I watered up and printed off the directions I'd saved. Slightly behind schedule, I headed out again; thirteen miles down, eighteen to go.

The way back was very difficult. I was no longer feeling fresh and full of energy. I was tired and very sore, and my bike seat, padded as it was, seemed to be making a permanent imprint on my behind. Once or twice, I began to doze slightly while peddling. I didn't think it was possible to doze like that while exerting so much physical effort. Not to mention, I felt like most of the trip back was uphill. But the trip there had seemed mostly uphill too! God should've made downhills longer because you travel faster.. That's assuming you'd be going the same direction every time you traveled those hills.. Anyways. This time, some of the hills were so long and others so steep, That I had to walk a few of them after running out of lower gears on my bike. Actually, I found that I made faster progress when I was walking up the hills sometimes. It got to a point where I had a very strong desire for water. I already had a sore throat from a cold I'd been battling, but now I was worn out both on the immediate level and the recovery level. Downhill breaks now only recovered minimally what earlier downhill travels would've given back in full, refreshing breaths. I needed water. So I prayed for water. I mouthed the word "water" to myself hoping passing drivers would be able to read my lips. I prayed again. Twice more in fact. Yet no water came. Finally, I told God, "I know you know what I need, if you provide it, I realize it'll be in your time."

As I continued on, I stopped telling God I needed water but began talking to myself and telling myself that I needed water. However, myself disagreed and said "Suck it up, princess!" Over the next few miles, similar conversations ensued, and each resulted in my pushing myself harder and further. I kept an eye out for the possibility of a discarded water bottle along the side of the road. I don't think I would've picked up an water bottle that was already opened unless it looked fairly clean and was at least half full. At one point, though, I saw a beer bottle that had been filled with a few sips of mixed leftover beer and rainwater. It was the most promising amount of liquid I'd seen yet and I half considered it for a moment, but not to the point where I pulled over to really considered it.. Still I kept going. I was curious about the time, but knew that it couldn't be too near to noon yet. At a particularly steep hill on Bartholow Road, I had to get off and walk. It seemed like these hills were around every turn. I was walking up the hill looking at all the clutter on the roadside. It seemed like there must've been some kind of accident there awhile back because of the nature of some of the clutter. I walked past it all. with only a few looks. I'd told God that if He was going to provide, it would have to clearly His provision. So I'm walking along, the hill begins to level out, when all of a sudden I see it. No, not a bottle of water, but a clementine. It was sitting just out of the mess of leaves and mud near the white line on the road. I picked it up, brushed it off just in case, though it looked undamaged except for a few small bruises, and I peeled it. It tasted slightly out of season, but otherwise perfect. It was juicy, sweet, and was the best thing I'd tasted in a long time. I felt like grabbing a bunch of rocks and building a small memorial on the roadside like the Israelites did in Joshua 4:19! That was the most exciting part of the trip. After eating the clementine, I hopped onto my bike and continued on my way. I arrived at the office at 12:05 pm just in time to start noon prayer.


I say all this for the sake of the clementine:

See, I prayed for water. I asked God to give me water now. Obviously, God had other plans. He didn't give me water right away when I asked for it. Instead He gave me something BETTER in His own time! God provides for those who love Him and He gives to those who ask. He doesn't always respond when we ask and it seems like maybe He didn't hear us. But He always hears us; He just chooses to work in His own timing. In some ways, God is the worst procrastinator ever. He always seems to wait until the last minute to act, but His results always reach or surpass our expectations.

Yep, God taught me that through a bruised clementine on the side of the road. Who'da thunk it?

Oh, The Things I've Done

*This is an old blog. I wrote it down on paper about two months ago with all the intentions of posting it then, but never found time to put it in here.*


I've been reflecting on my life, as short as it has been so far, and have been thinking about the mistakes I've made. Some of them are small and I can laugh at them now, but some of them are really big mistakes.


Recently,as I've been praying and desiring to grow more, spiritually, there've been a few really big mistakes that continually rise to the surface of my mind. These are things that happened awhile back, and I know God's forgiven me , and maybe the people they've involved have forgotten about them altogether, or at least chosen to move on from them. You'd think that with God and them content with the way things've settled, my troubled mind would be able to find peace. Buuut...nohsuhchluck. The problem still lies in me. I can't forgive myself. Could that be the feeling of guilt and condemnation from the devil? Possibly. Whatever the cause of t hose feelings are, I just want them out. I don't want them anymore. In fact, I've never wanted them. So what better way to extinguish them than to address the situation head on?

About two months ago (four now), I had the opportunity to talk to a friend of mine and I carefully approached the subject which I knew could transition into what I was aiming at. I brought up the mistake I'd made and asked for that person's forgiveness. They shrugged it off and told me there was no wrong to forgive. They said it seriously. The peace I received from that was incredible. I don't know if coming to them in person and asking them face to face for their forgiveness has or will change or impact their life in any way, but I hope they're spared some grief later down the road. Since then, I've let the memory of that mistake go. I'll never forget about it, but it won't bother me anymore. I've received forgiveness from all sides: from God above, from my friend around me, and from myself within.

Very recently (About two months ago), I had another opportunity to talk to an individual in my life. Since I'd been freed from the guilt of the previous mistake, this was the heaviest burden I carried. I wrote this person a letter and was going to send it to them as soon as I could. However, I was in the middle of my prayer with my Mission family when I felt the urge to call the person. For several minutes, I rationalized and debated with myself. What if I didn't have the right words to say? What if they didn't remember what I was talking about? All the what if's.. I knew I wanted to do this. But did I need to go to these measures? Did I actually need to talk with this person? How much longer did I want to deal with this burden? This guilt was preventing me from getting as close to God as I wanted. Every time I would begin to get close to God, the same thought would always appear. "But you did this. You can't get close to God with that in your heart!" How much longer did I want to deal with this? "Why not get rid of it right now?" I thought. "Why wait any longer than I already have?" I stood up from my seat. That was the first step. I had taken it. I walked out of the room full of praying Mission students. I found a private place...and I made the call. I didn't know how to start off, but I prayed for the words and they came. I got a few sentences into my apology before I began choking back tears, but I forced the words to remain intelligible as I kept talking. And then I hung up. I sat down, cried, and thanked God. If He was anything less than perfect... But He Is.

I thought about the strongholds Satan has had in my life. His little castles that were once big fortresses: Strongholds of lying, lust, disobedience, selfishness, pride, and guilt. I imagined a foot sweeping in and making perfect, shoe-string contact with this final tower, sending it, and its prince flailing into the air and out of the picture. My picture. No..God's picture of me. I laughed aloud.

I felt like high-fiving God. :D