Tales

It might seem from this third entry in only a few days that I plan to be very prolific and just purge my soul faster than people can read it. Well, I think it may start out that way...It may be like that for a couple weeks because I feel like I've built up a lot of things that I now want to share with others. I hope that people will take time to read the older entries.

I want to talk a little bit about the last ten months because certainly they've been transformative for me, and I've had some odd experiences that I didn't know how deeply God may have been involved in them. Learning to hear His voice is not always easy, and so I share these things hoping that someone might find something to relate to.

The journey began when I left my job at Kmart last July. Things had been very tumultuous for me there. I had a lot of emotional issues with various coworkers, and I felt like in some ways, I wasn't being treated right. I had been there around 6 years and things had never been perfect, but I just reached a breaking point. Later I would regret making the rash decision to quit, but at the time, it seemed reasonable. Nobody argued with me and tried to get me to stay, and I took that as a sign that I was right. The problem is (and this was before our country's economy went down the toilet), I had some real fear and insecurity issues. The job at Kmart took me a long time to find, and it was at first very hard for me. So now here I was, knowing that I needed to have a job, but terrified about the process. And this fear basically turned into refusal. I simply could not bring myself to try to find work. All I did was try to get back on at Kmart, but I could not. In addition, I had recently quit film school and put aside a long-time dream of mine to be a filmmaker. Now I was home alone constantly without close friends, extremely lonely and depressed, and thinking often about suicide. I didn't want to take my own life, but I prayed to God, asking if He would take me home.

At this point, I would like to apologize if I sound at all like someone who just craves attention and likes to dramatize. I'm not looking for people to come to me and say, "You were suicidal? Oh you poor dear!" (Sadly, being suicidal is not an unusual thing for people to feel in our society.) But if you're describing a journey across a continent, you can't skip the part where you were in the desert. And everyone is there at some point. In fact, I started noticing on various web sites and message boards where people expressed similar feelings, and I began to try reaching out to them, praying for them, saying I was available to them. I just felt this enormous wave of concern whenever I would run across this because I realized that some people don't understand what's it's like to feel so desperate and hopeless. I had reached out to people that I thought were friends, only to have them kind of ignore me and not try to help. Well, I didn't want to be like that. I never want to be like that.

For the first several months after I quit my job, I was dealing with an intense obsession, and whenever I talked to God, it was mostly about trying to convince Him to grant me this particular thing that I wanted, this thing with which I was obsessed. Obsession is a very painful thing to go through because you KNOW that it's wrong, you know that God doesn't approve; it's like an idol. If you're so obsessed about something that you care more about it than anything else, even God, and the only time you talk to God, you're talking to Him about the obsession, that's a problem. And yet I could not shake it. Part of me didn't want to.

Meanwhile, I got a prophetic word that said God wanted me to intensely draw closer to Him during this downtime. I was supposed to read His word, and develop a prayer life. I was to get to know Him, and let Him get to know me. This was more important than anything. Well, it was pretty hard at first because it required discipline and making adjustments. And to be honest, I don't feel like I've gone even half as far as He wanted me to, in terms of time spent and devotion. I watch way too much TV, listen to too much music (and I don't listen to Christian music very much), sleep waaaayyyy too much, but more than anything, I sit in front of my computer checking my various email and networking sites for messages. I go back and forth between them for hours, even when I'm not receiving any messages!

I read a book about a convicted criminal who's locked up for many years. I won't tell you who it is, but I felt a great stirring of compassion for this person, and I felt led to write to him. I got a PO Box for this sort of communication for when I didn't want people to know my address. I spent weeks thinking about and praying for this person, imagining what a correspondence with him would be like. He wrote back and said thank you for my letter, but I have yet to hear from him again, which I find sad. I wonder what God's purpose was...Did He really have one or was it just something that was from my own heart? Does God still want to do something here?

One night, at about 3 AM, I had a scary and moving experience. I had earlier prayed a prayer that was somewhat unique for me. I asked God to help me to be available to Him, if He needed me for something, or if someone else needed me. There's an old Petra song called "I Am Available". Well, it was raining hard and I was out on the deck with this big red umbrella. I live next to a school, and across the parking lot and on the other side of the school, I began to hear this horrendous screaming. It was coming from a young man. He was just crying out in these loud, anguished bursts. Soon I saw him emerge from around the corner, coming in my direction. Though it was raining hard, he had no shirt. And he was just still screaming repeatedly. I wondered what could be wrong? What if he had been stabbed? Maybe it was a bad drug trip. I had never seen anyone in this state. I wanted to do something. I started to pray. But, my friends, now is when you wish you had discernment like the heroes of the Bible, where you could hear God's voice audibly. What do I do, God?!?!?! I could have turned on the light and he would have seen me in the distance holding the big red umbrella. I could have shouted, "What's wrong?" I could have gone to him. But I hid because I was afraid of him seeing me. And I let him pass our block and continue down the neighborhood, screaming. I prayed some more. Soon the police came, obviously having been called by someone. That someone should have been me. I don't know if they found him. I don't know what was wrong or if he is okay.

If I failed that test, maybe I passed a different one. I was searching Craigslist ads and I came across one that announced its poster was going to kill himself. He added a link to his blog site, which I went to and on it, there was a video explaining why he was going to kill himself. Panic sets in. God, what do I do? I asked my parents for advice, and eventually I called 911. They never called me back; I don't know what they found when they investigated. The video blog was deleted, and then re-posted several hours later. When I saw it had been re-posted, I wondered if I was supposed to call 911 again. I didn't. Kept praying. I posted a comment to his blog that said something like, "God loves you and so do I...contact me." But soon after, that blog was deleted as well, and there's been nothing on that blog site since.

I don't always give money to people who ask for it, as I'm walking the streets of downtown Portland on my way to the bus stop. But one day, a man asked, and I felt that I should. And his response was of such surprise and gratitude, it warmed my heart. "Wait a minute," he said. "You're supposed to ignore me. You're supposed to keep walking by." He acted like I was the most generous person in the world for giving him a dollar or something. (I don't think I had a lot more than that in my pocket, and I had to get home myself.) And coming away, I had to thank God for giving me that chance because I felt like, "God, you did not make that happen for him, you made it happen for ME!"

I started taking walks last fall. Well, I had a lot of time on my hands. Sometimes during these walks I'd talk to myself, and often, I'd talk to God. We had some heated discussions. I said some things I shouldn't have. I asked forgiveness, and then He would speak to my heart. I noticed things about the beauty of nature that I had not noticed before, at least not as much. The many different vibrant shades of the fall leaves, for instance. And sunsets. I was in awe of how lovely God's earth is. And then when the snow and ice storms came, I was actually happy because it was something we don't experience that often here, and I went out and felt like a little kid walking through the snowy fields. It was bliss.

Lastly, I thank God for my friends Holly and Michael. They helped me through a hard time, and I love them.