Much has changed since I posted last. As I sit here looking out the windows of this unfrequented frozen yogurt shop I now call a job, I feel compelled to write, since I haven't done so since school work picked up towards the end of the semester. God's blessings have come and so has life's trials, but I'm still here, not so much 'weathering the storm' as some would say, but rather flying above it. There is much chaos ahead of me but I am not directly influenced by it.
Where to begin? Well, as a wise man once said, "There is only one place to start. The beginning." My life, has been layed out to you, the reader, so that you may learn what I have learned and not make the same mistakes I have. A smart man learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from others mistakes. The last couple of months have been a lesson played out in front of me. All last year, I learned how to listen and trust God for what he had already promised me.
Matthew 6:33 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
That was my biggest lesson I had to learn. No one could do it for me. I couldn't live off my parent's blessing anymore. It was time for me to learn how to walk in God's blessing he had been saving for me and start his plan for my life. We started a young adults bible study at my house with a few of my friends. My dad, being the pastor, was the leader of the group. We came up with questions, topics, and things that were bugging us throughout our lives. We had a well rounded group, too. We had someone for every type of christian out there. There was the Debater (a baptist theologian, in his own right, grounded heavily in logic), the Seeker (raised in a traditionally conservative baptist-like church who longed for more), the Charismatic (his beliefs were grounded in emotion and only knew what others had told him), the Blissful (didn't know a lot but was comfortable in what she had been taught so far), and then me, the Desperate. After losing my girlfriend, car, and job within a month's time-span, and baring the weight of the court bill for my accident, and possibly an extra $1,500 for the other guy's car (of which my insurance didn't cover), with NO income, I was fighting depression and self hate. Not to mention that if I had let everything get to me, I would have suffered a nervous breakdown. We all had one thing in common, we all wanted to learn. I personally needed to.
We met every Thursday at 6:30, ate pizza, and had our Q&A session. I had grown up in church, with my dad as a pastor and all, but I learned more about what it meant to listen to Holy Spirit in those few months than I had my whole life, so far.
During those summer months, not only did I get a grant to go to school but I also got hired at a local frozen yogurt shop that had been opened by friends of the family. I knew the manager so getting the job was easy. I was hired as an assistant manager to a location that hadn't opened yet and I was content to wait. School started and I was loving it. Didn't have a car yet but I was thankful for my parents and my sister for their time driving me places. August came and the store didn't open on time. September came and went and still nothing. End of October was coming up. My birthday came and went, as had those days prior, and I called my manager. I told him I needed to know what date we were looking at opening because if it wasn't any time soon I was going to need to look for something else. I prayed about keeping what I had gotten but with 2 months past the opening date, I was getting desperate. What good is having a job when your not getting paid anything for it? Finally November came, and in the first week, they received the yogurt machines and we were ready to set up. Everyone who had been hired thus far came in and worked a 10 hour day the first 2 days before we opened just to get everything set up and ready to go. Opening day I worked another 10-12 hours. At $8.50/hr my first paycheck (which covered 3 weeks of pay due to the fact that we opened half way through a pay period) was HUGE!!! Almost, if not more than, $700! I was excited about what my next paycheck was going to be. Then I found out that they had closed the first location and they were letting my manager go. Was I to be promoted after a month of service? What was going to happen to everyone from the other store? I soon found out that the manager and assistant manager from the old shop was coming to fill in the gap, but that meant I was getting demoted and I was getting knocked down to $7.50/hr. Ok, not so bad. That's what I was making at Fry's. I prayed bout staying or looking for a new job because given my predicament with the bank and credit card, as well, I needed more than "just enough".
Drama ensued in the month following. The new managers were cutting everyone's hours except their own, and were stealing overtime pay from the company. I had told them I couldn't work Sundays and they scheduled me for them anyways. My best friends girlfriend ("the blissful" from before) was hired and we started working quite a bit together because we had the most open schedules out of everyone. This caused my best friend to feel left out. Not jealous, because even he knew I wasn't going to try anything, but when your girlfriend spends more time with your best friend than you, you start to get depressed about it. (didn't help that anytime we hung out we always asked him if he wanted to and 9 times out of 10 he'd say no.) So that caused tention in their relationship. Then the managers got fired and She and I were promoted back to assistant manager. The owner's wife, who had been greatly involved in the company for some time now, came in as head manager (which threw all of us off guard considering the old managers had said they were handed over the company because the owners didn't want to be so involved anymore)... (liars). So chaos ensued as lies, rumors and the truth were thrown into a blender and served to us pieces at a time. I almost decided to jump ship, but something inside said, "stay". So here I am.
God has brought me through loss, depression, chaos, and lack this last year, not once letting me go to be swept away in the storm and He brought me out on top. The true test of how fixed I have become from being such a broken man last year showed itself yesterday.
I had been clearing out my old Dell laptop and I decided I was going to clear out my pictures. In the "Me Pics" folder, I found another folder labeled "Pics of *Ex's name* and *baby's name*". I was taken back. I thought I had deleted all of them months ago. She had asked for some pics of her daughter that I had taken right after that but I had told her I didn't have them anymore. So I messaged a mutual friend of ours on facebook and asked her if she would take the pics of the baby and give them to my ex. As I looked through them, I just smiled. I wasn't heart broken, or sick to my stomach by seeing her again. Actually, I was thankful for the time we had together. The pictures of our day at the zoo brought back wonderful memories. I loved that day, and that joy, in some measure, found it's way back to me. I still have those pictures, i don't know what I'm going to do with them but for now, their a reminder of a beautiful thing.
God is amazing and He will always lead you to the top of any situation you find yourself in. It is true, if you make God your TOP priority and learn what you can when you can full heartedly, He will show you amazing things and will NEVER let you down. Matthew 6:33
