God uses people in spite of themselves... it's been my spiritual lesson this year. i will admit that i have gone through some hard theological spots in my journey over the past several months. more questions than answers and more wondering than direction. Rob Bell from Mars Hill said in one his sermons that maybe in our walking away from the things we Christians hold as absolutes that we may find ourselves walking into the truth. i believe he may have something there...

there was a woman who regularly visited the coffe shop i worked at. everyday it was a latte and a coffee. she had a thick accent and sweet smile... but one day she came in and specifically came to the counter to tell me something. i don't know why she chose me... there were others there that day, but she wanted to talk with me. she was in tears as she came to counter and told me that her daughter had been diagnosed with breast cancer. something told me at that moment that what she really needed was a hug, the best i could do that day was lean across the counter and take her hand. then she asked me to pray for her daughter. at this point my eyes welled up with tears and i said with conviction and humility that i would.

i went home that day completely humbled and really touched that for some reason she asked me to pray for her daughter. it was a privilege that i had not expected. spiritually i had been feeling completely useless. i couldn't imagine that anyone, including God, would think it a good idea to use me as an intersessor for her daugher...
but He did and i accepted the offer. every week i saw her i made it a point to let her know that i was continuing to pray for her and her family.

on my last day at the coffee shop the woman came up to me and asked to say goodbye. i came out from the counter and received a big hug, then she told me "Melissa, i will never forget you. i know that someday my daughter and i will see you again."

how does this relate to Rob Bell? i guess i started to let go of some of the ways in which i expected God to use me and just allowed Him to enter in. He has surprised me with how he has impacted people around me in ways that i could not have done. sometimes i think we lose the mystery of God in our churches and haven't really learned to "let go and let God." in spite of ourselves God uses us for His glory and purposes even over a latte...

mel

i have made it to the south... but not without some really funny and cool things happening along the way. we'll go with funny first. so i'm somewhere in West Virginia and i really have to pee. i can't wait until the next rest stop which was advertised to be another 63 miles up the road. so i see a sign for a gas station... mind you it was a sign for "a" gas station. not two or three, but one... this should have been my cue that this could turn ugly, but when my bladder calls i don't put it on hold. the second cue that this could turn ugly is when i can't see the gas station from the interstate, but i the way i figure it, being a northerner and all, is that it must be hidden in the mountain behind the trees or something. so i exit the interstate and find myself in the twilight zone. there are more signs pointing me in the direction of the "gas" station that are leading me further and further away from ANY civilization. a normal person would consider turning around at this point, but i however, had a mission and nothing was going to stand in the way between my bladder and that gas station. so i drove and drove and drove and drove...15 minutes later, i finally reach the gas station. it is located next to several gas stations that are right along the interstate 10 miles down the road!!!! this was a cruel, cruel joke!! ugh.

the part of the trip that made me smile:)

my trip started me out going to Ohio to visit some friends of mine, then on from Ohio to North Carolina. at the first gas station i stopped at i went inside to get road trip junk food and some h20. when i came into the gas station i looked at the woman behind the counter and had this weird feeling that i had met her somewhere. i couldn't think of how or where i would have met her so i go about my business and come up to the counter. she gives me a warm smile and knowing eyes... as if she knew me. i tried to place her but then it occurs to me that her face isn't ringing a bell it's more of a feeling. she takes me money and then says to me "enjoy yourself, i know you will have a wonderful journey." i haven't had many clerks at a gas station look at me let alone smile and then say this... i knew at this point what it was... it was a spiritual encounter of the God-like kind. when she said this it warmed me all over like a cup of hot cocoa. i had moments along the way on this trip wondering if i was really making the right decision and from that point on i no longer thought about it. i know that God works in mysterious ways and maybe some might not see this woman as anything more than a really nice person, but i know in my spirit that this was not ordinary:)

it has been long since that last post for various reasons... nuff said. so i have had another epiphany this week. my whole 29 years of existence has been spent looking forward to some age in which something new would transpire. i believe every year up to the age of ten was something to look forward to. then i spent the next three years counting down the days until i became a "teenager." whew hew!! then it was 16 for the license and so on and so on. my latter part of the twenties was spent thinking that by the time i was thirty i would have my ducks all lined up in a row. so i'm thirty and the only things that are lined up are the new wrinkles i find forming around my eyes. so i ask myself. Self...? what does one have to look forward to in the age department now? 55...retirement. so i'm going to start preparing myself for retirement right now. i'm going to stop worrying about what i will be doing in the next 5 years. i'm going to take life as it comes day by day and just... relax more, play more, laugh more, love more. i'm going roll with the punches and see what comes my way...

mel

song of the day... "Isn't It Ironic" by Alanis Morisette. the truth of the song has become ever so clear in the past 24 hours. it's like meeting a person who could have been potentially a great catch after deciding to move to another part of the United States... ughh. even more ironic... i've met this person on different occasions through out the past three years. i really had not "noticed" him until last night at a friend's party, i started talking with him and realized that he's really cool! maybe it's the whole feeling of "i've got nothing to lose" that suddenly throws my defenses down and allows me to come out of the insecure shell. or maybe it's because i know it won't turn into anything and i can just be free... and i wonder why i'm still single??!!!

- thanx to Marky Mark for directing me to the website Despair.com. this jewel markets really cynical versions of the upbeat, positive posters from "Successeries." an example...

"no rain drop ever thinks it's responisible for the flood"


love it:)

mel

"hello, is it me your looking for?" while i was packing today i found an old Lionel Richie cassette. the tape was taped off of another tape, not dubbed... but actually played out loud and picked up by a different tape recorder. in order to do this, one had to make sure that noone was around that would interupt the process, otherwise it could mess the whole thing up and you'ld have to rewind the last song, press play, go to far back press forward, press play, go to far ahead, press rewind... you see how this could get really old really fast. but man was it cool that i could copy someone else's tape without having to buy it! i'm getting old, sighhhh...

to go along with the getting older thing, i realize that when i get out of bed in the morning that i'm stiff and it's hard to walk for at least the first 20 minutes or until i get into the shower. grrr!

on the brighter side i still have people who think i'm only in my early 20's. i'm going to cling to that like toilet paper on the bottom of a shoe.

all for now:)

mel

so in my last blog i made the stupid mistake of saying how i wish the eletricity would go off more often...d-o-m-b dumb. it went off again on friday night for another couple of hours, but this time it was right in the middle of my movie (The Last Samurai - i'll address this later). i guess the adventerous part of the whose experience wore off rather quickly and reality set in... things are only novel and fun when in the right context and company.

i recommend that one see The Last Samurai and The Karate Kid simultaneously. the content of both are about the same. i think i prefer the karate kid ending over the last samurai. there's something about the puney little wimp kicking the other kid's butt that always gets me pumped. the premisis of both is honor. something that can be taken to an extreme, but a concept that has truth and value in it. something we have lost sight of. we honor very little in our modern world.

and the last piece of info on me. as of june 23rd i will be moving to Charlotte, NC. I can't believe i'm going... it's cool but scary and sad and fun and whatever all at once. i have a lot to do before then. i can't believe how much "stuff" i have. it's really ridiculous. i'm now in process of packing it up and throwing it out. kind of a good feeling getting rid of garbage and measuring out the possesions of worth and value verses those of meaningless clutter. this isn't as easy as it seems. alot of "stuff" holds sentimental value. but do i really need it? ahh that is the question. do i need it or do i want it? it will be the deciding factor in what stays and what goes.

last thing... i turn thirty in 21 days. i've decided that the 30's are the new 20's. this makes turning 30 wicked cool. i've got marriage and kids and fabulous career all to look forward to in the next decade. now if i turn forty and these have not happened then i will come up with some other way to make excuses for what my life could have been and what it's not.

outtie:)

mel