Clunker-mobiles

I have to say, as annoying as my car is, I'm pretty convinced that it saved me from a fairly large pain in the butt yesterday morning.

Some background: my sweet ride is an 89 olds cutlas that has more issues than I can count - the biggest one being the quirky and tempermental transmission. You see, if the car has been parked for 2-3 hours or more, it doesn't like to go into drive right away. And I'm not talking a little 2-3 second delay. After it's been parked overnight is especially bad. The longest I've waited for it was 17 minutes. SEVENTEEN MINUTES!!! And could I just leave it in neutral to warm up for those 17 mins while I go do something else? Nooooo! The car has to be in drive, preferably with my foot on the brake, so it doesn't all of a sudden start moving.

But you see, I've found a way the get around this delay to some extent. With my foot on the brake, I give the engine 4 or 5 good revs, and then it usually goes into gear. By "goes" I mean slams in with a big, lurching ka-CHUNK It's like my very own playland ride every morning. I should feel so priveldged. (and remember, this is only ONE of it's issues!) When I took it to the mechanic to get soemthing minor looked at (he tells me it's not worth fixing the tranny, it'd be too expensive for what the car's worth. "It always goes into gear eventually?" - yes - "And it never falls out of gear?" - no - "Aw, then don't worry about it.") I of course had to tell him the newest way to get it in gear. He jsut laughed at me! And laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And... well, you get the idea.

SOOO.... as annoying as this is, I have decided that my car has "character" and have decided to embrace the quirkiness of it all. (It's either that or go stark raving mad! :p ) Those of you know know me - hush! ;)

So what does all this have to do with yesterday morning, you ask? Well, when I went out to my car to go to work, my door was ajar. Upon further inspection, I saw that it had been broken into - papers oin the floor, glove box open, ashtray pulled out. Thankfully the only thing I keep in my car is a quarter for a grocery cart! But then, I discovered that teh panel for the fuse box was on the floor of the passener side. Hmm.... I'm pretty convinced that they hotwired my car and tried to steal it.

*TRIED*

Picture it: The car's going, the thug pops it into drive... and waits... and waits... and waits... and waits...

I have to say, I've got myself a pretty good anti-theft device! hahahahahaha!

Hip hip hooray for clunker-mobiles!

Iowa Pictures

Well, I got home from my visit with Rachelle and Nathan yesterday. It was a great week! I've really missed hanging out with Rachelle. She's the bestest! And of course, I was thrilled to meet their son, Mattias. He turned 3 months old while I was there. He's SUCH a cutie pie! I took a ridiculous number of pictures - I've posted a very select few (don't want to bore you!) here.


Here's Mattias...

Happy Easter!

He has risen

He has risen indeed!

There is therefore now no conemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.

Praise be to God!

Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death is your sting?
...Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Happy Easter!

*** I didn't take these pictures - I found them on the web ***

Happy Spring!

We're so spoiled here in Vancouver..... These are some pics I took near my house.

Fun in Chapters

Well, we were the LAST people out of Chapters last night. I don't think they were impressed with us. BUT, before we left, I managed to take a photo of some good bookstore irony. First of all, I have to ask, why do bookstore staff feel the need to cover people's faces with sale stickers? I mean, come on! This one, however, had an added comic element...

(Don't get it? Roll your mouse over the picture.)

Turning over a new leaf

So it's ben a while since I've blogged... I've just kind of been in survival mode. The past few weeks have been kinda rough. I've come to the proverbial brick wall with all the stuff I'm involved in, and have finally made some changes. Coming to the brick wall during the two weeks of report card insanity probably didn't help my stress level much! When it rains it pours, I guess.

I suppose you could say this is the season of paring down. I've taken a large step back from leadership in my small group, and at the beginning of May will be done completely. I'm not taking on any more responsibilities at church, and I'm going to look for ways to make the things I *am* involved on less reliant on me alone.

I'm also paring down and cleaning up at home. I have gotten rid of so much stuff it's unbeleiveable! I have SO much more stuff now than when I first moved in here (as a university student - with my collapsable couch from Superstore and purple inflatable couch from my aunt!) and so as I accumulated stuff over the few years I've been here, I didn't have a system in place for keeping it all together and ORGANIZED. It was driving me crazy, and actually having an effect on my mood and the way I lived my life (don't get me wrong, it was nothing like on those organizing shows, but still!). So... purge purge purge! Clothes, dishes, knick nacks, paper galore... it's all being ruthlessly sorted through. I have to say, it feels sooo much better, and I'm AMAZED at how much space I actually have! Yay!

Now, the sun is out, spring is here, my life feels more ordered and so does my house, I'm going on holidays to see my best friends and their new baby in Iowa next week, and I'm finally starting to feel like me again. It's been a long time. It feels good!

So close!

It is SOOO exciting to see God working in people's hearts! I have a friend who I don't see very often (maybe even once a year, which is ridiculous, because she onle lives a few blocks away), but every time we hang out we end up talking about Christianity. We used to talk more, cause we were in school together, and it was never me who brought up the conversation! I could really tell that she was searching back then, too, but she was more stand-offish. Last year we got together for coffee, and had a really cool conversation, and she was a little more open, but then we hung out last night.

WOW.

Almost immediately she was telling me about where she was feeling she was at spiritually. She went on to tell me a lot about the stuff she's been wrestling with lately, and it was SO amazing to hear how God has been speaking to her, even though she may not realize it yet. As we talked, I just told her some of the stuff in my life lately, cause I've been asking some very similar questions. We talked a bit about asking God to speak to us, which is great, becasue God wanted to make himself known - I really beleive that when someone askes for God to make himslef known, he always answers! I was telling her kind of the way I see God talking to me a lot of times is through hearing the same message from all kinds of different sources, and finally I just go, "Ok, ok, God, I got it!" God got her attention in that somehow, because she stopped me and told me that that had given her goosebumps. She told me that she knew I had called her last week for more than jsut to say happy birthday (that's all *I* had planned, obviously God had other plans!). Just the way she was descibing how she felt right then, about there being a bigger purpose for us being friends, and for hanging out that night, etc etc, I was able to tell her, "What you're feeling rght now, that's GOD!" She's the one who can see some higher purpose at work, and all I had to do was name it for her! It made me think of when Paul said to the men of Athens, "Now what you worship as something unknown I'm going to proclaim to you." (Acts 17:23) I told her, too, how we think we're the ones who go out seeking God, but how really he's been seeking us for far longer.

It was SUCH an amazing conversation! In my enthusiasm, I hope I'm not giving too many personal details. I've tried to keep it very general. But it's just SO COOL, cause I can see so clearly how God is getting her attention, how he's wooing her and drawing her to himself. And she is beginning to see it, too. I've heard it said that so many stories of people coming to Christ are not at all like Paul's "road to Damascus" conversion: the bright light, the sudden 180 degree turn around - but more like the road to Emmaus conversion (Luke 24:13-35) : people are walking along in their life, and sense the presence of something else, someone else there with them, but they don't know what it is until one day the Holy Spirit opens their eyes to see clearly. "Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him..."

God is opening my friends eyes. What she has been looking for for so long, what she has been sensing is there for so long is finally becoming clear to her. And I am SOO honoured and amazed that God is using ME - despite all my crap! - to help do that. I'm praying so hard that she continues to respond, and that her search is guarded from the all the resistance and opposition that could be thrown in her way.

But mostly I'm praying that the Holy Spirit continues to give her understanding and opens her eyes to see Jesus, and see that because of his GREAT love for her, he's been seeking her all along.