The Bills, The Way, The Truth, The Life

This has been such a loooong weekend and it's only Saturday night!  Friday night we "camped out" at my parents' house and the kids could not have been happier.  We rented their tent and did a trial camping trip in the back yard, complete with a campfire and stories.  The only picture I have is from the fireworks we went to see that night. 

Someone is always wearing a superhero cape.  Which is good, because I regularly need a hero.  We never got around to making s'mores, though, which is horrible, I know.  They got to feed watermelon rinds to a couple of deer this morning and ride on grandpa's lawnmower.  That will have to work.  We ended Friday night with an attempt to pop popcorn over the fire.  Tobin suggested we just put it in the fire.  It was a little overdone!  For a bedtime story, I told them the tale of Arthur and the Sword in the Stone.  I hope I wasn't too far off base.  I've only had it told to me and I've never read the book.  The kids liked it anyhow and we'll have to look for the book at the library.  It felt great to unplug for a while.  Time doesn't matter and the world seems so much bigger when you get out to where you can actually see the stars.  Aria was mesmerized every time she looked up. 

All of it was magical and wonderful and I'm so grateful to my parents for letting us noise up the place but this post is about what happened Friday afternoon.  Well, many Friday afternoons.  Every other Friday is payday.  Like so many people, payday begins with lots of money but by Friday night, most of it is already spent or at least committed to a bill of some sort.  We fit into that group.  On the Fridays we don't get paid, I spend that Friday figuring out how to make it to the next Friday.  We spent a whole week recently with only $4 in the bank.  I am not complaining!  I am amazed. 

I shouldn't be amazed.  God does it all the time but every Friday I have to calm myself down after freaking out about the fact that we owe more than we can pay.  This past Friday was no exception.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I love to pay the bills when the math works out.  I'll whistle while I write the checks and I was on Friday too until I double checked my math.  It was one of those Fridays.  One of those where you pray that the math is wrong.  I usually have to triple check mine anyway cuz my math skills were never good but I check over and over.  I then begin to play the "Who can I pay late" game.  Seeing as how we wouldn't have any money for late fees, that option quickly flew out the window.  I could feel the familiar numbness in my palms and my heart palpitating from the combination of too much coffee and worry and not enough confidence.  I sent my husband a bunch of rapid fire texts about how tight we would be on money and warned him against even using the dollar menu when he forgets his lunch.  Hope you can bike to work soon cuz we won't have any gas money.  Lots of cheerful things that he needed to hear right in the middle of his workday.  That was my pressure valve.  I turned on the tv in hopes that I could tune out the worry and fear but no luck.  How in the world were we going to pay the bills?  Where would we get the money?   

I probably only spent ten minutes in this mind frame but it was too long.  I hopped up off the couch and turned to where I knew I could get a break from the noise in my head.  I opened my journal, prepared to write.  But God stayed my hand.  He wanted me to read, not write.  Listen, not speak.  The verse in my journal was a well worn one. 

Jesus answered, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light.  No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6)

Now I've been a Christian for a long time.  These are the verses that I learned in elementary school.  The ones that are underlined and circled and memorized and put on notecards when I hear them over and over my eyes tend to glaze over a bit, which is sad.  So sad.  The thing that is supposed to give me life puts me to sleep.  I saw this verse and my eyes didn't glaze over but I did just think "Yup" and was about to close the book.  But God wanted me to read and listen.  So I listened for once and opened my Bible to John 14.  Most of the letters were in red so that was a good sign. 

You see, the part in the verse that I always forget to memorize is "Jesus answered."  He wasn't just spouting wisdom from a hillside this time.  He was having a conversation with someone.  Someone had asked him a question. 

Verse 5-Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" 

I love Thomas.  Maybe he was a doubter.  Maybe a worrier or maybe he was a realist.  "Sure Jesus.  You're just going to float away on some cloud and we're-what?-supposed to catch the next chariot that swings low?  Right."  But he's there and he asks the questions that so many times I ask.  Be real with me God, how is this going to happen?  Be real to me, be with me. 

And he simply answers, "I  am the Way.  I am the truth.  Not the voices in your head that make you think this isn't possible.  The only way you're going to get to where you need to go is through me."  And I know that it works for salvation but sometimes it is so easy to forget when we're just talking about laundry and groceries.  It makes me tear up to think that a God so huge and super-duper cares about the light bill too.  And what makes me feel silly is that it's not like I haven't heard all this stuff before.  I blame my memory loss on the kids.  Oh that I could!  I was a worry-wart long before they came along. 

Christian got a call Friday night saying a client had a check for him.  A check we were previously told wasn't coming because they were declaring bankruptcy.  I wish I could say I skipped over the meltdown part and went right to singing hymns and stuff but I'm not there yet, don't know if I'll ever be.  But I know the Lord will make a way because He is the Way!  Looks good on paper, now if I can just live it!  Have a great rest of your weekend!