Three Flats in Three Days (beat that!)

I know all of you are dying to know about how my job search is going, so I'll tell you. A couple weeks ago, I put in an application for a Claims Representative at Farmers Insurance. I've put in other apps, but I don't really want those jobs. Last week, a guy from Farmers called me and emailed me a questionnaire to fill out. After I emailed it back, he called me back and I had a phone interview. Then, on Monday, I drove to Lubbock, of all places, and took 4 tests: grammar, communication, math and personality. The first 3 were pass/fail, and I guess the personality test was subjective. Can you really fail a personality test? Anyways, the lady told me I was only the 2nd applicant to pass the 3 tests. So, I should have a face-to-face interview very soon. If I get this job, I'll have a 2 week training in L.A., then 2 weeks of training on the job somewhere outside of Abilene. I'd also get a company car, laptop and digital camera plus sweet benefits and stuff.

In the last 3 days, I've had 3 flat tires. I'm dead serious. On Sunday, the back-left tire on my car went flat. I put on the spare. On Monday, the spare went flat. On Tuesday, I went bike riding and the front tire on my bicycle went flat! (I didn't have a spare either) I couldn't believe it. This is just bizarre. It feels like God's trying to tell me something or the enemy's trying to discourage me. Either way, I have no clue why I've had 3 flats in 3 days. I'm praying I'll be flatless today and break the streak and/or God will shed a little light on the situation. Something else I should add is that I got a flat in almost the exact same spot (11 miles out) the last time I rode out to Ft. Phantom Lake 3 years ago. Weird.

I wonder if there's some sort of World Record that I can break...

Sneeze of Death No More

This last weekend I headed to Brownwood, TX for a missions retreat hosted by the Halbert Institute for Missions (read ACU) also known as H.I.M. (they're so clever). If you didn't know, I've been strongly considering joining Mark and Katrina Willis (and possibly others) in moving to Chicago next summer/fall to take part in what God's doing there. I'm not going to say 100% that I'm moving there, but I'm definitely keeping my ears open for that possibility. The retreat was pretty intense- not in the playing rugby kind of way. They hit us with 6 hours of lectures, discussions and tests on Friday night, then another 12 hours of the same on Saturday. Needless to say, by the time 9 p.m. and the 9th self-evaluating test rolled around, I was toast. Although it was a bit exhausting, it was definitely fruitful. It gave the Willis clan and I (and sometimes others) some great time to have some needed discussions, thought-sharing, and relationship building.

Something awesome happened the other day. I sneezed. It was unlike any other sneeze ever experienced by any man even to grace the planet earth with his/her rocket-propelled snot, I mean... it was,well... normal, which is what was awesome about it. That's right. It didn't make me tear up or groan or anything. It felt so good I proceeded to sneeze 3 more times. Boo-yuh.

I don't know what's been up lately, but my sleeping schedule has been jacked up. It seems I can only sleep between the hours of 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. I'm lucky if I get more than 5 hours. The latest installment of jacked-up-ness was this morning. I woke up at freakin 5 a.m.! I was wide awake and hatin life. I popped in a CD thinking I could ease back into sleep, but no-a-o. So I popped in CD #2 to no avail. I gave in and got out of bed at 7, played some guitar and decided to attempt my first jog since 0 A.D. (Almost Death). I geared up and headed for my old friend, the ACU jogging track (the 2 mile series of sidewalks circumnavigating campus). It was nice and cool and there was some sweet fog limiting vision to 20 feet. After much strain and heavy breathing, I completed 1 single lap (2 whole miles) without stopping. It felt so good. I guess I can start training for that marathon now. I snagged a shower then headed to Monks for a chai latte, a little Bible reading and some writing. Ephesians was so good this time through. Although it's not my preference to wake up at 5 a.m., it was a pretty good way to start the day. I can't complain.

"The Big Country"

It still gets me every time when someone, usually on the radio or TV, refers to Abilene and/or West Texas as "the big country". Haha. So anyways...

It's been great to be a little more active this week. Last night I played ultimate frisbee for a couple hours. I prewarned all the players I wouldn't be doing too much running due to being shot and stuff. After playing a while, I got to where I could jog without hurting too much. The problem arose when I reached out to catch a touchdown and did a roll (don't worry I scored). The roll didn't feel all that great, but that triggered some nasty allergies. For the next hour, I fought the urge to sneeze (because it still hurts a lot) to no avail. Finally the battle subsided after showering. I also geared up and went for a bike ride this afternoon. I was cruisin along at 18 mph or so and feelin pretty good, so I figured I'd go to Hodges, 11 miles away, and then come back. What I realized after turning around what there was a reason for the first half ease. Apparently, I had a nice 15 mph tail wind (which translates into a 15 mph head wind) and more down hills than up on the way out. I had much time to ponder upon my miscalculation for the next hour as I trudged back to Abilene, just barely finishing my 22.23 mile ride. Nevertheless, it feels so good to be tired from exercising and not just from walking 15 ft.

Another little fun thing that happened today was coming back to my house this morning, after doing some bike accessory shopping, to find the power off. Good times. When I changed the electricity over to my name earlier in the week, they informed me the wouldn't be able to accomplish this until Monday. Gotta love it. Thankfully I have gracious friends, the Pattersons, who are letting me crash at their place while they're gone this weekend.

In other news, I'm still looking for a job. I'd love some prayers for that. Thanks.

Not As Holey As I Used to Be (In a Good Way)

When I took off the dressing on my back hole (or the artist formerly known as the back hole) on Sunday morning, I realized there wasn't any drainage on the bandage. I quickly turned around to look in the mirror. Sure enough, there's no more hole. There's just a scar and divot, which will be great for keeping my back from flooding when I'm laying face down in the rain.

I had my last ET nurse visit yesterday, which consisted of marveling at the lack of hole where they don't naturally occur and saying goodbyes. Also, as of today, I'm finished taking antibiotics. It's hard to believe there's no one left to visit or nothing left to do aside from restoring my body to its former perfection, which will be a cinch I'm sure.

I spent the first half of this week in Abilene doing some house and job hunting. I was successful in the housing department and am somewhat hopeful in the job arena. My brother, who's going to be my roommate as soon as he gets a job in Abilene, drove down on Monday, and we hit the real estate market hard. After scouring the four corners of the earth, our eyes rested on 1949 Beckham, which I can now proudly say is my current residence. It was pretty sweet how it worked out. We didn't have to sign a year lease and she gave me the keys before I even paid her rent. I'm officially moving to Abilene on Saturday. So, if anyone has extra furniture, kitchen stuff or anything you think would be useful to me, I'd be glad to relieve you of it.

This whole move to Abilene is still so weird to me. Most days I'm pretty bipolar in how I feel about it. On one hand, moving there is great, because I already have a dozen good friends there and I know the town. On the other hand, it seems so much less exciting than what I've become accustomed (maybe a little addicted) to, and I can already tell I'm going to have to fight the cynicism I left Abilene with after college. What I'm starting to see is that I have to learn to marry the mundane with the magnificent, dovetail the dull with the dynamic, and orchestrate the ordinary with the outrageous. With the simplest of actions and thoughts, I can take part in the Kingdom of Heaven coming - the most exciting thing happening on this planet. There is adventure in Abilene, no matter how disguised it may seem.

Quick Health Update

I had my tri-weekly dressing change with the ET nurse today. The hole on my back is small enough now that she's using this super glue type stuff called Cellerate to finish off the back wound. It's made of collagen and smells like foot sweat (Don't worry. You can't smell it unless you put your nose up to the tube it comes out of). What's really exciting is that I got rid of my Wound V.A.C. today. That's right! No more man-purse. I feel a little naked now though. It feels weird to not have to pick it up and watch out for tubes all the time... but not a bad feeling. All that's left to do is a few more checkups and applying the Cellerate daily until it's all healed up. Also, the shingles I had were knocked out quick once I started taking the medicine five times a day. I was blessed enough to not have much pain. Thanks for your continued prayers.

Change of Plans

Part of me still can't believe I'm typing this right now, but here it goes... I'm not moving to Seattle, and I'm moving back to Abilene. I know that quickly you have 1 of 2 reactions (I know, because I've had both of these on some level). You're either excited, because I'll be closer to family and (some of my) friends or disappointed, because it sounds like I'm taking the easy, less adventurous road moving back to the ACU bubble. Before you rush to any conclusions, let me tell you how this U-turn jumped onto my path and why I'm excited about it.

When I made the decision to move to Seattle, it wasn't in response to some writing-on-the-wall occurrence, but rather looking for what I saw as the best option so that I could begin moving forward again and God could order my path. When I told a friend about my change of plans he made a really good point. He exhorted me to be more careful in saying something was God's will. He's totally right. I went back and reread the blog where I announced I was moving to Seattle and I really did use some strong language. The things I cited as pros were true, but I definitely gave them more weight than I should have. So I feel I need to apologize about being deceptive even if I wasn't purposely doing it with evil intent. What I should have said is "here are the facts, so I'm going to start heading that direction", or as it says in the Bible, "if it is God's will I'll do this or that tomorrow." With that being said, I'm doing my best to not over or under exaggerate what my perception of God's voice is. It's exciting to personally interact with the living God, and I'm learning to be zealous about acting upon what I see and hear God showing me while at the same time not doing or saying things in God's name that are in fact not. I never want to make a decision out of fear or making myself feel better, but only seek to be a part of showing God's glory to the world as I honor Him in my body. So here's what I got now...

As I began making plans and telling people I was moving to Seattle, what God was telling me through prayer, scripture and people wasn't meshing as well with the Seattle move as I'm used to happening normally. I wasn't super bothered by this, not wanting to put God into a formula, but knew I needed to still attentively listen God about the direction of my next season in life. What I began hearing from God was basically, "Don't try and take control of this and make it your own thing. Don't rush, but wait for me to show you a different purpose that you don't already know. I'm preparing good things for you, but don't get caught up in the place you're going." After hearing that, the purpose I felt God giving me through scripture was that I had started to learned to follow the Spirit (as you can see not perfectly yet), but it was time to start fully walking out the simplest parts of the Gospel like taking caring widows and orphans, giving to the poor, loving my enemies, praying for those who persecute me, giving to anyone who asks of me, loving God with every part of me and loving my neighbor as myself. I could see God telling me through scripture, that without these foundational things in my life, having "spiritual" experiences or finding my "calling" would only be like gilding my life. Doing the things God already tells us He blesses and loves is so important. God's not tricky when he tells us to do these things. In addition to this, there were things I wanted to happen in Seattle, that as I prayed about them, I was getting an unexpected 'no'. I didn't know how to take all of this until a few days ago, when fuzzy things started coming into focus and pieces started falling into place.

Last weekend, I went to Abilene just to catch up with friends before I took off for the northwest. You have to understand that when I graduated, I couldn't wait to get out of Abilene for multiple reasons which is a whole other story, and I had not once considered Abilene as the next step in my path. On Saturday, I grabbed some Whataburger breakfast with a friend and we talked about many things. As we plotted and dreamed about our roles in the kingdom of God, I was excited about doing God's work like I haven't been in a months. As we encouraged and counseled each other, I could see certain hopes and dreams taking on flesh for the first time. Late that night, I was restless and couldn't sleep. I got out of bed and wrote some emails hoping to wear my brain out. I got back into bed and talked with God. I asked Him what in the world He was doing with me right now, because I couldn't see it and admitted to Him how helpless and unable to do anything truly good I was without Him. At the moment, I felt totally paralyzed and realized my desire to go to Seattle was gone. The only things I was holding onto there were my friendship with Ross and maybe a little bit of my ego. So I gave up and asked God, "What now? What does your will being done on earth as it is in heaven look like right now?" At 4 a.m., I finally drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, I felt a dim peace. As the day went on I continued to wrestle with it and discussed it with a few friends. Finally, on the drive back to Arlington, I started to see clearly what God had been doing all along. I saw God's guidance and the puzzling answers to prayer all fit together one by one. After about an hour of driving, I felt like I emerged from a cloudy haze and all the sudden, I was filled with joy about moving to Abilene and not Seattle. It was so weird, but the feeling was so familiar. I don't know about you, but it usually seems that when God powerfully leads me, it's never anything close to my idea. It's usually not something I was thinking about at all (the whole "His ways are not like our ways" thing). This is another stellar example for sure. After doing a little self-examination making sure this wasn't my flesh seeking the easy route, the only source of apprehension I had left was not being able to partner in God's work with Ross. When I got back in Arlington, I called him up to discuss my moving to Seattle. After talking through some things, I told him what I had been experiencing in Abilene and my possible change of plans. After conversing about it, he agreed that I should stay in Texas. Even though he was saddened we wouldn't be living together, he was excited about my new direction. After I hung up the phone, I just sat there wide-eyed and thought to myself, "I can't believe I'm moving back to Abilene."

Surgeons and Shingles

Last Friday, I had a checkup with my surgeon. He checked me out and cleared me for any physical activity I feel like! That means on Saturday, I drove for the first time in 2 months. It was glorious. It felt so good to feel independent again. In general, I've just been feeling so much better. My energy level has improved so much. At this point, the only thing holding me back is the wound on my back closing up. It's very small, but not quite there yet.

Before I get carried away with too much good news, I might as well throw in that I've got shingles. For those of you who don't know what that is (I didn't before today), it's related to the chicken pox. Basically, I have a few bumps on the left side of the back of my neck and head running up a nerve. So far, it's been pretty uncomfortable and occasionally itchy, but I hear it can be extremely painful. So, it looks like it's more good times ahead for me. It's viral and usually related to being stressed (I haven't felt too emotionally stressed, but my body's gone through a bit), but not very contagious. You only have to worry about catching it from me if you've never had chicken pox and you use my towel or something of the like. I'm taking pills 5 times a day for it, and it should run its course in a few weeks.

In summary, I continue to improve rapidly, but I'd appreciate your continued prayers for the wound on my back and my newly acquired shingles.