Twenty Six
Apparently it's snowing in Buffalo today.
Today is a good day to not be in Buffalo.
I've been on the floor all week underwriting with Chris. They still haven't told us what teams we're on. Two weeks of training left, and two exams in this next week. I could technically fail the worker's comp case study, but I have to pass the final exam - underwriting an entire account - or I'm out. Needless to say, this will be a big, tense week.
I met with mom and dad's pastor last night. He's a pretty chill guy. Two things were cool. Maybe I should have expected this, him being a pastor and all, but I was going there to talk about something specific and he never asked me about it. Instead, he asked me how my relationship with God was. Then he went down the line; how was my relationship with my dad, my mom, everybody. It was cool because I wasn't expecting that. The second cool thing that I didn't expect was that, when he said he would pray for me, he asked me to pray for him. I've never had a pastor ask me that.
One thing I wanted to know about was how God speaks to us. You hear these stories about these voices, epiphanies from heaven that are crystal clear. I never get those. Or, you hear about people opening the bible to a specific page and a verse jumps out at them. I never get that. Or, even, you hear about people knowing that they are destined for this or that. I never get that either. So lately I've been pretty confused about the direction my life is headed in. I figured if anybody would know a thing or two about how God talks to us, it would be pastor Bruce.
He didn't get into it too much, because he wants to keep meeting and have me take a sort of study-course (more homework!). But what he did say has been replaying in my head a lot today. He said that God speaks to us through prayer (duh!), through the word (duh!), through the church, and through our circumstances. Now, I knew about the first two because everybody knows about the first two. But like I said above, I don't read the bible and get that God is speaking to me. I read the bible and go, "wow, that Solomon guy was pretty smart," or "that was good advice," but I never really felt like something applied directly to my life. So I'm curious to see what Pastor Bruce has to unpack about that. I'm also curious to see what he has to say about the second two. Finally, he said something else that caught me off guard. I told him about how my life has been really confused these past few months. And he said, "God is not the author of confusion." He said that when God spoke to us, the four factors all lined up. In my case, none of them seem to line up. But I'm hopeful that he will be able to show me something I don't currently see.
What else? I waited for 6 hours for the internet installation guy, only to be told there's an error and they can't set it up yet. Herb, the guy who sits next to me in training, handed in his notice yesterday. I'll miss him a lot. I haven't had a big cookie in about 3 weeks and I'm starting to go into withdrawel. I also started playing my mandolin again. But the frets are so small!
- DS
Today is a good day to not be in Buffalo.
I've been on the floor all week underwriting with Chris. They still haven't told us what teams we're on. Two weeks of training left, and two exams in this next week. I could technically fail the worker's comp case study, but I have to pass the final exam - underwriting an entire account - or I'm out. Needless to say, this will be a big, tense week.
I met with mom and dad's pastor last night. He's a pretty chill guy. Two things were cool. Maybe I should have expected this, him being a pastor and all, but I was going there to talk about something specific and he never asked me about it. Instead, he asked me how my relationship with God was. Then he went down the line; how was my relationship with my dad, my mom, everybody. It was cool because I wasn't expecting that. The second cool thing that I didn't expect was that, when he said he would pray for me, he asked me to pray for him. I've never had a pastor ask me that.
One thing I wanted to know about was how God speaks to us. You hear these stories about these voices, epiphanies from heaven that are crystal clear. I never get those. Or, you hear about people opening the bible to a specific page and a verse jumps out at them. I never get that. Or, even, you hear about people knowing that they are destined for this or that. I never get that either. So lately I've been pretty confused about the direction my life is headed in. I figured if anybody would know a thing or two about how God talks to us, it would be pastor Bruce.
He didn't get into it too much, because he wants to keep meeting and have me take a sort of study-course (more homework!). But what he did say has been replaying in my head a lot today. He said that God speaks to us through prayer (duh!), through the word (duh!), through the church, and through our circumstances. Now, I knew about the first two because everybody knows about the first two. But like I said above, I don't read the bible and get that God is speaking to me. I read the bible and go, "wow, that Solomon guy was pretty smart," or "that was good advice," but I never really felt like something applied directly to my life. So I'm curious to see what Pastor Bruce has to unpack about that. I'm also curious to see what he has to say about the second two. Finally, he said something else that caught me off guard. I told him about how my life has been really confused these past few months. And he said, "God is not the author of confusion." He said that when God spoke to us, the four factors all lined up. In my case, none of them seem to line up. But I'm hopeful that he will be able to show me something I don't currently see.
What else? I waited for 6 hours for the internet installation guy, only to be told there's an error and they can't set it up yet. Herb, the guy who sits next to me in training, handed in his notice yesterday. I'll miss him a lot. I haven't had a big cookie in about 3 weeks and I'm starting to go into withdrawel. I also started playing my mandolin again. But the frets are so small!
- DS