The Last Link

I embarked upon my journey to the Adent Family Household in Vancouver, Washington on December 24th, after much deliberation in the days proceeding as to whether or not I should leave my home in Bellingham on the night prior (December 23rd). Due to foreseen circumstances involving my state of exhaustion after a day on the job and the possibility of hardship on the 250 mile trip south , I decided it would indeed be wisest to leave early on the morning of Christmas Eve. When I awoke, on the morning of my departure, I rolled out of bed with much difficulty, threw on some clothes, chucked my stuff into my 1984 Chevrolet S-10, and was forced to push start in the sub-freezing weather. After a stop for gas and a swing through Starbucks, I was en-route. WOOT.

As I prepared to crest a hill about ten miles south of Bellingham while marveling at a spectacular Pacific Northwest sunrise, something strange happened: my car slowed down, then jerked back up the hill. My heart pounding, I wondered if it was over.

Not a chance. Slip-jerk-downshift-slip- jerk-downshift-slip-jerk about every ten miles all the way to Everett, where I realized the full gravity of the situation. The likely-hood of my beautiful, old, reliable clunker of a truck making it the remaining 200 miles south to my destination was highly unlikely. I had called my mother miles before to inform her of the situation, and my brother was sacrificing his leisurely Christmas Eve of baking to meet my in the Seattle area. The problem of my arrival in Vancouver solved, I now had another problem. What was I supposed to do with my truck for the duration of my week- and-a-half long stay in Vancouver?

Thankfully, I was reminded by parents of my Aunt and Uncle who lived in the area, who upon contact, were gracious enough to allow me to park my truck in their driveway until my return to nurse my truck back up to Bellingham. For about three hours, I sat, visited, and played card games with my cousins. I was even given more coffee until my brother showed up to cart me off to what is still his place of residence.

The experience could have turned out much worse, but once again I laugh at my own simultaneous misfortune and blessing. I refuse to believe that God is some sort of cosmic sadist who created me to be an object of his wrath, which is why this whole bit really is funny. Somehow, the temporary loss of my lifeline to nearly all my hobbies, my transportation to and from worship team and church, and my link to the grocery store is going to sanctify me and help me more accurately reflect my Savior on this hunk of rock we call Earth. While I ponder the details regarding my return to Bellingham, I know the situation will work out. I just have no idea how. I feel somewhat uneasy about this whole business of sanctification, and I want to be comfortable now.

Welcome to Therapy.

The Intro

Welcome to the real world. Spending the last 18 years of my life in school to become an official member of the proletariat in this time of life-transition.

Oh don't get me wrong, I've really got it awesome. Good pay and fantastic hours, a position in which nearly 11% of the United States population lacks, last I heard. I just never ever thought I would study history for four hard years to wind up scrubbing someone else's digested pizza out of a just-defiled commode.

But that's how it goes. Looks like I need to take some servant lessons.

The title of this new set of posts is not that I need medical treatment (knock on wood: no health insurance.) Rather, my objectives in life need to be redetermined. It's one thing to say that you're following Christ with everything that you have, yet quite another to actually do it. Near the end of November, I took a frigid winter day to try to do exactly that: get with Jesus, and seek out what his will for my life. What he did was show me all my idols, the things I had been going to instead of him.

When God's the only one listening, when all we think we can cling to is yanked from our clutches. When we feel totally powerless to Life itself, like C.S. Lewis suggests in The Screwtape Letters, we go from Peak to Trough. And when we're in a Trough, God does his best work in us.

Therapy.

The theme comes from a Relient K song that showed up on my computer (when I put there last time I was in Vancouver) that bears the same name as this series of posts. So I stole the concept, and I'm actually not that creative.

But while I put in my hours scrubbing grease from the ceiling tiles in the dining hall, I laugh at both my fortune and misfortune simultaneously, wondering what in the world I'm doing on a ladder above the pizza cooker. In this time of transition, this is my therapy.