Jan 28, 2008
Blessings...
My history with this word is a bit tenuous. You can ask Haley about an excellent story she has pertaining to blessings and email. I find that the word blessings is a bit of a land mine. It falls into the Christian-speak category for me, but nonetheless, blessings are a part of being a child of God. (Another from the list of my least favorite Christian terminology.)
Even though I feel like God blesses me pretty regularly, it's hard for me to tell people about it. Take for instance my car problems this weekend. If you know me, I've probably called you at some point because I am stranded by the road somewhere (for the many of you who have taken pity on me in my time of need, thank you). This Friday, I had a little car odyssey.
My car wouldn't start when I left work, which was great since I was the last one at the office. As a matter of fact, the car was completely dead. Jen was kind enough to come pick me up. Through some bizarre twist of fate, my dome lights kicked on before we jumped the car off, and it decided that it was happy to start right up. Well, after we went to dinner, it died again. It died real good. Jen carted me around until we were miraculously able to get my car to start by jumping it off. I then drove it to Auto Zone (AZ), where I was told there was nothing wrong with my battery or alternator. So it was probably my starter that was busted. This didn't make sense to me since the problem really seemed electrical. To top things off, my car decided not to start again as soon I had gotten the part specs and walked out of AZ.
After this, I had a somewhat emotional conversation with my father about whether or not I should trust the diagnostics from AZ. I tend to get upset when things like my car break. I like to think that I'm a pretty strong, independent type of gal, but the finer points of mechanics escape me. About this time, the woman from AZ stepped outside and said, "Is it not starting again?" I nodded. "I'll go get my jumper kit," she said as she turned back to get said kit. This is where the blessing kicks in.
She put the jumper on, and the connector to the red side of my battery lifted completely off the battery. She peered around the hood (I had gotten back in the car to turn the ignition) and said, "I think I know what the problem is."
OK, so maybe you wouldn't class this as a blessing. You might even class it as stupidity on my part for not making sure the connector was tightened in the first place. But here's the truth: to me, it was a blessing. It meant that I wouldn't have to cough up what would probably have been major cash for a VW electrical repair. I even felt a little validated that knew enough about how my car worked to know that the starter wasn't the problem. What I didn't feel was that I should shout from the rooftops that God blessed me this weekend by resolving my car problems.
Recently, a friend of mine told another friend of mine that it felt like it had been a long time since God blessed her. To me, that seems strange. I feel like God blesses me frequently, consistently, even when I don't deserve it. Even in my periods of darkest depression and disbelief. But then, maybe she's more vocal about the blessings when they do occur. And it's hard for me to say which of those things is better. Maybe both...maybe neither...
