Poke Back

(I wanted a photo to go with this post. 

So I chose this one. 

Reminds me of Jellyfish a little bit.

What do you think?)

I didn't know if I was going to survive the first 15 minutes of my morning😄. I felt like I was in some sort of labyrinth-style video game or something. 

You see, I started my day out waking up later than I wanted to, much much later to be honest.  I had my usual morning routine going on here which included driving to see my therapist. 

My therapist has become my best friend; as best of a bestie as you can get professionally in the client/therapist relationship. That being said, I have to tell you that "Willowmina"(not her real name LOL) is amazing. She has helped me through so many seasons of my life in the short time I have come to know her and love her since last May. 

Between God, my Saturday Sisters, Wednesday Warriors and "Willowmina" my perspective on life has changed dramatically as well as my own personal accountability for things I have done wrong and acknowledging the things I have done right without having to feel awkward when people pay me a compliment(I am getting better at that one; I am not a fan of pride, and try so hard not to be prideful as I prefer humility). 

Anyway, where was I?

OH yes...MY ROUTINE!

So this morning I woke up late, debated showering(glad I did though, and I am sure those sitting around me this morning at group are glad as well😝).  I headed to the Starbucks at the grocery store down the road a piece and as my luck would have it, I go into the store and as I walk through the flower department to the Starbucks, lo' and behold there is a line of people longer than the toilet paper line of 2020 at Costco. 

Okay, I am exaggerating a tad bit here, but when you are starving, running late and need coffee, a line of more than SEVEN people waiting for coffee, constitutes concern and panic in one's mind.

As I am walking to my car, I decide to get gas at the grocery store gas station. I like to pay a person versus using my card at the pump, skimmers and all, ya know, can't be too careful. I'm thinking it's 7:30 they have to be open right?

Nope.

Closed, not a soul in sight for miles. Snacks locked up like bank money behind a metal door with a lock, and I think I saw a tumbleweed roll across the parking lot. 

Great!

Guess I will find coffee and gas and some sort of nutritional item somewhere else down the road.  I continue driving and notice that red and green sign...

...what's this?? A 7-11???

YES! 

Sustenance finally! 

AND GAS!

    

I pull in and find the tanker truck parked in front of the pumps. Cars everywhere. I decide to pull around to the front pump so I can just roll on out to the street after. I finally maneuver my car around all the other cars and wouldn't you know it, there is a red plastic bag on there that says "Out of Order"...no way Jose'!!! 

So I go back around and park at another pump and walk into the store to get my gas, coffee and something to eat. 

I peruse the various varieties of coffee...hazelnut, guatemalan something or other and ooo...what's this? Blueberry? I grab a cup and pour myself a nice hot cup of caffeinated heaven and look around for something to eat. 

I notice the freshly made cheese pizza. It looked like it had tons of ooey gooey cheese on it. YUM! Pizza and Coffee is the breakfast of all starving late-to-their- appointment champions, please don't judge me(that's the title of my next blog post...spoiler alert!!!). Although if you are going to judge me, I really hope you give me at least a 9.5 or perhaps a golden buzzer😂.

I realized after I paid for my food I forgot to tell the guy I needed gas too.

Pay for gas.

Pump gas.

Get into car and pull out of spot.

Go to open my pizza and I look inside 👀 ...

IT'S PEPPERONI! 🤮 

I don't like to eat pepperoni. 😷

But...because I was starving I picked off what wasn't glued on  and I ATE IT! (I am telling you that they glue on that pepperoni! I couldn't get most of them off of there without taking the cheese with them!)

I am here to tell you, that I survived the great pizza slice mix up of 2022. It was touch and go there for a while, but I lived to tell the tale.  🌟

Yay, me.

So I was trying to figure out why all this was happening to me. I literally said to God, "What am I suppose to learn from all of this?" 

I mean, it was not life-threatening or life-altering, albeit life annoying to no end, I finally mentioned this to my therapist, know what she said?

It's satan poking you.

Huh?

Let me tell you, I finally understood what she meant.

POKE POKE!, Your car's run out of gas on your way to an interview.

POKE POKE! You stub your toe when you are getting ready to go to Bible study. 

I remember when satan poke poked me literally on my living room carpet with a toothpick(where that toothpick came from is beyond me) when I made the decision to walk down that aisle at my former church for the altar call and give my whole life to Jesus.

POKE POKE! That coworker is going to drive you crazy even though 99% of the time you both get along just fine and you really love that coworker to death. POKE!! JAB! POKE!

POKE POKE! Your daughter just came home with a tongue piercing and two tattoos. POKE JAB JAB DOUBLE POKE!

POKE POKE! Your husband's boss just scheduled overtime on the weekend of your women's retreat so he can't stay home with the children. POKE JAB JAB POKE!

All of life's annoyances or obstacles or moments of sheer frustration can be blamed on only one enemy...satan. 

Your husband, his boss, your daughter, your mother-in-law or mother or sister or brother or son are NOT to blame when various trials or annoyances come into your life.

When satan pokes you with lies that spew from those you love or satan pokes with circumstances beyond your control, or a health issue comes into play, a pain in your side or some well-made plans(especially when you are doing the will of God) come along, I am telling you that satan will try to toy with you mentally, physically and most importantly... spiritually. 

Here is the good thing about all this. 

He may win a few tiny battles, but I promise you he doesn't win the war.

GOD DOES.

So look to God for strength when the trials or annoyances come along.

Look to God for patience.

And look to God in those moments of frustration of unplanned events (or stubbed toes).

He's there and always will be.

Don't give the enemy power, but take away the enemy's power and poke back with prayer.

"My brethren count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience." -James 1:2-3

When God Gives You Pizza

I am trying to find a way to re-blog the blog I started two weeks ago. I had a conversation with myself in my head that went something like this:

"How do I do this?

I have no clue."

The end.

So here I am now, trying to write this blog so it makes sense. You would think after all the years and long hours I have blogged and poured my life into this passion of mine that I would know how in the world to do this.

Can we pretend that I wrote this blog today? Because then this blog would make sense.

I was so busy with my birthday and all the blessings that followed, then follow up with Valentine's day that all my days blended together into one big day. 

That's what it felt like with sleep thrown in for good measure. 

So I never got my blog done. 

And actually, I started two of them.

Yeah.

By the way, this, what you are reading "in the moment here" isn't my blog. My blog is at the bottom of this page. I am still figuring out how to insert said blog into this current blog. Which is now the new blog and the other blog, is...well, the OTHER blog.

The old blog.

The blog that was never blogged.

And it really was looking to be a good blog.

I think I am going to read my Bible.

Perhaps I will figure out just how to do this. 

I am pacing back and forth in my head.

(In case you were wondering about that)

I have no clue how to begin here. 

So let's just scroll a little and read the blog I started writing from almost a week and a half ago.

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God has a way of blessing us so deeply.

Sometimes we realize it, and sometimes we don't.

I had a birthday last Friday. 

I thought I just had a birthday weekend, but it turned out to be more of a birthday week; Gifts, snacks, cards in the mail and dinners and a little bit of a surprise birthday party with my Saturday Sisters which almost made me cry; balloons, gifts, a huge bundt cake and a special tiara made of candles along with a lunch at a submarine sandwich place with a few of them after bible study;  some random stranger came up to our table(I was still wearing my tiara 🥳) and wished me a happy birthday. 

Blessings all weekend long!

And then, my daughter stood next to me and sang with me in choir for the FIRST TIME! I wanted to cry, but I didn't. I thanked God for that moment that meant more than anything to me in the world. 

Best gift right there to start off my Birthday Sunday, followed by lunch with two beautiful, godly people I love and admire and consider family and godly counsel to my daughter and I.

I was so excited about my birthday week. And on Thursday I told my daughter that we should end our week together(she goes back to Dad's on Friday) with a deep dish pizza and wings. I had been craving a deep-dish pizza forever from this one restaurant.  I love their pizzas. So on the way home, my daughter and I stopped at this place to order wings and pizza. 

The woman we met when we walked in hurried us into the pickup side of the restaurant. I was like, "okay, they must be pretty busy tonight". She was racing all over the place. So we are perusing the menus, and we finally decided what flavors of wings we wanted and as we get up to the counter my daughter looks at me and says, "Are the mango habanero ones sweet or spicy?" And I said, " A little bit of both sweetie," and as I look at the woman getting ready to place our order she is impatiently clapping her hands together as if to say, "Hurry up you are taking too long, let's go already with your order lady," and if looks could kill my daughter and I would have been lying on the floor.  

No joke.

I turned toward the exit, opened the door and I told my daughter, "We are not eating here let's go!", and hurried out throwing the menu I had in my hand into the trash can outside the door. 

I wanted to say things.

 

I wanted to tell her this is the last day of my birthday week with my daughter and she treated me to dinner last Friday and I wanted to end with a treat from me. 

I wanted to tell her how rude she was, and how I really wanted their pizza but not from THIS woman with her rude and ugly attitude. 

Instead, I walked out.

I said nothing.

Maybe that's grace.

Maybe not.

Maybe that was God shoving me out the door by my jacket so I didn't say anything that would get me into trouble or cause a scene, embarrassing my daughter(and me) and also popping the end of a very wonderful birthday balloon of a week for me(and my daughter) with all it's beautiful blessings.

Who knows?

I was so disappointed.

I wanted to cry, I was so angry.

We drove away and I didn't want to end my happy birthday week on an angry note.

I got my wits about me and I told my daughter, "Let's just DoorDash some wings."

And that's exactly what we did.

After a few wings, fries, drinks and a few of our favorite show episodes on Hulu we were good to go....to bed that is...for me. She stayed up and watched Netflix. 

I passed out in bed from exhaustion.

However, nothing could have prepared me for the next day at lunch.

I had just finished a TV dinner I had made for myself that day. I only had that and a ginger ale.

One of the young men I work with who I've known pretty much since I got this job, who is just a few months younger than my 27-year old son, walks into the break room. He says, "Miss Barb, would you like a slice of deep dish pizza? I had one slice left and I thought of you." 

(He thought of me? Of all the people he works with he thought of me? I wanted to cry, no joke)

So we race out to the bench behind the playground, where all the kindergarten teachers were cleaning up from their deep-dish pizza luncheon and he puts this huge slice of deep dish pizza into a Styrofoam container and says, "Here you go." Then he asked if I wanted any soda, and I said, "No thank you."

That my friends, was God.

GOD GAVE ME A SLICE OF DEEP-DISH PIZZA!

If ever there was a God-moment, this was it.

See, sometimes we miss big God moments that don't seem so big in the moment, but they are big, they are HUGE. 

Know why they are HUGE?

Because they came from God.

This blessing, in the form of carbs and cheese and tomatoes from Heaven(maybe that means there are no calories after I consumed that slice of heavenly pizza 😄) was the tastiest blessing that week. 

I thanked God for the slice of pizza and then I ate some of it.

Not all of it, because i had already eaten, but I was so craving deep-dish pizza that when the Good Lord gave it to me in that Styrofoam container there was no way I was going to say, "Not now Lord." 

I took several bites, dipped it in that heavenly ranch dip and savored every...little....bite.

I am telling you that pizza tasted so delicious.

It didn't even have sausage in it or black olives, but I am telling you that was the BEST SLICE OF PIZZA I EVER HAD!

So here is why I am sharing this with you.

Celebrate and give thanks for the little BIG blessings.

Know what I mean?

Celebrate when your son puts his sock on his feet all by himself, even if they don't match.

Celebrate that last dish you washed which gives you time to sit on your patio and enjoy God's creation, or read a book with your child, or read a book on your couch or patio or spend time with your husband.

Celebrate the little victories that God gives you.

That teenager who opened the door for you; thank God (and that teenager) for that. 

That's a blessing.

Celebrate and give thanks when God gets you home safely to your family every night after work. 

That's a blessing.

Celebrate every green light.

That's a blessing.

Celebrate every red light. Yeah, that's right, celebrate that red light. God is keeping you safe from something at that red light. Or maybe you are worshiping in your car and there is someone at that red light that needs to hear that song or sermon playing on your radio. 

Celebrate it girlfriend! 

God is good! 

ALL THE TIME HE IS GOOD!

Celebrate and give thanks when your child has a not so perfect day, but at the end of that not so perfect day, they hug you and tell you they love you before they say good night and head to bed.

Little victories. HUGE blessings!

Oh those glorious little victories, they are truly BIG God moments.

Because we serve a BIG GOD.

He doesn't give us tiny blessings, He gives us BIG blessings....ALL THE TIME!

We just need to remind ourselves to see Him in these tiny moments and give him our praise and thanks.

God handed me gifts for my birthday to the following Friday with SO MANY AMAZING BLESSINGS. Little Big blessings that lead up to my Pizza blessing on Friday.

Best WEEK Ever!