Oh! There You Are!

Timeline of Chaos

1 Sunday heard life changing word by Danielle Strickland at Hillsong Atlanta

2 Wednesday led Hillsong small groups

3 Saturday struggled with whether or not I did a good job leading Hillsong small groups. Discovered trigger around imposter syndrome.

4 Sunday woke up to the realization of some childhood trauma I had been blocking out for a very long time. Cried a lot. Skipped church. Slept a lot. Did my Come Alive homework. Continued to process my trauma, triggers, and feeling (still processing while typing this).

5 Tuesday came home to the news that a family member who frequents our house tested positive for covid. Scrambled to find free testing. Went to sleep. “I’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

6 Wednesday woke and pieced together info with my aunt to find covid testing. Booked appointments for my sister and I while my aunt took care of herself and my younger cousin.

6a Volunteered to take my cousin, the high school freshman, to school because she had a test. Needed to get her there on time (in 15 minutes). Found that traffic on 75/85 North had other plans. Dropped her off, about 25 minutes late.

6b Went home, changed clothes, grabbed lunch, picked up my sister and headed out for Covid testing. Arrived early and asked if we could go ahead with our appointments, staff obliged. Finished quickly, grabbed breakfast. Took her to school downtown.

6c Trusting that my test was already negative, drove towards work. Stopped to get some gas. Parked in the lot at work. God said take a nap. I did. It was wonderful. Called to see if my results were in. They were; negatives all around!

6d On the way home from work my car started roaring at me. Turned onto a residential street, the lights in the car started blinking and the car wouldn’t accelerate. Pulled over and turn the car off. Called roadside assistance, they assigned a driver (about 30 minutes later). ETA for the driver…84 minutes. Watched some k drama on my phone. Logged on to Hillsong small groups. Noticed my phone battery was no longer charging. Logged out of the Hillsong small group. Called and ask my aunt to come get me. Tried hard to ignore my bladder.

6e 84 minutes lapse, still no tow truck. Bladder now refuses to be ignored head back home in my aunt’s car while she waits with my car. Insurance company calls to see if my need was met I tell them it wasn’t, but that my aunt sees a truck on the street that might be them. Ask them to call back in 15 minutes to confirm. It was not the truck and they did not call to confirm.

6f 9:30pm, three hours after my car stopped, not only has the truck not arrived and no additional info been given about when it will, but now the tow company is not even answering the phone. My aunt tells me to call a company myself. I cancel the roadside “assistance.” The new company arrives in the allotted time, tow the car to my house, my aunt pays for the tow and at 10:36pm I enter my bedroom tired, somewhat shell-shocked and very relieved the day is done.

• 

Where God met me

1 Little did I know this message was preparing me for what was ahead, helping me gain the right perspective.

2 The two questions I asked groups to answer on Wednesday would become my markers and guide posts moving forward. “Where did you observe chaos?” “Where do you feel God poking you in that chaos?”

3 Discovered the deep and impressive value of triggers. I am certain exploring that twinge of discomfort I felt throughout the week lead me to discovering the bigger pain underneath, the childhood trauma. I had strategically built walls around it to protect myself and others.

4 Pain is hard, but discovering he truth of what is at the root of it is so freeing. I am gaining this whole knew perspective on my behaviors now that I know what prompted or triggered them. I am in progress in healing, but the journey began with the single step of facing pain. Praise God!

5 &6 Truth, I really only knew one way to go about getting tested for Covid because it was the only way I had ever used. Thanks to that scramble I discovered a great new urgent care clinic with helpful staff and in a very cool area.

6a The answer I gave in the small group to the question, “Where is God poking you in the chaos,” was knowing that I don’t have to fix it. Wooo! I still feel the Selah in my Spirit as I type that. What I realized while I was sitting in that very God-ordained traffic was that no one asked me to jump up and take my cousin. This was another instance of me trying to take control and fix the chaos. But I don’t have to do that, because God creates out of chaos. I, am what’s being created. Amen.

6b Got some quality time with my sister. We had some breakfast together and I got the gift of being able to drop her off for one of her first college courses.

6c Got gas. Got to relax before heading in for a half day of work. God gifted me with the instruction to take a nap. I, like so many people, am always ready to fill every moment of my time with either work or distractions. So often what I really need is rest, more specifically sleep. I felt like a true ancestor of my great grandfather Elijah, eat then sleep. And just like him when I woke there was an answer waiting for me.

6d I got the opportunity to see true “neighbors.” A gentleman stopped to ask if I needed help. Members of the community offered us everything from water to their driveways if we needed to park, and their muscles if we needed help pulling the car in. It was the “right place” to be stopped.

6e & 6f I got some quality time with my six year old cousin that I know I would not have taken if we had been at home and in our own spaces. We played tick-tac-toe and watched so Phineas and Ferb (which I highly recommend if you’re having a stressful day). It was simple, sweet and somehow, I believe, exactly what we both needed in that moment.

I also got to connect with a new friend in a way I had not before. Sending her updates having her respond and pray for me, it opened the door for a new type of friendship (work friends vs coffee friends vs friends friends). Because I shared and was vulnerable I gave room for our friendship to grow.

All in all this week of adventure turned into one of the best and most rewarding weeks of my life all because my view of chaos, pain and God are being renewed and cultivated. It is a gift to be able to see the storm and instead of running or hiding to have the peace, perspective and posture to say “Oh Papa! There You are!”