Six Word Saturday (12/14/13)

Post Office Adventure and Christmas Program

All last week I had wanted my daughter to go with me to the post office to mail my son's Christmas package overseas, and she had some excuse why she couldn't go.  So Monday I boxed up the gifts myself and wrote out directions to the post office off of Google Maps.  I probably could have gotten there okay without them but I do have anxiety about getting lost if I'm not in my comfort zone/neck of the woods.  I wrote out a different route for the way back so it wouldn't have so many left turns.  Even before I left the house, I had an overwhelming feeling like "if you get in your car, you're going to die!"  It was really scary and I started crying, but then somehow I remembered Andy Stanley's message from church online the day before - he was talking about Gideon and Samson, how they actually were ordinary people who, with God behind them, did extraordinary things.  Andy is kind of a motivational speaker so he instructed that you should ask yourself, "Would God want me to do this?" and if the answer is yes, then go for it because He will help you!  So after I envisioned God with me (and Jesus sitting in the front passenger seat) I was able to drive to the post office without any problems.  

HOWEVER, driving home was a different story.  I never saw the street I was supposed to turn on.  And I happened to look up in an intersection and saw that the street I had been traveling on was named something else at that point.  (Where I live, this happens a lot:  You can drive a straight line on one single street and the name will change three times.)  So I panicked and began crying and screaming for God to help me because when I'm lost I always feel like I'm going to end up driving so much that I run out of gas, end up starving to death on the side of some road, and nobody will even notice that I'm gone.  At first I was praying to see something big that was familiar (a hospital, the mall, a school I knew, etc.).  But after only a minute my chest hurt so bad and I felt like I couldn't swallow, and I prayed, "Can't you point me the way to Alameda [the street I needed to be on]?"  It felt like a last-ditch prayer like people in plane crashes pray ("Save me!")  Because then when it doesn't work out and I die (or the crash victims die), I/they can tell God, "Why am I here in Heaven?  I prayed!"  Anyway, the very next intersection had a red stoplight, so I looked up at the street sign and (I kid you not) it had an arrow pointing left with the street name El Paseo and an arrow POINTING right saying Alameda!  I love how God is so, so, so obvious when he deals with me.

Last night even though this year I hadn't planned on going at all, my daughter went with me to a Christmas program at the Baptist church I used to regularly go to.  They served cheesecake and coffee during the show.  We sat in the far right corner, right in front of the choir stand, and even though our table wasn't at a central point, I loved how the band didn't drown out the choir voices from our viewpoint.  I really liked the show although that jerk Mackenzie was in the choir (who got me "kicked out" of the latest Bible study I went to last year).  And, of course, she was on the end so I had to look at her through the whole show.  And she sang a solo because everyone thinks she's so wonderful.  At any rate, afterward the show we turned the car radio to 88.3 because the outside lights on the church were synched to Christmas music, which was pretty cool.

As for movies, I only got around to watching one movie this week on Netflix, a made for TV movie called "The Christmas Angel."  It had Kevin Sorbo (Andromeda) in it - I love his voice!  It was about a little girl who was the only one whose wishes came true.  She wished things for other people (not like a boy tells her "wish this for me"; it was more like she saw that the boy needed something so she wished he could have it.)  Della Reese played the angel (naturally).  The little girl's friend Lucas was as adorable as can be too!  I liked the movie although it was extremely predictable and blatantly Christian.  I want to concentrate on watching Christmas movies because Netflix will only show them during the season.