I'm Back

Please excuse the typing error.. I will have to edit them later when I'm not on the mobile version.

This is my little car that I am getting frustrated with!! ;P

I have seriously thought about selling it and buying something different these last few days. But then that would just really mess up my goals. And if I sold it then that would defeat my stubborn streak ;P because I decided long ago that I wanted buy it when it was cheaper and keep it as an investment... In my mind I thought that I would eventually get something else to drive, but still keep the old beetle so that I could later reap the benefits of it's value when it is 70 years old or something.

So really, no matter how frustrated I am with it right now... it would probably hurt my pride too much to retreat from my "great plan" and sell the car. Because that would just spell out "FAIL" in big red letters that something I dreamed up in my foolish youth didn't go as planned, right? ;) Lol That's just the way I think. :P

So as you can probably guess... it's not running again. And it's really embarrassing me D:

This is what it seems to look like most of the time... with the hood up. Ha!

I just took these pictures one evening as we were working on it.

Right now, I believe my dad is dropping the engine once again and taking it to a man who will hopefully fix the problem. Thankfully labor and parts are pretty cheap on the old car!

On a personal note:

I'm sure some of my blog readers noticed the looonnggg week span between the last blog post and this one. I was having (I think it's safe to say...) the worst week of my life yet, and I didn't feel like taking pictures, definitely not blogging! I didn't even tell any of my friends or family about it. Though, I'm sure my family could tell from the long face I was sporting around everywhere... but they didn't pry. But the worst thing was that I really didn't even tell the Lord about it. At one point I started wondering that if it went on any longer I didn't see how I would keep from falling into depression. And to think that it all happened so shortly after I blogged about being so happy with my life. But I can actually see why and how it happened now, and why it was for my good. And why I wouldn't have asked the Lord to spare me from that experience.

It kind of goes something like this: 

For a long time I have lived my life selfishly and not given very much time to God to cultivate a personal relationship with him. I've known that I needed to become more serious about it. In fact, I've been very serious about getting serious! If that makes sense? ;) And I know that the Lord has given me gentle nudgings and warnings that way, but I've heard that if you don't heed those, then sometimes it takes something more drastic. But I've just floated along with my "good life" because I've never had anything major happen that has really made me become more sincere and have a genuine relationship with God. Until, last week. Last week, it felt like there couldn't be anything possibly going right in my life. Ironically, at work I was fine, even though I was seriously making a lot of mistakes and things really weren't going well. But it was when I got home... I just felt so empty. And when my Dad told me that my car wasn't running again, I nearly started crying at the dinner table. I felt like nothing was easy, and nothing was going the way I wanted it to go. Previously in my 

life, when I had prayed about those things and about my future, I felt like the Lord had given me hope and showed me that everything would really work out for good. And I believed it. But this time, I wasn't believing anything. I thought/knew that there was no way for me to be happy in my life unless I take control of it and over-ride the direction that God had previously given me. I still knew deep down inside that that wasn't right either. So I was stuck, frustrated and on the verge of something because I couldn't stand it anymore.

In sunday school, I almost didn't listen or pay attention to what was being said, but I managed to pull my mind in, and it was a good thing I did. I got a blessing out of it, and I was challenged to ask the Lord for new hope in my life. They said that the way you can be a strong person for the Lord is only to encourage yourself in the word and have a personal relationship. I hadn't been doing either of those because it's hard because the devil has known that all he has to keep me from doing is those two simple things to keep me from living the right life. Sunday evening, my Uncle Butch preached about waiting on the Lord. I can't tell you how much I felt like that message was just for me, I felt like I finally knew how to overcome what I just knew would soon be depression. :P

Sometimes after being services like that when I am shown where my faults are it just automatically makes me feel better already because I know what to do. But it didn't happen that way this time, and I feel like it was because the Lord wanted to see if I was really wanting to overcome it. And to be honest, I wasn't. So I struggled for another day. My friend brought me flowers, but I wasn't home so I wasn't able to talk to her about it. Finally, I called Alyssa. I didn't really tell her much though either at first, because I knew that she probably wouldn't even be able to audibly understand me if I started to tell her because I just knew that the tears would probably just start rolling. Eventually, I told her that she would just have to excuse me crying and so I told her all about my distress. Really, it just helped to talk about it because I was able to verbally say out loud what I needed to do. To give it over to God and to find my satisfaction in developing a relationship with Him... and not find my happiness in the

things that are just of this life like everyone else tries to do. Though, I still know that life is a wonderful thing, it's really only beautiful if you live with God by your side.

Anyway, the next day I was finally determined that I would review my notes on the message about waiting on the Lord since "osmosis" wasn't working and it wasn't just sinking into my heart without me actually doing something and not being lazzzyyyy! (Goodness, sometimes I wonder why it really 

takes me so long to learn things like that)

Anyway, the Lord really encouraged me with the passage about the Israelites going from Egypt to canna and how they so often worried and wanted to go back to their "easy" life in Egypt. But God had something better for them of they waited on him. And after praying about it, God just gave me such peace in knowing he really has the best for me. And it's really hard to describe what kind of a change the Lord has done in my life just now, and I endeavor to go on!

So I guess I'll be back to blogging since that rough week is over with ;)

I am trying really hard to get the blog post if Nathan and Cara finished. Blogger just isn't actually very picture friendly, especially when you are trying to get 150 photos in the right order. Ah!

I'm headed on a camping/hiking trip with my parents right now so I should have plenty to post after the post of Nathan and Cara, too! :)

-MarLeahJoy