Glad to be Alive

I made it.

20 hours of shift-work at Fiddleheads this past weekend, 2 midterms this week, 3 hours of sleep last night, 2 missed buses in one evening, and no dinner tonight.

I don’t think I’ve ever cried more times in the past 2 years than I did this entire week.  It really started last week, when I found out that I had been scheduled to work many more hours than I was prepared to.  Combine that with freezing temperatures, with having to wait 40 minutes in said freezing temperatures every time I needed to take a bus to get to work and back, time wasted at the bus stop when I should have been studying for midterms, writing said midterms knowing full well I’ll do poorly, lack of sleep, lack of exercise – you get the point.   And then the climax.  This afternoon, I left my house for work at 1:50PM.  My shift started at 3 PM.  You’d think that, for a place that’s only a 10 minute drive away as mapped out on google maps, that it would be enough time for me to make it there on time.  Apparently, it’s not if the bus decides not to show up.  So I ended up waiting 40 minutes for the next bus, in the kind of cold weather that made me want to just curl up and die.

When the bus finally came, I got on, put my knapsack on the floor, and then proceeded to bawl my eyes out. Right there, in the middle of the bus.  Convulsions, sobs, the whole deal.  I didn’t even care anymore.  People could think what they wanted.

When we got to my stop, I mustered enough sanity to get off the bus.  I started to walk towards work.  At this point, I was still pretty shaken.  And then I remembered this paragraph that I posted on my own facebook wall last night, taken from The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee:

“You cannot produce such impressions of God upon others without the breaking of everything, even your most precious possessions, at the feet of the Lord Jesus…That kind of life creates impressions, and impressions create hunger, and hunger provokes men to go on seeking until they are brought by divine revelation into fullness of life in Christ.”

Couple that with the one verse I read before getting ON the bus:

Philippians 3:29 Because to you it has been graciously granted on behalf of Christ not only to believe into Him but also to suffer on His behalf,

I was determined to turn to the Lord.  Let all the glory be to Him.  Shame on you, Satan, for trying to frustrate me from the true enjoyment of Life.  But right as I screamed into the wind, “LORD JESUS I LOVE YOU!” while tears were streaming down my cheek, one of those obnoxious muffler-lacking cars passed by me and, with its annoyingly rowdy revving noise, made the hugest disturbance humanly possible to my sinuses and my eardrums.  All at once I covered my ears, threw myself down onto the sidewalk, fell to the ground, my knees in the snow – yes, in the middle of Highland Road – and started bawling my eyes out again, this time screaming.  I screamed so hard I wasn’t sure I could stop.  When I finally did, I looked up, and a construction worker nearby was asking me if I was OK.  I put on my bravest smile.  I’ll be OK, I told him.  Thanks for asking.

Usually, it’s at this point where I consider quitting my job.  What you may not know about me is that I actually have a really fickle employment history.  Generally, what happens in my work-life goes something along the line of:

1. I get an idea in my head about my dream job.  2. I land said dream job (of course).  3.  Dream job disappoints me.  4. I leave.

It has been this way since I started my first job as doctor’s assistant in a veterinary clinic at the tender age of 13, and been like that all throughout my senior years of high school, even to the point where I suspected I had some kind of psychological allergy to the notion of employer-employee.   But, disappoint me as all those previous jobs may have, I have never, never, ever, had a job that made me cry the way this one job does – but isn’t it ironic that I refuse to leave?

I won’t call it quits.  Yes, waiting for the bus sucks.  Waiting in the freezing cold while I can’t hardly pull out my student card when the bus finally does arrive because my hands are so cold I can barely feel the canvas of my wallet – sucks beyond words.  It seems like every logical fibre of my being is screaming “QUIT NOW, ALETHEIA.”  But, I just know – I know there’s a reason I’m there.  There’s a reason I’m here.  As I considered this matter before the Lord tonight walking home (after missing yet another bus – no tears this time though, probably because I was too tired to cry), I can’t say that I haven’t gained the Lord considerably since starting this job.  And the reasons for that are undeniably due to these harsh circumstances forcing me to turn to Him.  To have all my precious possessions, everything I have ever treasured – my health, my family-time, my school work, my me-time, my physical comfort, my mental sanity – being shredded to pieces, one by one, at His feet.  This too has been graciously granted to me.  I have to believe that.  I just have to.

You see, I once asked the Lord to make me desperate.

The tricky thing about desperation, though, is that you can never really be prepared for it, can you?

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Sorry guys, I feel pretty bad that I haven’t posted about food too much lately, and for some reason (most likely because of foodbuzz and wellsphere badges) feel like I have some kind of gastronomic duties to fulfill.  So, here are some pictures of foods I have been enjoying as of late:

Sweet-and-Sour Savoy Cabbage and Trail-Mix

Curry-Roasted Cauliflower Leaves with Dried Cranberries

Take-to-work-and-eat-on-the-go Collard Wraps

So even though my life at present may seem to be sorely lacking in some TLC, my eats obviously haven’t.  Because some things just can’t be compromised, right?

Thank you all for your kind comments to last day’s post on blogging with substance.  It really opened my eyes to see and appreciate what a thoughtful and meaningful group of readers you all are.

Well, I better be off to bed!   Tomorrow is work again, and at this rate, I’ll be needing as much energy as I can get in order to face the challenges that await me!!

Stay warm and stay alive,

Aletheia