Gifted

11:24am and I am already to take a nap. I was up at 6am to help take my nanny kids to school. Now that I've come to have a more "dependable" vehicle, I can do that. I arrived on time @ 6:45am and even had time enough to play a game of Sorry! with the 6 year old before shoes were put on, lunches and book  bags grabbed and all the children piled into my car for school. 

Flat tire. Story of my life.

Fortunately enough, a 24:7 intern is staying at their house and she kindly offered the keys to her vehicle and the children were turned into the office for tardy slips only 5 minutes past the first bell. *sigh*
It was then back to my stranded car to change to the spare and return home in time for class. 

Missing tire iron. Of course. The intern didn't have a tire iron either. 

With phone calls and neighbor men who came to the rescue, I had my not-entirely-inflated doughnut on by 10am and was able to drop it off at a place that can fix it. I'm quite blessed to have a roommate who didn't mind coming to my rescue and letting me take her car home in exchange for me dropping her off at class. 

Car Chronicles of Fern. In the last 12 months I've had:

Broken serpentine belt in the Kia. 
Transmission fluid leak in Kia. 

*switched out for Buick*
Broken hood latch in the buick
Broken power steering oil pump in buick
Broken windshield in buick
Stuck latch on drivers door in Buick

*Switched out for dodge caravan*

Leaking water pump
blown heat sensor fuse
broken coolent fan
Coolent leak
Transmission computer communication failure
Shot transmission altogether

*Switch for Cadillac*

Flat tire. 
Missing tire iron
Cracked Windshield
Front doors don't lock and I've already had the car ransacked.


*sigh*

Such is my life I suppose. 

I don't have much to complain about. I mean, I'm a privileged American girl with all the opportunities a person could ask for in life. I'm blessed with more than I could ever hope and so non-dependable cars shouldn't upset me too much, right? 

However, there's something about being stuck on the side of the road hundreds of miles from my brothers and father with no resources and lack of muscles that makes one feel especially helpless. 

Or maybe vulnerable is more the word. 

A good friend and I had a great talk about being single last night. The whole thing with be content in the single years. We've both found it to be quite easy for the most part, but the thing is, when a guy pops up on the radar, one isn't quite so content any more. She was asking me how one goes about being content even when there is a potential out there. Ha.. well, I don't really know about that. I was very terrible at being content in the months that there was a guy on my radar and I continued in singleness and then I was very terrible at keeping surrendered to God in the months/years that I had been in a relationship with radar guy. 

In the last few months as I have been re-adjusting to single life, I have been more content and satisfied than I ever was. But I think that more has to do with all the healing the Lord has done in my heart and also the fact that there has been no man to distract me from the satisfaction in my relationship with the Lord. 
The only times I've really been aware of being single are the times I've been stranded on the side of the road alone. And it's not that I want a man to fix my problems or anything like that, I'm quite capable of dealing with them better than more guys I know, it's more the idea that it would be nice to have someone to even care that I often have to sit in the dirt on the side of the road and wait for a man stranger to come along and offer help. But that's just personal preference I guess. 

My friend, who was asking about being content on account there might be a man pursuing her, asked also about the gift of singleness. She named one of our friends who is absolutely beautiful and, while she has been pursued by some of the most eligible men in our college ministry, still chooses to be single and devote her entire life to doing the Lord's work, especially in international ministry. She is one who is happy to stay single and would move over seas to do the Lord's work and be perfectly content to be single the rest of her life. 

I've talked with her too. It's not that she doesn't have a desire in her heart for marriage or children, she does. But right now, she is content to do what she's doing now and accept those things when the time is right. 

I think I have quite come to realize that people view the "Gift of Singleness" as something that it is not. I think in a lot of Christian circles, "The Gift of Singleness" is one having the ability to be okay being single. To be content and satisfied and without desire for a life partner. 

No. It's not that. I've quite come to learn that the gift of singleness is the precious time  you are given as a single individual. The gift of being able to serve without having to sacrifice time with your significant  other. 
The gift of being all there in the ministry and not be wishing to be somewhere else or with someone else. 
The gift of not having your day ruined because you didn't get a text asking how your day was. 
The gift of have every Friday night open for girls nights or prayer nights or sleepovers. Every weekend opened for what ever you want. It's the gift of being able to stay mingling around in your group of friends after worship ends rather than having to rush out and take a phone call or make a skype date. The gift of being able to spontaneously go hangout with your Kalona brotherhood with out having to explain it later. It's the gift of being able to have your guy friends up the street over for supper and a game night for no other reason than to enjoy their friendship. 

The gift of singleness is not a skill. It is not a skill of marriage is it? No, it's a gift of marriage. So being single is not a skill, it's a gift. (Trust me.. it doesn't take any skill to be single). As far as being satisfied being single, that's the trick of it all. After all, since singleness is a gift, one should not look sadly at the gift the Lord has placed in our own hands and look longingly at the gift the Lord placed in the hands of our non-single friends. As it is, the Lord has great plans for you with the gift he gave you. Don't insult Him by spitting on it and wishing for something different. Don't think you know what you need better than he does. Don't think that your own efforts to exchange your gift for another will be successful.

Even as I write that, the Holy Spirit has brought to mind Ephesians 1:3 " Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ"

EVERY spiritual blessing. Gifted with everything the Lord could want for us. 

So, maybe my car issues aren't always seen as blessings to me when I'm alone and covered in dirt and car grease and a couple hundred miles away from home, but, I do feel incredibly loved when one of my guy friends offers to try to fix it or does fix it. I have the gift of being loved through acts of service. I have the gift of somehow being taken care of, even a hundred miles from home. Some how or other, I always end up back home in my bed under my quilt with Bible verses printed all over it. 

So, I'm thankful. I'm thankful for the blessings the Lord has given me and I shall try to remember them when life's inconveniences try to slow me down a little.