Faith and Comfort: At Odds.

I've recently been going through some 'uncomfortable' times. What I mean is that most aspects of my life are not cooperating with my plan. For instance, we want to sell our house in February, but we can't really pay the bills right now, much less afford a new water heater and about $2,000 worth of other work that has to be done first. Consistently, every time we think we're getting ahead, something comes up. Which leads to my health as of late. Now, if I didn't know better, I'd say I've had some bad luck lately. Thanksgiving day, I learned of yet another side effect of the Clomiphene treatments and my Polycystic Overian Syndrome (PCO, PCOD, or PCOS) 'affliction' (lol, maybe I'll just start referring to the PCOS as "my affliction"). That nifty side effect is that you are more prone to injuring a certain back muscle called a sacroiliac. Which I did. Please see previous posts as to the wonderful joy that experience was. As my back was healing, I got the sniffles, a minor cold. Being smart lil' ol me, I took Zicam "at the first sign of my cold!" and indeed, the cold wasn't debilitating. Annoying, but not true "miserable cold" status. It was starting to get better when suddenly I noticed that my nose stayed stuffy and my head was getting more congested. Then, on my overnight shift that I pulled last night (hooray for being up 27 hours straight! And being at work for 22 of it!), it got worse and I got a nosebleed. Over the next eight hours, I had about fifty chronic nosebleeds. At one point, I got sick of messing with it and just let the dumb thing bleed while I worked. By the time I got home at about eight this morning, though, I thought my head was going to blow up. I started thinking I might have to go to the doctor and get antibiotics (which I can't afford), because this is an infection and not a cold anymore. I hit the sack about 9:30am, thinking I'd get up around 1:00 or so (I want to be able to sleep tonight) and get some stuff done (go to the post office and the bank, namely). I woke up at five as the sun was setting and the bank and post office were closing. Oops. Oh, well. So anyway, Shawne came over and said she was going to Los Amigos (our most favoritest Mexican restaurant, mmmm). And seeing as how I just got a side job, my husband and I tagged along and had an awesome meal. Probably shouldn't have, seeing as how I'll be paying off doctor bills for the next forty years. Anyway. We got ready to leave, and Andy was driving (in my defense of what happens next, I'm like never on the passenger side of my Jeep, okay?) I went to get in and was in mid sentence when, wham! (it might've been more like a blam! or maybe ka-boom!) I slammed my left knee sideways on the corner of the dash. My kneecap stayed in place while the rest of my leg moved. Something popped, and it felt like a guitar string broke in my knee. I recoiled and spun, which put my left foot on the ground. At this point, my kneecap slid out of place. I realized what was happening and shifted my weight onto the other foot, then grabbed my knee. Let me just pause here for a moment. If you've never dislocated anything, and I mean fully dislocated and the joint has to be put back where it's supposed to be, then you just don't know. I've broken a couple of bones, had a concussion or two, been kicked in the face, sliced with a knife, and had a red-hot peice of metal held on my arm. Dislocating my kneecaps (which I've done a ridiculous amount in my lifetime) is the worst. I actually passed out in the ambulance the last time I did it, just from the pain. Now, back to my story. So I'm standing there in the parking lot, hopping around on one leg, making incomprehensible noises and alternating that with profanities (this was one of those times when my mouth moved without my brain's permission) as I pound the side of the Jeep with my fist. My husband, being the caring individual that he is, immediately burst into laughter. Not just laughter. He's lucky he didn't bust something. Jerk. I tried to move my knee and it brought tears to my eyes. I finally got in the Jeep, and every movement to do so made me cry out, and I was, at this point, crying like a baby. I tied my knee up with a Superman hoodie, shut the door with another grunt, and we went home as the muscles around my knee twitched and jumped. I jokingly told my husband later that he's racking up those awful life experiences with me. He's now seen my claustrophobia at its worst (I onced looked at him in mid-flight and said "GET ME OFF THIS PLANE!"), he's seen me totally freak out when a doctor unexpectedly sprung bloodwork on me, and tonight, he saw me in enough physical pain to make me cry. In his defense, he stopped laughing when he realized how hurt I was. :) So now, I'm sitting here, with a useless, swollen knee, hobbling around on crutches, can't breathe because of the sinus infection, and I start thinking about something Tally said a while ago on a Sunday morning. He told a story about something he'd been through that week and he said:

"Now, if my faith was dependant on my level of comfortableness, my faith would've been pretty shaken right then."

Tonight I've realized that I'm at the point where, although I'm far from perfect, I feel as though I have been tested and, for once, I'm passing. What I mean is that as uncomfortable physically and financially as I am, my faith remains unchanged. I'm just not worried. Sure, it crosses my mind: how are we going to pay for this, how will this be possible? But the fact is, at the end of the day, I'm not panicking and I know it'll work out, somehow. I do what I can, I cut corners and work extra hours and try to sell more classes, and after that, it's all about faith. Faith that the bills will get paid, that the classes will sell, that Andy gets cars that need to be fixed and I get dogs that need to be trained, and faith that generosity will be rewarded over becoming tightfisted and greedy.

I sell a certain item on eBay, and I pay about $6 for each item, which then will sell for about $20. Occasionally, the bidding only reaches about $12.00 or so. It's not a lot of profit, but if I can sell a few of those a week, it's a little extra money here and there. Ebay has an "eBay GivingWorks" option, where you donate a portion of the proceeds to a non-profit of your choice. I decided to try it, then found that the minimum donation amount is $5.00. I asked myself, can I afford to give away the little bit of profit I make? No. I did it anyway. Since being listed with the little ribbon icon, they have sold for $30-40. See? Told you my God rocks. :)

So, what have I learned today?

1. My faith is not dependant on how comfortable I am. My God is still my God, even when life is harder than we'd hoped.

2. I'm a long way off, but my faith is starting to trickle through even the most stubborn aspects of my life. Tonight as my mouth was letting loose a string of profanities, my brain finally caught up. Unable to think of anything equally appropriate and less profane, I settled on growling noises. Yeah, I still screwed up. I always will. But even in the midst of that much pain, my brain halted the old ways and kicked into control mode.

3. Toe socks are quite comfy. They will likely become my new obsession. ;)

And now, since you've read this far, do me a favor and say a prayer that I didn't tear or rip any tendons or ligaments. That's really the biggest worry right now.