a new beginning...

12 days of packing.  2 days of driving.  4 days of camping out in an empty house.  6 days of unpacking.  A new life in a new town.  Priceless.

However, somehow I didn't manage to leave me behind with everything else.

Today, I made yet another mistake with my banking/bills.  It was a grievous one that will cost me more than the already high fees assessed this day since I cannot put money back into the account until Thursday due to the restrictions of an Internet savings account.  The advantage of that higher interest rate was wiped out in one fell swoop.

For well over a year, maybe two...the irony is that I cannot remember...I have been making mistakes with my bills.  I have paid bills twice. I have not paid bills.  I have online bill pay and a reminder system.  I work very hard to hold the bill in my hand and check and recheck as I enter it.  Yet I keep making mistakes.  Inexorably bigger ones.  Costlier ones.  I try to ask for help and mostly I get back that surely I do not need it.

Recently, I have been trying to explain to someone about not understanding and not being able to memorize.  To be sure I am misinterpretating, but the response seems a bit like you could if you wanted to or perhaps maybe it cannot be that bad.

It is.  That bad.  It is that bad.

This afternoon, before learning about the gross banking error, I was awash in despair over another type of error I have made.  I spoke with my ex-boss, childishly I guess, just wanting to talk with someone who actually likes me.  Not yet knowing about the problem I had created for myself, I asked her if, in good conscience, I should even apply for a job. 

I have, much to my immense pleasure, been able to volunteer with a mission in Africa, helping out with communications.  I know that I have made a contribution, though perhaps not as great as I could wish.  I know that I have multiple gifts and skills that would be of benefit to an organization or to a company.  I know that if I were teaching again, I could do a good job and would have very little of the problems I have due to its more flexible schedule.  But I need help.  I need someone to help me work out those helps.  And I need someone to help make sure those helps are still helping.

Sometimes--even though I have said this many, many times here--I feel as if I am screaming at the world and no one is listening.  And with each passing day I grow more terrified at what I see inside my head.  At what I spend most of my energy masking, hiding.

All that testing and I couldn't even get a timely appointment to discuss it.  I have to gather the data and take it to a new doctor.  To start all over.  To try asking for help yet another time.

I suppose, after two weeks of good things, I should not be surprised to have such a hard day, one that went from bad to worse to horrendous.  I suppose I should not grow upset that the new beginning I had wanted is not exactly the new beginning God is giving me.  I suppose I should give thanks for the glory of this cross. 

I need help with that.


Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!