Believe...

That crazy weird neuropathy is driving me NUTS!  Never mind the burning, stinging electrical pain running down the inside of my arms past my wrists to my fingertips. When you feel something like a static shock, you tend to jerk your hand away.  So, I have to constantly keep myself from jerking my hands away.  Plus, when I am scrolling in my laptop, my fingertips jerk against the mousepad and I end up clicking on things I'd rather not.  This is just ... too much.

I continue to feel so very STUPID about the phone.  I mean, I know I wouldn't have known about the service coverage if I didn't try, but I just think that if I had done better research I could have learned about the importance of having a phone optimized to the service you choose.  It really is best to have a phone sold by that service because you have the best antennas for that service ... or so it seems by my two attempts to use the SIM free phone.

What I do know is that with Sprint I had no problems talking on my phone wherever I needed.  The data was not the best, but I don't need data all that often.  I haven't used more than 1GB a month.  Mostly, I keep my long rides on the data train for whenever I am on a wi-fi network.

So, $115.23 later, I have ended up trying to get service back with Sprint and getting a phone through them, having lost my phone number in this process.  SIGH.  I cannot get the $56 for Straight Talk back.  I am hopeful $25 of the $26.75 for the T-Mobile SIM card might come back through an account credit on my friend's bill.  But the $32.48 for the booster doohickey that was not supposed to be charged to my card, it turns out, doesn't seem to be coming back to me because the only way to refund the deposit part ($25 ... the salesman did not tell me about the other $7.48) is through an account and I don't have an account with T-Mobile.  It should have gone on my friend's account, but it didn't.  SIGH.

So. Very. STUPID.

It is my fervent hope that the Sprint phone comes before Monday because I have to send the Apple phone back.  I don't want to be without a phone at all.  SIGH.

This past week, I have deeply missed having a landline.  Firewood Man left on a trip this morning, but last night he stopped by to bring me some wood so I could enjoy a fire as the weather cools in the near future.  Being the merciful man that he is, Tim stayed for a long while to be my landline so I could try to figure out the problem with Straight Talk (I need a Straight Talk phone basically to make the voice mail work).

It struck me, then, just how much Tim does for me, helping when and where he can.  We are not family.  We are not really friends.  But he helps me as if I were both.  I mean, he is a service man for me, but he also does things like bring me wood for the first truly cold nights.  And, a couple of weeks ago, he fertilized my yard for me, knowing that some GREEN grass would do my heart some good.  my yard is GREEN now!  There is some grass seed growing where he finally got a chance to remove the mound of dirt left over from the excavation work on the sewage line in February 2016.  No more grave in my yard!  Anyway, I guess you can say that he's claimed me as his neighbor.

Such goodness God has brought to me through that man.  The interesting part, to me, is that Becky found him for me.  The first man I had bringing me firewood was ... cruel.  He would leave me feeling wretched.  Becky finally stepped in and told me that I didn't have to take such behavior from the person bringing my firewood.  She went looking on Craigslist in my area and found Tim.

I think I've said this before, but Tim stopped selling firewood.  He chops trees for himself and for me, telling me I can have as much as I want.  So. Very. Blessed.

I know that God has blessed me through my friends, the ones who have stuck with me despite the illness and the misery and the spiritual anguish.  Despite my utter brokenness.  I know that.

But do I believe?

I doubt that every day.  Every. Single. Day.  Not looking to my faith as evidence of faith, but questioning what is it that I believe.  Do I believe that Jesus is the Son of God?  Yes.  Do I believe He died to save the world?  Yes.  Do I believe that He died for me?  Honestly, no.  What could possibly cover my past?  What could possibly cover the utter hatred I have for my body?  What could possibly cover the doubts I've been struggling with ever since I stopped ... being able to keep hidden all the things of my past?  What could possibly cover the deep and abiding fear that leaves me quaking in my very soul?  What belief have I that atones for such filth, such hatred, such doubt?  SIGH.

My dear friend Mary listened to me bewail my misery and fear today and tried to speak the Gospel to me.  I think she said that Jesus died for the futility of the world.  And so He died for the futility I see in my life.  I think that was the word ... futility.  I love words.  It is something that we share between us, something that I cherish.

Sitting here, writing this, I thought of another word:  fragility.  Did Jesus die for the fragility of the world?  Did He did for my fragility?