Lessons in Materialism

I've been receiving some difficult lessons in materialism lately. With the new root canal and crown going in, money is super tight--way more than it's ever been before. We are cooking a lot at home, and have really had to cut back on our spending. I definitely do not get to buy new clothes or make-up or other nice things, which has been a lot more difficult than I like to admit.

God's way of teaching me that everything I own is His, not mine, is to bring me to the point of fear where I start envisioning all our household belongings, one by one, being stripped from us, to pay off debts and bills. I've read about that happening in books and I've seen it in movies. It might be a tad bit dramatic for a middle-class American, but boy, is it an effective lesson! I always end up crying, but after I cry and grieve, I find I've let go of all those belongings and entrusted my life back to God. It's sure not easy, but it's needed to break the hold all those things have on me.

That's just for me personally. Right now Stephen and I together are having a lesson in trusting God to provide for our needs. Another root canal and crown may be coming up for me, and we do not have the funds for it. Last year we were fortunate enough to get a large tax refund, but this year, our tax refund was quite small and has already been spent. We've signed up for a line of health credit, which we sincerely hope we don't have to use. We will use it if God doesn't provide the funds in other ways, but we're waiting to see what He does.

One of Stephen's favorite Bible verses to quote in tough times like this is a verse in Proverbs: "The horses are ready for battle, but the victory is the Lord's." He interprets it to mean that we should prepare in wise ways for times of financial difficulty, but ultimately everything is up to God. It's a tough line to walk.

We find out whether the second tooth is going to be a root canal on April 14th, when I go in for my 1st crown. The dentist is going into it as if it is simply a re-filling, but if he gets in there and it turns out my tooth's root is exposed, it's another root canal for me. For now we play the waiting game. And pray and hope.

In one small side-note--I had a job interview on Saturday! My first one in a year! It was with UPS--I just responded to a Craigslist ad, and they were holding all interviews the next day. It's just part-time and minimum wage. I find out at the end of the week what they decide. (More waiting!) That's all the news... Thanks for your prayers. A blessed Easter to you all.

One of my friend's Facebook statuses:
"As long as the tomb is empty, it doesn't matter as much about the milk jug, or the bank account, or the gas tank."

Wow, to have that kind of perspective! :)

Long Week.

What an interesting week it's been.

Yesterday Stephen and I took my car out to a nearby Blockbuster to rent Indiana Jones.  It was a 3-mile trip.  But when we pulled into the parking lot and parked, we noticed at the same time that my engine was steaming.

We got out to check on it and I got a crash course from Stephen on radiators.  Apparently there are these tubes throughout my engine that carry water.  The tubes carry hot, hot water to the front of the car (the radiator) so it can be cooled and taken back around the engine to keep the parts cool.  So if you hear or see steam coming from your car (we heard AND saw it), it means there's a hole in one of those tubes, and the steam from the hot water is escaping.

That's a bad thing, because it means that water (in the form of steam) is escaping out those tubes.  And if those tubes leak all the water out, there will be nothing to cool my engine down... And that could lead to any number of REALLY BAD things happening!

You learn something new every day.

We couldn't really do much at the time except let it cool off and then drive it back home to make an appointment with a mechanic tomorrow morning.  So we got our movie and drove home.  The car hissed again when we pulled up into our own parking space, although there was less steam. 

When we got inside, I discovered Stephen was under the impression that I was just going to stay home all week or however long I needed to until we got my car looked at.  Normally that would be easy; I usually stay home.  But it had to happen this week of all weeks.

"But...I have a root canal tomorrow at 12:30.  And counseling on Wednesday at 2:00.  And Melanie's at 3:30," I reminded him.

Counseling and Melanie's could slide or be canceled, but the root canal definitely could not.  I've been waiting on it since November, and we've been sitting on pins and needles, praying that the tooth would not get worse before January, when our insurance kicked in for the new year.  We had to get that tooth fixed!

So we had two options:

1) Stephen would try to get the morning off and take the car in tomorrow.  Or if that didn't work...

2) Tomorrow morning I would take Stephen to work, take his car to the dentist and back, and then pick him up from work.

He called his boss to see if it were possible to get the morning off.  She said that a guy who works with him had called in sick, so they needed Stephen there unless the guy could come to work the next morning.  But they wouldn't know until 7:00 the next morning when the guy came in or didn't come in.

So more waiting.  Maybe God's trying to give us some lessons in trust and patience. :)

The next morning Steve got up out of bed at about 7:20 and called into work.  The guy had, indeed, come in, so Stephen got the morning off and took my car to the auto shop.  I had to leave at noon--he told me that I could take his car if he wasn't back in time.  Nervous as that made me (I think I've only driven his car once), I agreed.  Didn't have a whole lot of other choice.

12:00 drew near and I started to get more nervous.  I tried calling Steve, but he had left his phone at home!  Then, at 11:35 or so, I heard my car horn honk outside our apartment.

I opened the door and watched Steve in anticipation as he climbed the stairs.

"So?  Did they get it fixed?"

"Nothing was wrong with it," Steve said.

"What?!  What'd they say?"

"They checked everything and said nothing was wrong.  They said the steam probably came from splashing in a puddle and getting water on one of the hot parts of the car.  And the hissing is the A/C decompressing, because apparently when you put your car on Defrost, it uses the A/C.  They charged me $50 to tell me nothing was wrong with my car, though."

Oy.  Oh well, at least it got a good check-up done! 

"So you can take your car to the dentist appointment," Stephen finished. "I've got to get to work myself."

So the car's fine, but it sure scared us.

I ate a bowl of cereal and some yogurt before I headed into my lovely dentist appointment, knowing from experience that I better eat something, or I'd be in a bad way after all the trauma in my mouth was done.  Have I mentioned this is my 4th root canal in my lifetime?

I have all sorts of mouth and teeth problems.  I think it's part genetic and part hygiene, but I signficantly improved my hygiene after getting that 3rd root canal done and intend to keep doing so, so this shall be a scientific experiment to prove whether it's genes or hygiene.

I swear this root canal was the longest 2 hours of my life.  I don't know if these tooth roots were particularly stupid or what, but in my other 3 root canals, the procedure was pretty straightforward:  drill a hole to the roots.  Clean out the roots.  Fill the roots.  The end.  This time the drilled forever, and then they kept alternating: drill, clean, drill, clean, drill, clean.  UGH.  Enough with the vibrating in my head!!  Finally they got out the clove oil, which I know is the end of the procedure.  And when they were just about done, the doctor said, "Oh, there's a bit of decay here."

More drilling.

On top of all this, I had a headache/neckache when I finally got to sit up, the doctor wouldn't tell me anything during the whole procedure, the hygienist wasn't that great of company either, and at the end of two hours the Novacaine was starting to wear off, so my poor mouth was feeling all the stress of having my mouth clamped open and my teeth drilled into and shoved all around.  :(

The one good thing I have to say was that, because they did this before the tooth got really bad, I didn't have two seconds of hellish pain like I did on those first two root canals, which were absess teeth.  There wasn't any pain like that at all; just a lot of aching.

After the root canal was finished, I went to see the general dentistry gal to fill in the tooth a little bit, in preparation for its crown.  (The guy who does root canals is called an endodontist.) Normally, I don't like to see her, but this time, her chattiness and high-pitched voice was a welcome relief after the silent torture of the endodontical procedure.  And the hygienist was a lot of fun too.  She and the doctor had an amusing conversation about hair color. :)

So out of the dentist chair, up to the payment desk.  I was charged $40 more than expected and given a detailed outline of all the costs for the root canals and the crowns, which sure didn't put Stephen's or my mind at ease about our financial state.  Luckily, upon returning home, I had a few responses to job applications, which I am going to check right now.

Hopefully the rest of this week won't be as stressful as these first two days have been. :P