Did I hear, or did I not?
For a moment there, I thought I'd permanently lost my sense of humour.
Granted, there's nothing funny when the mechanic tells you your car repairs will cost $1,050 if you really want to get them done. There's even less funny when it's $1,050 you don't have. And it's least funny when your father and one of your uncles start in on you...
"Told you to save money, didn't I? But you just think I'm being long-winded and making a lot of noise. See what happens when you don't save money? The problem with you is that you're not wise in your spending... No need to buy all those unnecessary things! And not only do you spend, you OVER-spend. How can your salary not be enough? What happened to all your money?" And so on, so forth.
Anybody who has been following the story of my life knows that money is a big issue with Dad, so it's a rather sensitive subject with me. I was sitting in a friend's car, talking on the phone with Dad (or rather having Dad talk on the phone to me) and tears just started streaming down my face. My friend a poor hapless male panicked. "Are you crying?" he asked, sounding worried.
The worst part was wondering if God was saying the same thing they were saying, y'know? "I TOLD you to save money. You always buy unnecessary things, you're not wise in your spending, you spend money like water..." I was hearing other things too, things nobody said: "What's wrong with you? Can't you get even this simple thing right? You are such a disappointment. This is all your own fault!"
It was my car air-cond that died. I'd been going around without air-cond for about 4 weeks, driving with my windows down, arriving at destinations sticky and dusty. But my worst fear was that it would rain, forcing me to put the windows up, and the windscreen to fog up. It's been raining almost every evening recently, you see. The fogging up thing happened at least once, too.
So I decided I would have to have it done, got my uncle (Dad's bro, which explains their similarities) to take a look at the thing. He told me my compressor was not running, which could mean the compressor was spoilt, a fuse had blown or the wiring was faulty.
I was already worried about cost I knew repairs could come up to a few hundred dollars, but I didn't allow myself to think they could reach to a thousand... As I started flapping and telling God, "I can't afford even a few hundred dollars. I don't know how I'm going to pay for this. Please don't let it be expensive because I don't have the money," I thought I heard God say, "I'll take care of it," but as Randy Brandt will understand, I wasn't sure if it was my own imagination conjuring that up. I mean, you have to admit that it was exactly something a person in a situation like mine would have liked to hear.
When I heard the "diagnosis" (compressor was leaking & would need to be replaced) and the cost, my heart felt faint within me and to think I always thought that was merely a literary phrase! The first thing I said to my uncle was, "Tell him (the mechanic) not to do it. I don't have the money to pay him, anyway."
But my uncle asked if I wanted to consult Dad, so I did. Now, you have to understand that, like Bene Diction, I don't like asking anybody for anything. When it comes to asking Dad for money... well, let's just say that at one time I would have died rather than ask.
Our relationship's a little different now, though. Before I went to Korea, Dad actually asked whether I needed an "interest-free loan", in case I didn't have enough money when I was over there. He said, "If you need anything, just yell." I figured this would be a good time to "yell".
The upshot of it is that my uncle paid, and I now owe him $1,050. It was a Saturday and the banks were not open, so impossible for Dad to send me the money anyway. I felt totally discouraged; I'm trying to get out of debt, but it seemed I was just getting deeper and deeper into the mire.
All of that pretty had me in the dumps the whole of Saturday. My sense of humour went AWOL, and I snapped at aforesaid male friend when he tried to crack lame jokes in the hopes of making me feel better! (Word to the wise: Lame jokes sound even worse to a person who's upset, ok?)
The next morning I was so depressed I didn't even want to get out of bed, and so missed church. (Bad girl!)
Well, this afternoon, I withdrew some money from the ATM machine. I looked at the balance amount printed on my withdrawal slip. I blinked. I looked again. I rubbed my eyes. I looked again.
I called Dad. "Did you put money in my bank account?" I asked. "No," he said, "I figured I'd let you stew a bit and learn a lesson." (Is it any wonder I'm always wondering if God will help me, or if He wants me to "learn a lesson"... *sigh*) And I don't think the money was from my company either, coz it's nowhere near payday and I haven't made any extravagant expense claims ever.
Sooooo... remember I thought I heard God say, "I'll take care of it"? Now I'm wondering if I could have avoided all that nonsense just by checking my bank account balance on Saturday. Of course, I didn't think of doing that, because I wasn't expecting a sudden infusion of cash from anywhere. And Dad said this afternoon, "Don't be too happy about the extra money if the bank made a mistake, they'll take it right out again, you know!"
Sometimes I wonder about this faith stuff. I wish God's ways were less mysterious...