I wanted to share something else today and maybe I will get to it later but this is what I have to say for now.

Let me make it clear, from the start, that I am never mad at people who don't want God. That is their God-given right (okay, sorry ). God will not force you; I will not force you.
Without accepting Christ as your personal Saviour, you have no basis with which to understand the Word. The Word came through Jesus, Who is the Word (John 1) incarnate. To try to use our feeble minds alone to understand just confuses the issue. I'm not saying that you don't have the capability of actually reading the words. I am contending that you don't have the spiritual discernment to understand what those words really mean. Since Jesus IS the Word, if you don't have Him inside of you, HOW, can you EVER expect to understand it?

If you believe that the Bible is fiction then we have no foundation with which to discourse. You will never convince me that it's not true. I am not going to even TRY to convince you, because I know that you have to at least have a mustard seed of faith to start with and without that, well............. I just don't know. Now, if one were willing to at least be open, and investigate with me, without the anger that apparently this commenter has, then we would have a common point with which to start.

As for the "prove God is real to me" part, I can't do that. "The just shall live by faith" and "It is impossible to please God apart from faith". I am typing so fast I don't want to stop to look up the references right now. So, if one is looking for an intellectual answer to something that must be accepted by faith, I am unable to help you.

The main reason that Eastern religion has found such a niche in America, particularly New England, is because it does not require faith. Christianity is based on the fact that when you accept Christ as your Saviour, He lives inside of you. Buddhism, which is the only Eastern religion I am familiar with, is based on the premise that God IS us. To believe that doctrine, you must believe that we are ALL gods. From that point, you WORK your way to nirvana by subjecting your soul, which is your mind, will and emotions, to the teachings of Buddha. They accept the teachings of others also. They believe that Jesus is a good teacher, a good man. That is what makes my family (my sisters) think that I am so dogmatic. Not because I voice my faith around them, hardly at all, only that I am firm in my stand that Jesus is the ONLY way and I will not entertain any other foolishness.

Jesus did not say about Himself that He was a just a good man and a good teacher. He said, "I AM". The Jews knew that only Almighty God was the I AM. That is one of the main things He said that incensed them so much that they made the decision to get Him crucified. He said, "I and the Father are ONE". He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. NO man comes to the Father but by Me".

If He is not what He said He was then He is a BIG, FAT LIAR. A good man does not lie. If one is going to accept Jesus' teachings (of which our society is full/ie. the golden rule) then you must at least consider that He might be Who He claimed to be.

If He isn't that, if He, in fact, WAS a big, fat liar, then His death was a tragedy and our faith is in vain. I am willing to take that chance. My faith, however, doesn't even feel like faith anymore. It is a knowing that goes deep into my soul and spirit. You can't take it away from me because you didn't give it to me. I believe that His death, as horrible as it was, and as much as I wish He did not have to go through that, was VICTORY. And, I believe that my faith in what He did has saved me. Now and for all time.

When I was originally searching for God, way back in my very early twenties, I was reading a Living Bible that my mother-in-law had given me for Christmas. It was a really nice one. Red, padded cover. Pictures! After putting the babies down for a nap each day I would settle myself and start randomly opening and reading. I wanted God. I wanted Him bad. I knew what His name was too, Jesus. I prayed, I cried, but I felt like my prayers were bouncing off some imaginary plexiglas ceiling back at me. I read, mostly OT stuff, I don't know why. I got so frustrated. One day I cried out in frustration, "Jesus, if You are real, come down here, RIGHT NOW, right in my living room, and show Yourself to me!" I look back now, shake my head and think, "the nerve of me!" Just like my commenter, just like Forrest Gump's Army buddy who lost both of his legs. They are out on the shrimp boat when the big storm comes up. He is at the top of the mast, shaking his fist in God's face, basically yelling something to the effect of, BRING IT ON, BIG GUY! Not quite the same, but sort of.

Do you wanna know what happened? The first verse I saw when I looked down was a verse from Deuteronomy that said, "Do not test the Lord your God". Yikes. I could feel my face getting hot. I closed the book and sat in stunned silence. I didn't go back to my Bible for a few days.

Eventually, as I kept studying, I came upon Romans 7. When Paul cried out, "I don't do what I know to do, and I do what I know not to do, oh wretched man that I am" I cried too. THAT WAS IT. All my questions were summed up in that verse. I was a sinner and I knew it. Wanting God, even with all my heart, was not enough. I HAD wanted Him. I wanted Him with all the strength I possessed. I sought for Him. What I needed someone to tell me, and nobody did, maybe because I was "such a nice person", a good wife, a good mom, is that I was a sinner. If someone had actually said the word I would have believed it though. I knew what was in me. The bitterness, the insecurity, the pain. Just because I knew how to cover it up; just because I was raised to put on the society face, didn't mean I didn't know the truth. When I read that verse in Romans, all by myself, out on my back deck that beautiful August day, I nodded. Yep, that's me, Paul. You hit the nail right on the head.

While I can look back and track Gods movement in my life from an early age, it was not until this point that the veil was truely lifted from my eyes and I began to truely understand.

Salvation begins with repentance. Everything with God begins with repentance. With the realization that you are a sinner and you need someone to save you from your wicked ways. Don't tell me you don't have some. I won't believe you and the discussion will end. That doesn't mean I won't be friends with you, cook dinner for you or drive you somewhere if you need me to. That just means that in the area of faith, I have nothing left to say. "He who says he has no sin calls God a liar".

Repentance doesn't mean you instantly become perfect. It just means that you have turned. You have turned 180 degrees and have started walking another way. God never said His way would be easy. He never, not anywhere in the Bible that I have read to date, has said that. In fact, He said, "Hard is the road and narrow is the way and few there are that find it". LJ says that her life was hard before, her life is hard now, there is no difference.

Amen, honey. I think Amber would agree with you too. Rain falls on the just and the unjust.

When my young friends, who are just starting out in the world and are finding it hard, come to me to complain, I help them where I can, but at some point I have to tell them, "Life is hard and then we die. That's all. Life is hard for the Christian and life is hard for the non-Christian. The difference is that the Christian knows the One he can cast his burdens on and he knows that when he dies he is going to heaven. The non-Christian doesn't have that Comfort or that hope" If you don't like that word, I'm sorry, I don't have anything else for you. Someone else might be able to give you some other hope; I know of none.

I identify with Theophilieous in his drunkeness. I have known it without ever being a drinker. It is the joy of the Lord, manifest in us. This is what LJ is missing out on. My husbands grandfather, a Methodist minister, used to write hymns back in the 1930's. I have one of the original copies of the song book that was made of them. Only one little ditty made the big time, by far not one of his greater works. Every kid that ever went to VBS has sung this song though. My jazz musician friends even surprised me with a jazzy version of it one night at a youth function. I knew this song before I ever met my husband. The song is, "I've got the joy,joy,joy down in my heart". The joy of the Lord knows no denomination, no rank or file. He is no respecter of persons. That joy is for the ones that persevere through the pain, through the bitterness, through the doubt, and come to a place of faith. Amen, Theo. Cheers!

My fast has been coming on for months, I have felt it. Nagging, gnawing, encouraging. Is it the season? Is it the circumstances of my life that grip my spirit and force me to face God in a new way? Is it God alone? The One Who hungers for my presence more even than I do for His? The Lover of my soul who imprisons me, not with His force, God forbid He ever need it, not with His firm hand, but with His gentle Voice. Oooo, it is so gentle. He knew when He made me, the tenderness I would need. It was not fear of hell that drew me to Him, although I would have come for that reason. It was His love that caught me, stopped me dead in my tracks, and melted me with it's softness. No one preached to me. No one chased after me the way some Christians do, standing in the square, preaching a divisive gospel that does not resemble the sweetness of the Sermon on the Mount. God, Himself, came after me, whispering, wooing, embracing.

Which is it? It is one, it is all. It is the season, I think, because it is winter, a time of deadness, leading slowly, ever so deliberately into the light and warmth of spring. It is, too, the circumstances of my life, because each time there are unanswered questions, to big for my mind to grasp, that weigh on me, dragging me in to a pit of my own despair. It is, likewise, God, and Him alone, Who draws me into this thing. Not out of a desire to hurt me, but out of great longing to correct me, realign my heart with His, draw me into His consuming fire, melting away the dross, changing me into the image of His perfect Son.

I embrace and I dread this fast. On my first, I entered haphazardly, unwittingly, out of great desperation. On my second, I entered with great excitement and anticipation, knowing the hardships, knowing the reward. On this, my third, I have no excitement or anticipation. I have only the hopeful desperateness to spur me on. Rogets would call those two words antonyms. The spirit knows they are not. I have only this knowing, that if I don't I am stuck, if I do I will gain. So, I leave that as my motivation. To get unstuck and to gain.

Having done this before I know what I can expect and what, for good and for bad, I will go through. Having done this before I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it will be good and that God will teach me many things. Having done this before, I know that each time is new. The experience may be similar but the teachings are always new. Having done this before I know there will be moments of trial, moments of uncertainty, moments when I think I can't go on. When I am at the end of myself.

I also know that these are just moments, teeny spaces of time, very small and widely spaced. Yet, they are the moments that can make or break the fast...for a day, for good. Knowing this now, remembering it day by day, does make it easier. It does. It's not unexpected. Knowing this however, I still know that it is never easy. Never. This is not like a forced starvation where one has no choice. Each day is filled with choice after choice after choice. Choices come in moments of strength. Choices come in moments of despair.

I do not demean some of the wonderful, spiritual men, usually pastors, who have told me about their forty day fasts. Their words have encouraged and uplifted. Yet, in every case, without exception, they have marked a section of time to fast and pray, maybe even go to the woods, by the lake. They have their books, their work. I'm not saying that isn't hard; I know it is. But they do not have to cook. They do not have to feed. To a man, they were not the primary caretakers of the home. I have nine children, six still living at home. I have a husband with a metabolism like few. He needs food to live, every 2-3 hours, if you please, and eats voraciously even in his middle age. I have fed him a full breakfast, lunch and dinner, and been overwhelmed to see him order a large pizza for an evening snack and devour all but the two pieces he left for me. I have to make dinner for 7-10 people on a nightly basis depending on who is home, depending on what straggler may have snuck in with the familiar. This is the number that most people would feed when having company, not on a daily basis. It does not just require cooking either. There is the planning, the shopping, the thinking about what to make for dinner right after breakfast is served. The cooking must be done at the most vulnerable time of the day for me. I'm tired, I feel empty, so empty. The smell of food wafts over my mind making me feel like I will lose it.

Yet, it is those moments when God's faithfulness is most apparent. All it takes is a whispered plea, a soft cry, a small "oooo" under one's breath, that no one hears but my Love, my Life. He speeds His Comforter, and I am comforted. Even though this time is easier, at least mostly, I know I need my Comforter to help me just as much as I ever have. I know there will be times I will cry out in hunger, I already have, in frustration, yes, incompetence, always, just as before. Food, sleep, sex, are the only real God-given physical comforts. When you eliminate food from your life you eliminate it's ability to help your brain find it's comfort from the strivings of the day, from the anxiety that binds it to it's will. Food is soothing to body and mind. Food is God's Prozac and it doesn't require a prescription. Without that crutch, I become all-dependent.

I will press on. I must stay away from discouragement in all forms. My motivation must stay clear. Like glass just cleaned, like the ringing of the church bell.

As mornings pass into endless days, as evenings blur into one long night, it is important, I have discovered, to be sure what is driving me, and to keep it before my eyes. As my clothes begin to hang around me, as has already started, I must not dwell on that. If I do all is lost. The carnal shall not overtake the spirit. The task is too daunting. The work is too hard.

I set the CD player to Third Day-Wherever You Are. I turned it up really loud. Loud enough so that even a teenager would probably tell me to turn it down. My older son, who was home, didn't, but then again he knows me and likes it loud too. I got my pen and paper (critical, in case you have to write something down while you're praying). I sat down opened my Bible and just started praying in my prayer language. For those of you who may not know what a prayer language is I will go into that later.

I used to have trouble with prayer. When you can't actually SEE who you are talking to and can rarely hear anything resembling an audible word, it makes it very difficult to focus for very long. For a visual learner like me, it can be impossible. Praying in a prayer language makes praying God's Will a given.

Basically, you are allowing the Holy Spirit to pray through you, since the Holy Spirit knows God's Will and we, many times, don't. I can hear you already. If the Holy Spirit is God and He already knows God's Will, why doesn't He just do it and not expect us to pray about it?

My answer for that is that God not only CAN do good stuff for us, He even WANTS to do good stuff for us, but more than just doing good stuff He wants to have a relationship with us. If we don't want to bother with Him, why should He bother with us? I'm not saying He doesn't soveriegnly intervene at times but, if we go around berating Him, blaming Him for everything, living whatever stupid way we want to, what obligation should He have toward us?

Any parent should be able to understand that. Who wants to give birth to a child, take care of them, raise them for twenty years, just to have them only come to you after they leave to take advantage of them and only when they need money or something else so mundane? A good parent never stops loving their child, even in the face of rejection, but they may just get fed up at some point with being treated so badly and not allow themselves to be abused any longer. I have never known a parent yet that would not break down in love and compassion should said child come to them and repent for their actions. Isn't God the same way? He made the way, His name is Jesus, and if we reject it we have no one to blame but ourselves. Yet, if we come to Him, He will in no way cast us out.

What God wants, is for us, more than anything He could give us, to know Him the way He already knows us and to allow us, not just to watch Him perform mighty works, but to actually participate in them.

When we pray, whether in English, or by allowing the Holy Spirit to pray through us in our prayer language; when we fast, as a desperate effort to clear our mind and spirit, which is the main purpose that fasting serves anyway, we allow God to move through us to change things down here.

I don't presume on God, as if He is some cosmic bell-boy at my beck and call, when I ring the bell. Conversely, I do not beg Him as if He is a stern taskmaster that I have tremendous fear of. I come to Him, through Christ, Who is my only righteousness, as a loving Father who I know WANTS to do what I am asking of Him.

I know He wants Amber healed. I know because I understand the character of His love, but I also know because the Word, the Bible, is very explicit in this area. Some stuff is a little more nebulous. Not healing. It is God's will. We need to believe it just as much as we believe in His salvation.

As a fellow blogger has been sharing with me, he doesn't believe in God, at least the "Christian" version of God, because bad things happen to good people and that is just not right.

Okay, I give you that. Amber didn't deserve what happened to her. For anyone that saw the picture of her at ambernesbitt.blogspot.com they will understand why everyone here in New York is calling her the Sleeping Beauty.

She isn't just pretty physically. She has a light, His light, that just emanates from her. Why did God allow this? What POSSIBLE good could come from such a horrendous accident?

I don't have all the answers but I will tell you one thing. Revival has broken out all over the state of New York. Young people are on their knees like never before.

Amber was widely known for sharing at youth retreats and in various churches. She played her flute in various settings and it sounded like heaven's music coming from an angel. Word passed fast and people all over the world, her brother-in-law has e-mail from 20 different countries, are praying; alone, in small groups, in large congregations.

Like I said, prayer is not simply sitting and begging God to do what He has already promised to do. It is talking to Him, listening for answers, and getting to know Him more and more intimately. If Amber dies, which we are not believing for, she will be with the Lord.

Isn't that better, you may ask? Sure, but heaven doesn't need her right now. We need her. We need her love, her compassion, her sweetness, her voice, her flute. Someone else could do it, but who? People like Amber are few and far between. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all, the earth is dark and discouraging. We need Amber's light here. That is why I pray. That is why I fast.

We watched an old VCR tape of Lean On Me tonight. That is the only R rated movie I've ever allowed the kids to watch. It seemed much worse when it first came out. I love it though because in spite of some bad language and violence, it's a very socially redeeming movie. I highly recommend it. My favorite line from that movie comes during the scene where Joe Clark is in jail and all the kids from Eastside High are assembled outside. The mayor comes into his cell and tells him that he "has" to go out there and do something about it. That's when Joe Clark says: "I don't have to do nothin' but stay black and die!" I love that. I love to remember that whenever people try to manipulate, cajole, or downright intimidate you to do something.

I remind myself that I came into this world for one purpose and one purpose only and that is to serve God. "I don't have to do nothin' but serve God and die". If that means He tells me to scrub someone's toilet I will do that. I'll even do it happily. Even though I grew up with maids and cleaning women and didn't learn how to clean a toilet till I was nineteen years old, I think I can do it pretty well now. On the other hand, when someone tells you to clean the bathroom, "because that's women's work" or for some other equally inane reason, I look to the Lord Who stood mute before His accusers.

Because I tend to be a serving sort of person, like, I mean, I'm a person who gets pleasure out of helping people kind of person, and since I live in a town where "no one knows my name", so to speak, I didn't grow up here and they don't know my background because I never tell people here, they think they can treat me the same way they treat Joe Schmoe down the street.

It reminds me of the show where the skinny lady put on a fat suit to see how people would treat her. It's been like that for thirty years. This, or something similar to this happened to me twice. The first instance came from an 18 year old guy I knew from town who was on his way to the Marines after graduation. I had donated my services to the local Christian coffee shop which was a hangout for alot of the kids after Friday night youth group. I was involved with YG and we all went to this coffee shop after wards. Later I even managed to bring in some local musical talent at times, which increased the crowd even more, so the proprietor was quite happy to have me around. He offered me a job.

I told him that I cooked for enough people at home and didn't feel like doing it for a job. He didn't say anymore. I thought about it though and later I told him that I would work for him under one condition. I would clean. His bathroom was kind of gross and I didn't like the thought that we were all going there and using that room and it wasn't getting cleaned very well or at all. I'm not quite Monk, but I do have a certain revulsion to public bathrooms anyway, even if they are clean. He offered to pay me and I declined. I told him to keep track of my hours and whatever money I made could be my "tab". Whenever I came to socialize with the teenagers, I could order anything I wanted for myself and anyone I felt like treating.

He said, "alrighty then!" Yeah, he LIKED that arrangement. So, one night I came in to clean for a while when the place was closing up. This young man I knew was there waiting for his girlfriend to finish up. She was the counter help. I had my gloves and had brought an old toothbrush with me because in a previous attempt I couldn't get all the dirt out of some of the crevices. I figure if I'm going to do it at all, I'm going to do it right, right? He saw me with my rubber gloves and toothbrush and snidely made a remark about cleaning bathrooms being women's work.

Knowing he was leaving for Marine boot camp in about a month, I went up, right in his face, and he was a big kid, and with my sweetest smile and softest voice I waved the toothbrush in his face and said, "nah, this is boot camp work, buddy, boot camp work". Ahhh, that was soooo satisfying.

Believe it or not, he called me during the four years he was away and at different times asked me to pray for him. He got married while he was stationed on the other side of the country and when he was discharged he came home and immediately came right over to introduce me to his new wife.

Yep, cleaning toilets is a GREAT job.

"Open rebuke is better than hidden love."

The last time it was said to me was about three years ago. I was in a large church in our small town. The pastor isn't a bad fellow, just a little controlling. Okay, alot controlling. He knew about some of the spiritual giftings God has bestowed on me, mainly in the area of intercession and the prophetic, and thought that in my new forty-something security and confidence, that I was getting a little too big for my britches.

Ironically, people seemed to like me better when I was a whining, sniveling, complaining twit. Misery likes company, huh?

Okay, so, he had asked me to come to his office for a meeting. I did. He and I had had some problems previously so I wasn't surprised that I was being called on the carpet AGAIN! Anyway, he proceeded to tell me that my services were not needed in the church and that I would never be in any kind of ministry in "his" church again. Then he added, "well, except for cleaning toilets. I'll let you do that". I know he meant this as a slap in the face because, being a large church like it is, they have paid staff that do those sorts of things. He didn't really mean it literally, but I told him that would be fine.

I would have done it too, if he had really wanted and needed me to. What is it about guys, even Christian ones, that makes them feel this need to control a woman? To put her in her place. How do you offend a woman who just wants to serve God, even if it means cleaning your toilets?

Later, during a worship service, this same pastor was sitting across the aisle from me. I went up to him, right in the middle of the singing and hugged him. All 6 foot something of him. I gave him this huge smack on the cheek, and said, "I love you, Pastor".

I think I shocked him.

Well, ya think?

He stared dumbfoundly at me and stuttered, "uh, thank you".

Is it that hard to love people? I do love him. I really do. He is a great evangelist. He really knows how to preach a great sermon. He's not a bad person. He's just not a great pastor. That's a different anointing.

I told him once that I had a word from the Lord that involved him and me. He told me not to tell him the word. Later in the conversation I said, "Pastor, I really need to tell you what the Lord told me". Again, more emphatically, he said, "NO!" So, a little while later I told him the thing the Lord had said but just said this is "how I feel". He sat there nodding, completely agreeing with me. He accepted what I had to say as long as he didn't know it was the Lord speaking. If I had said, "Thus says the Lord God Almighty", he would have stormed out of the room.

You want to know what the word was? It was one morning when I was in the car driving for about an hour and a half. I had the worship music whacked up very loud. I was praying in the Holy Spirit and I heard the Lord. Not audibly, but it might as well have been. One of my big prayer requests at the time was 'why are you keeping me in this church?' (or this town for that matter).

The Lord spoke and said, "You and Pastor are in a dance."

What?

"You don't want to dance with him and he doesn't want to dance with you."

Okay, that sounds more like it. Why?

"He doesn't want to dance with you because he doesn't think you will follow his lead".

Yeah.

"You don't want to dance with him because you are afraid he'll step on your toes."

Yikes.

If that ain't a word from the God Who knows all and sees all, I don't know what is. We aren't at that church anymore for reasons that actually don't even have to do with me, but we are still in this town. I don't know why, since I have begged God and my husband to move.

I don't really care anymore. God has answered almost every other prayer I've ever had....amazing things. But not this one. So, I figure if God has a reason for me to be here, He'll work it out and I have accepted it.

"All that matters is faith working itself out in love" Gal. 5:6.

That's all.

We've been visiting a Baptist church in a town near our cottage whenever we are out there. It's not exactly a dancing in the aisle kind of church; in fact, no one even raises their hands in worship and when we come in, we bring the only teenagers in the place. I haven't been told, but I am fairly certain that they don't move in the gifts, or if they do, nobody is talking about it. I stay in the order of the service and don't rock any boats.

One evening at a service we attended this dear old woman came up to me and whispered, totally out of the blue, "Some of us are attending a Holy Spirit revival meeting". I was so stunned I nearly fell over.

When I recovered, I looked at her and said, slyly, "There's gonna be some changes going on around here!"

You know what though? Changes or not they love us there. They REALLY love us. They care when we come and they send cards; I mean, personal cards, not some computer printout, to us when we're not.

That's all I'm looking for.

Love.

Real love.

Unconditional love.

Man, there's nothin' like it.

It's like a drug.

The Christian drug.

I've been known to lay myself down like a doormat for it. I grew up in the country club.

If I want to be around arrogant people I know where to find them. When I gave my heart to the Lord thirty years ago, what attracted me was the humility of the Gospel. The servanthood of Christ. I dislike arrogance anywhere I see it; but in the Body of Christ it is particularly odious.

So, my fellow bloggers wherever you are, sleep tight tonight, know that God is watching over all of you, even if you don't believe it or care. Stay in the love of Christ. Stay humble. God resists the proud.

It is mid-Saturday afternoon. My stomach is so empty but my heart is so full. God has blessed me so much. If I reduce myself to complaining about the drab state of affairs in reference to New York State weather I will feel very ungrateful. In the nearby city that I grew up in (as opposed to the small hick, oops, I mean rural town I have lived in for thirty one years) they have a saying. If you don't like the weather, don't worry about it, it will change again in five minutes. That's pretty much true.

Winters are tough but not as bad as they were before I got my drivers license. I was 37. Fifteen years ago. It's a story about fear of failure. I'll just say that when I finally got it, the same day my oldest did (she was 16), something came off of me that I didn't even realize was there. As I was basking in the new found freedom and enjoying riding in a car by MYSELF for the first time in my life, whacking up the music really loud, and singing at the top of my lungs, I realized something was gone. Something that had hindered me all my life until then. Fear. It wasn't fear of driving. I actually learned how to drive when I was a teenager. The problem for me was my family of overachievers. I learned from an early age not to do anything unless I could it perfectly. My mother told me that I didn't walk until I was 16 mos. old. That's pretty late. Like worry about it late. She said the day when I finally walked I opened the front door and walked around the block! She followed me and I just kept going. I think it has been that way all my life. Everything I could do I always had a sister that could do it better, so I got to a point where it seemed kind of fruitless to try.

My mother was a nervous type (which is different from hyper) and after teaching three daughters to drive it seemed too much for her to teach me. She sent me to driver's ed and she would take me out on occasion but I gave up mostly because of her lack of faith in me. When I met my husband at 17 he took me out in my parents car (not his Mustang, for sure!) with my mother's blessing. After I turned out in a four lane highway in the wrong lane and he screamed, "GET OFF THE ROAD!" about three times, that did me in. He wasn't mad; just scared. He didn't want me to quit. Forget it. I don't need this! When I was twenty five, pregnant with number 3, husband decided I needed my license, like it or not. With stomach touching the steering wheel, in the midst of a messy March, husband and two kids standing on the corner watching and waiting (it was kind of a sad sight actually), I took my first road test.

Back then they didn't tell you right away whether you passed or not. You had to wait for the mail to bring the bad news. It came. I failed. The manuevers did me in. They also got me for "coasting", something you can only do if you drive a stick shift. I was so devastated that I told husband to leave me alone about it and never to bug me again.

When daughter number one turned 16, twelve years after the first try, husband worked up the nerve to broach the subject again. We took the written test together. I got a 95; she got 100. All day she went around whispering in my ear, "ahem, 100!" Brat. On the day we both took our road test she passed easily. I got in the car right after her. When I was done, the instructor proceeded to enumerate everything I got wrong. I put my head down and my hand over my face. Husband was watching and thought, "Oh no...." I kept repeating to myself, "I won't quit. I will try again." All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man stamp my permit "temporary license". I was so stunned that I couldn't process it. After being very stiff and formal with me during the drive, he touched my arm before getting out of the car and said in a small, sweet voice, "next time, don't be so nervous". Humph, shows how much he knows.

Looking back it seems so clear. Who stops just because they failed once? The failure, and the refusal to try again, strengthened the stronghold. I became limited in so many areas of my life, not only because of my lack of mobility but because of the fear that if I tried something, anything, I might fail at it. Or not do it perfectly. I knew I was good with kids. I'll just do that, right? Now I know I can do more. And I'm doing it.

So, the happy end is that I did get my license, better late than never. Besides the freedom I gained from that experience, I lost the fear. An unholy fear. I've tried so many different things since then that I never would have attempted or thought myself capable of. Like I said, my forties was a growing up decade. So hard, yet so full. Full of new experiences, full of failure, full of success, full of rejection, full of love. Full of life.