God’s been doing a good job humbling me lately. Generally I hate it when he does that. You know, as I would be the most arrogant, prideful person around, when it comes right down to it.

First blessing hit me at 2am. I was exhausted, crabby, starving, PMSing, and just generally fried, and Max calls at 1:30am to talk about the state of the political world, including China, Korea and Russia. At the same time he’s thinking out loud in my ear, I’m alternately entering my tests into the computer and typing him an e-mail about how pissed off I am at him.

Okay, where’s the blessing? He gets frustrated with my continuous responses of “mmm hmmm” and says, “I shouldn’t bother you when you’re tired,” at which point I completely lost it. We both started sniping at each other, because we were both equally tired, and the conversation completely deteriorated into a discussion about what friendship looks like, and who was failing who. Finally, he decided to end the conversation, and I was near hysterics when I told him, “If you hang up right now, it’ll… it’ll be bad!” I felt like a girlfriend saying, “It’ll be over!” Max was like, “Honey, it’s already bad.”

Silence.

More silence.

I burst into tears. Justin had been to the ophthalmologist that day, and they had said that he was legally blind in his left eye. I’d received that news around 8:30pm and had shoved it down somewhere in the vicinity of my feet in order to ignore it and get through the evening. Suddenly, it was everywhere. So I’m sobbing uncontrollably on the phone, and Max is talking gently in my ear. He’s the only reason I could pull myself together enough to go to bed.

He’s truly a friend. No matter how much I bitch about him.

The next blessing was a beautiful blue sky and 60-degree temperatures when I woke up. Big, fluffy white clouds and an incredible breeze.

The biggest blessing of the day was that God listened to everyone’s prayers for me (including my own, begging and pleading) and made securities options completely understandable. They comprise 20% of the Series 7, and generally, if you don’t do well on options, you won’t pass the test.

God didn’t let me freak out at all, even though I was completely prepared to. He gave me scripture to read, and strength to make it through and be focused. It was amazing.

The next blessing was a silly little thing: I was starving and driving around the perimeter of St. Louis University’s campus searching for something to eat that was fast-food-ish and took credit cards. Yes, I know, the impossible. But! Right in front of me was a Crazy Bowls & Wraps, one of my favorite fast-food-but-not-really eateries ever. Life’s excitement truly is in the little things.

The super-cool blessing was that Javier showed up at 9:15pm for rehearsal! He is such a cool guy - a real sweetie. While he and two other members of the band were there, he debuted a song he’d written that day, and within a half-hour, there were keyboard parts and drum parts down and ready for performance! (Well, okay, maybe not performance, but it sounded fantastic anyway!) He was sweet enough to let me hang out there for a little bit, but I packed it in a short while later so I didn’t wear out my welcome.

Next blessing: while I was cleaning up my loft-mess, Max came in. I hadn’t seen him in several days, and even though I was still very irritated by what he’d said to me the night before (”just like the average American” my ass) it was good to see him. (Not to mention what it does to my heart when I look up and see him walk in the door.) Lately I’d felt like such a “drain” on him that tonight I grabbed my stuff and said, “See ya!” and tried to escape. He caught up with me and asked if I wanted to “rap.” (Max-speak) Um, okay.

There was a silly incident following this conversation where I was so tired that I walked right past my car, which was parked on the street, headed for the parking lot I usually always park in. Fortunately Max shouted at me from halfway up the block that I’d just passed my car. *blush*

Final blessing of the day was that he and I sat in the Jeep and talked about this Matrieya false God asshole that is popping up everywhere. He is Buddha, he is Christ, he is blah blah blah and whatever. He is a big fucking bronze idol that idiots in India are wasting billions of dollars on. Welp, I suppose that’s not the correct or kind thing to say. They are just confused. They actually just need the gospel.

Urgh.

Max gave me an impromptu tour of downtown St. Louis, pointing out the different styles of architecture and what it all symbolized. Really, my city lost much of its charm for me last night. But I definitely learned a lot.

At midnight I was headed home. I laughed as I realized that Max got 8 phone calls in the hour we hung out, most of which he didn’t take. Personally, I would have thrown the phone out of the damned window by that time. And I told him so!

Did I mention Tiffany is getting married? Probably this summer. I knew it before she did. I’m very pleased. Hee.

Truly blessed and ignoring the feelings,

michelle