The Cahill's

Ice Cream – The continuing story.

As most of you know, I have this thing for ice cream. I try to make sure that I have some every week so I don’t go into withdrawal. The Lord has been very good to me in providing each week and has used some creative ways to get it to me, but today the delivery was very unusual.

I go on walk every day at noon with Kim and Tonya (from the kitchen) and a lot of the route is beside the road. Anyway, today we were just walking along and minding our own business when a car passed by – nothing unusual – but then we felt something wet, almost like a puddle had been splashed on us but there were no puddles around. On closer inspection we saw that the drops were pink and smelled like strawberry ice cream; someone had thrown a milkshake at us!

My first thought was indignation, we had been honked at, yelled at, and now this! But just as quickly I remembered what I had said that morning about God wanting to test our responses and I knew that mine would have to be in line with what Jesus would have done, so I laughed, and said out loud “thank you Lord for this trial, and bless that driver.” Tonya, the other victim, quickly picked up on this attitude and responded in kind, and then we started laughing. It really was funny if you chose to see it that way, I mean here we were with pink spots all down our backs and smelling rather sweet and like strawberries, and yelling blessings of future thoughtfulness and discretion all while hysterically laughing.

Tonya told me that they are studying the Command of Christ “Love you enemies” this week, but she didn’t think she would have the opportunity to put it in to practice. I felt lighthearted and happy the rest of the day; amazing how a blessing can counteract and even lift the emotions. Then, to top it all off, a benevolent student here at the RCI gave me some ice cream tonight, not having any clue of what had taken place today. God sure has a loving sense of humor.

Well, I have entered the sacred and honored ranks of all those who have failed a test and lived through it. Chemistry proved to be my match. Maybe now people will quit saying that I’m a brain, I’m really not.

I had contemplated what I would do if I failed a test and suddenly, as my score flashed on the screen, I only had a few minutes to finalize my reactions. Coming out of the testing center I was greeted by a seeming multitude of people, different states of anxiety about their own upcoming tests spread on their faces, yet they still cared about how I did. How awful to tell them, I hated to make them feel bad on my account.

How hard to break the news to those who asked, some were a lot harder to tell than others; Mr. Shoemaker was the hardest.

We’re studying the command of Christ to be perfect, how would Jesus react? What is the perfect response? The word “perfect” there means complete; well my degree certainly won’t be complete without that test. The passage also talks about not only loving those who love you, hmmm. Maybe this is one of those tests “will you receive good from the Lord and not evil”? Do I love God only when He is good to me? No, I think I would love Him even if I failed every test.

Going back to being perfect, or complete, I think that experiencing this time of failure adds to my character, a character that will one day be made complete. It also allows me to relate to others who have failed, adding yet another facet, to the whole of my being. So, I think my response would be gratefulness and praise to the Lord, that He would allow me to fail a test. I will admit that this attitude had to struggle with other emotions during the day, several times being on the verge of tears. But I could still go about my day with a cheerfulness that came straight from the Lord, I could go down to service hour and choose to focus on others and make those around me glad rather than focus on myself. I could even restart this whole blog when Gavrielle told me not to start it by calling myself a loser. That’s not the attitude Christ would have, so neither will I. Praise God.

Wow, God sure took me for a roller coaster ride today, I shouldn’t be allowed out of my room when I’m like this. I guess its good practice to have to interact with people when my thoughts are raging and my emotions are strange and I have a hard time paying attention to everyone around me. I like to just go somewhere by myself sit still and think hard until things begin to settle down.

I’m glad for everything though, I have been in a spiritual lull this week and I asked God to help me move on. Normally I prefer some sort of outside trial, I’m not so good at handling the inside ones, but either way I grow, so I’ll be happy.

One other sad note – We are finally down to just the two of us We tried to avoid it for as long as possible but tonight it has become final. We had a great time with Gavrielle, I’m so grateful for the time God granted to us. She feels sort of like a sister now and I’m glad she’ll be here for a month. May God bless her with time and discipline as she does the cooking course and Biology. We love you Gav!