I’m baking my cookies and eating them too.

1/20/11


Today the snow fell in droves. Not the gentle kind I’ve been used to seeing in recent years. An inch an hour. I’ll repeat it for dramatic affect, AN INCH AN HOUR! And it snowed for let’s say 9 hours. Cars covered, roads vanished, yards blinding white, and kids blissfully doing flips into 9 inch snow piles.

I personally like to let the sun do a little grunt work before I clean off what’s left on and around my car, but with 9 inches, the sun was even having a difficult time. I spent my day inside, cuddled up in my pj’s, unshowered and loving it. I prayed. I read. I worked on a puzzle. I did my nails. I watched The Doctors. I loved this day!

I’ve been convicted lately about my nonexistent daily prayer routine. I am a haphazard prayer. Things pop into my mind and I’ll pray for them, but I’m awful at setting aside daily time with my Savior to really pray. So, it has been my goal this week to get a routine going with this and I have to say it’s been great! I’ve been taking things to God that I usually try to handle on my own. I’ve been praying for others. I’ve been praying for those people of whom I’ve said I’ll pray for! WHAT! Actually doing what I’d said I’d do. Miraculous! And I really do mean miraculous!

So it was a miracle today when I finally did make it into regular clothes to go clean off my car and found a ticket nestled in the 9 inches piled on that I didn’t lose it!

Since I’ve been driving, 12 years now, I’ve parked my car in a spot in front of my parent’s house. It’s specially paved, not part of the road, but indeed part of our yard spot. Clearly marked in front of my spot is a sign that says No Parking This Side of Street. Great! I’m a law abiding citizen, good thing I’m parking on my yard spot and not the road. 12 YEARS I’ve been doing this. So today when I got a ticket in the amount of $789.00 for parking on the street during snow I was totally confused. This isn’t the street. This is my yard spot. Then reading further, I saw that I indeed had another ticket for $612.00 for parking on “unimproved surface- ‘No Parking This Side of Street’”. First I’m thinking he meant unapproved, but I digress. I know that sign. I live by that sign. I obey that sign! I PARK IN MY YARD SPOT!

If you aren’t so hot in math, or don’t care enough to count it, I’ll just tell you that is $1401 that I will refer to as $1,40 and 1 in tickets in one day for a car I wasn’t even driving!!!!!!!

1-4-0-1

That 1 dollar mocked me as I stood out in the cold reading my list of violations, snow seeping into my, not so equipped to handle 9 inches of snow, snow boots. For a woman who just quit her job and is hanging on for a paycheck just to pay her basic necessity bills, $140 and 1 is a slap in the face and would typically make one spit out some vulgarity fitting for the situation.

12 years. 12 years and not one ticket, not one warning, nothing and then BAM! $140 and 1!

So I cleaned off my car and shoveled thinking the whole time about how I wished I had a husband who would shovel with me and speak up for me during my COURT DATE!!!! what I would say while in front of the judge pleading my case. The tears that would inevitably come, because… well, I’m me. Did I need a lawyer? How do I go about getting a lawyer? How would I pay for that? Would I go to jail if I said all the things I really wanted to say to this police officer? Would they be able to go back in the records to see that they were indeed the ones that made us pave the yard spot so we could park there? Would I need evidence?

But in the midst of my racing, panicked mind, came that small voice. A small voice that led me to laugh, instead of cry, to shovel instead of pout, and to move my car to the deep back of our driveway instead of keeping it there in stubborn rebellion.

I was disappointed when I asked my mom what I was supposed to do and she said pray. PRAY! Well duh, but what do I DO?! I wanted to yell. The truth is she couldn’t have been more right. $1,40 and 1 is an insurmountable amount of money to me at this point in my life. Totally and completely impossible! B-U-T, through Hezekiah I have learned that He wants me to lay it all out before Him. To humble myself before Him. To show Him the odds stacked against me, so that He in His miraculous-ness could do just as huge a miracle as taking one who has no prayer life and giving her a rich and vibrant week of prayer to providing a mere $1,40 and 1.

So, instead of fretting over my court date, March 2nd @6:30, I’m laying out my tickets to God and asking Him to provide like only He can. I’m also making cookies and eating them too, cause you know, what’s a girl to do!