well, lately i've been putting in a lot of job applications for various positions in other cities, mostly birmingham and atlanta. i hadn't gotten any callbacks from atlanta, but i did get one from a staffing agency in birmingham. whoo hoo! so, naturally, i scheduled an appointment with them. i had to move the appointment, though, because i had inadvertently scheduled it for the same day the Page One awards were, which, as those of you who are connected to columbus know, are very prestigious. christy had been nominated for one in art, and my dad was driving in all they way from chattanooga, so i figured i would go. i rescheduled my appointment for this past monday.

the weekend came, and my car started making a very strange noise, so on monday, i called Birmingham again and rescheduled my appointment for thursday. of course, my car wasn't ready until tuesday night, even though they said it would take 3 hours to fix (it turned out it was the breaks, and yes, stephanie, i fixed the air conditioner while i had it in the shop. lolol). anyway, the plan was for me to go up to birmingham wednesday afternoon and stay overnight, check out some schools, apartments, go to my interview, etc, and then come home thursday night.

i think it was either sunday or monday night christy and i had a very long conversation about our lives, and how we were having a hard time figuring out what God wanted us to do, and how we'd like some sort of cosmic sign, like a giant finger pointing out of the sky, to help us decide what to do. i didn't voice this, but i thought, also, "when does waiting become procrastination?" well.. i found out...

tuesday night i had a dream. i don't know if you guys have seen these "message from God" billboards, but they're mainly up around TN, SC, and NC. they say things like, "I saw that. -God." or "Have you read my best-seller? There will be a quiz later. -God." things like that. they're very cute and thought-provoking, and i wished they would put them around here, but i'd never seen one south of TN. the dream i had was about those signs. i dreamed that God called me on the phone, but instead of talking to me, i kept seeing those billboards. at one point, i even said something to the effect of, "He's not talking to me, all i see are these billboards." and He answered me on the phone, "yes, that's what I wanted you to see." or something along those lines. so, i was like, "oh ok," and kept reading them, although after i woke up, i couldn't remember what they'd said, only the rest of the dream.

wednesday afternoon i left for birmingham. for those of you who don't know, 280 goes straight from phenix city into birmingham, or so the map would have you believe. there is a small stretch in opelika where 280 and I-85 are the same road, so in order to continue on 280, you must exit off it, get on I-85, exit off I-85, and then get back on 280. weird, huh? what can i say; it's alabama. anyway, i did not know this, so when the I-85 exit came up, i didn't take it, even though the sign said that was the way to 280. i figured that if i stayed on the road i was already on, which i KNEW was 280, that i would STAY on 280. well, i was wrong. a couple of miles down the road, the asphalt turned into that bottom gravelly layer they lay on the road before they asphalt it. i was pretty sure that at any given point, a highway as largely used as 280 would not be essentially gravel, so i turned around to get on I-85 like the sign had said. just after i turned around, i noticed one of those message from God billboards, only instead of being black with white text, this one was white with black text. "hmm... that's odd," i thought, not only because of the colors, but because of its location, also. i'd never seen one of those south of TN before, much less on a road that seemed like almost no one would ever use it. that didn't seem very economical to me. then i read what it said: "Will the road you're on lead you to Me?" i chuckled, knowing the road that would lead me to birmingham and the one i was on weren't the same road. "that's cute," i thought. "it's like it knows i took a wrong turn back there. hahaha." on i went to birmingham.

about 20, 30 minutes later i decided to stop for gas. i had 1/2 a tank, but since gas stations are few and far between out there, i figured it would be prudent to go ahead and stop when i saw one instead of risking running very low and not being able to find one. one thing i should point out here is that before i left the house that afternoon, my mother had deposited a check in my account so that i would be sure to have enough money to get a hotel that night. i'd called the bank later to make sure she'd deposited it early enough for it to show up in my account the same day. they said it had. with this peace of mind, i confidently pumped my gas, went inside, got a coke and a pack of gum, and handed the cashier my debit card. it was declined. she tried it again. again, it was declined. i gave her my credit card. IT was declined. i asked them if they would take a check, and they said only if i lived in that county, and of course, i had no cash. bummer. the manager walked over about this time, and pointed out the fact that they had an ATM machine in the store. "great!" i thought, until i realized it was out of service. i tried calling my mom at work. no answer. i tried calling my sister at home. no answer. i called customer service for my debit card. an answer! he assured me that the check my mom had deposited had not cleared, and wouldn't until midnight, but he said he would give a voice authorization, which he did. we wrote down the authorization code, and the 2 ladies behind the counter looked at it as if to say, "what do i do with this?" the guy from customer service said he had never heard of a merchant that didn't know how to do a voice authorization before. i said, "yeah, well..." but decided to stop there, since the 2 Amoco ladies could hear me, and they hadn't kicked me out or had me arrested yet. to make a long story short, i was in that Amoco station for about an hour. finally, one of the ladies, joy, decided she'd had enough of it, so she wrote a check to cover my gas, and i wrote her a check to cover her cover. yes! freedom! but... if my debit card was rejected at the Amoco, wouldn't it be rejected also at the hotel? oh.. yuck. homeward bound i was.

over the 66 miles i covered between coleman's Amoco and my house, i had time to reflect on the events of the day. the dream, the literal sign from God, the Amoco... well, i concluded, i asked for a sign, and boy did i ever get one. how pig-headed i must be for it to take a BILLBOARD, coupled with a dream and having my credit card rejected for Him to get a point across to me. i do believe that's a small step down from the giant finger pointing out of the sky, but the difference is negligible. the finger wasn't pointing to birmingham. later that night, i asked my sister, mainly for the purposes of validation, "do you think i should try to go again in the morning?" her response was, "if you do, you'll probably be hit by a bus with the same billboard across the side." i think she was right. i cancelled my interview altogether. "grow where you're planted" is what kept springing to christy's mind as i recounted this tale to her. grow where you're planted... even if it's columbus. i can't say i'm fond of that idea, but it seems to be what i'm going to have to do, at least for the time being. the moral of the story is, boys and girls, God does listen. God does speak to you, but sometimes He's got to raise his voice to make you listen. the analogy that we are His children holds truer and truer the older i get and the more i experience in my life. as far as wednesday is concerned, the main word that leaps to my mind is, "irony." i was a child caught disobeying her father's wishes, and i was sent to my room. from here on out, i think i'll pay a little closer attention.