Tender Mercies

You know how sometimes things happen and you just know without a doubt that you are being watched out for? That's how I'm feeling right now. Here's just a few of the latest examples:

1. Ben already wrote about the two car accidents that he was so close to last week. It was really scary. In fact,when one of them happened, I actually thought he had been involved in it. I didn't have a phone at the time, but I figured out how to send him text messages from the computer. So he “texts” me and tells me that there had just been a really bad car accident and that someone had died. Then... he didn't give me any other information for at least another half hour. Of course, that half hour felt like six hours, and you can imagine my relief when he walked in the door a little later. Relief, and immense gratitude. That's how I'd describe it.

2. There's been some sort of stomach bug in our house the past couple days. While this may not seem like much of a blessing at all, it's darn easy for me to view it as one. See, Ben works pretty much all day, everyday, and I sit around at home by myself doing, basically, nothing. After a while, that starts to wear on you a little bit. So while it's probably really selfish of me to be grateful for sickness, I gotta admit, it was real nice to be able to see my husband for a couple days.

3. We have been searching desperately, and for a long time, for a place to live in Provo when we move back at the end of this month. It has been quite a stressful experience, especially living so far away. We find one we like, and either the people won't return our calls, or the rent has gone way up in the past few weeks, or it's already been rented out... there was always something. We finally found a place that would work for us. We called the guy to tell him our decision, and he told us he had just promised it to someone else. They'd be making their final decision that night, and if it didn't work out for them, it was ours. We tried to think positively, but let's be honest, it was a real bummer. Then, by some miracle, the next morning, we gave him a call and he told us the other people had passed up the offer and the place was ours!

4. After months and months of waiting (seriously, we started this process the week after we got married) we were finally told today that we are eligible to receive some money from federal grants! Hallelujah!

5. Ben made a sale today. He is awesome. And very humble. Every time he makes a sale I shower him with praise and he immediately tells me that we need to give credit where credit is due and say a prayer of thanksgiving for the tender mercy we were just blessed with. As I said before, he is awesome.

There are countless more of these little tender mercies happening in our lives every minute, but I am well aware of the fact that our blog posts are always a little bit on the long side, so I'll spare you. But let it be known that we are a very blessed little family.

More about Arkansas life

Arkansas is a great place. That is, if you don't take into account the weather, people, and number of bugs that inhabit the state. I've been knocking doors for a few months now, and I'm pretty sure I can say that I never want to live in Arkansas again. Ever. They even have 10% sales tax! That's crazy. It's sad to go to walmart and get groceries and pay an extra 10 bucks because of tax. Why people stay here, I'm not really sure.

All in all though, it's been a good summer. I've enjoyed getting to live in Arkansas merely for the experience if nothing else. Becca mentioned earlier that there was a guy at our Ohio reception who said one benefit of living in Arkansas would be the opportunity to learn first hand that this is the place we don't want to end up in. I laughed at the time, but I now see how right he was. This place has very little going for it.

Arkansas does have some characteristics that save it though. One thing that it has going for it are the sunsets. They are beautiful. I've tried to take a few pictures with my iphone, but it doesn't come close to capturing how awesome it is. Around 8 o' clock each day has become a great time for me, because the sunsets are so colorful and vibrant. There have been numerous times when I wish my Dad was there with me to enjoy how gorgeous nature can be. It almost makes up for the unrealistic amount of bugs.

I was going to talk about a few other redeeming qualities of Arkansas... but I couldn't think of any. Just kidding. But a few things happened this week that I just remembered and I wanted to write them down this week.

Item #1. I was in an area, and having a little difficulty selling. Then a lady comes out and loudly asks what I was doing. I explained, and she immediately became very interested. The weird thing was, I simply didn't think she could afford it, so I was very blunt with her about any sort of costs (pretty much $50 a month. Nothing huge, but not exactly something that anyone can afford). She surprised me by saying that her son was murdered two years prior, and she had received a hefty sum of money from the government. So $50 was nothing to her. That shocked me pretty good, especially since she said it so indifferently. But, what was really odd to me was the woman. First of all, she had a beard, and I'm pretty sure she was oblivious that she had it. I say that because each hair was well over an inch long, and they weren't really too scattered. It was about as thick as a balding man's hair, on her chin. Only it was long, and black. It was gross. And she had zero teeth. Zero. It was crazy. She was really a unique character, but I'm glad that I met her.

Item#2. As some of you may know, in Guatemala I saw two pretty bad car accidents. They were both pretty bad, and since then I haven't taken well to hearing the screeching of brakes. I really really hate hearing it, because it usually leads to worse things, and it reminds me of those accidents. That said, I was driving with a guy named Marty to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Marty is a bad driver. Possibly worse than John. But we were following a white truck about 40 yards back. We were going about 60 on the highway, with a small ditch to the right, and beyond the ditch was a line of little trees. Well, all of a sudden the white truck turned off the highway. I thought he was taking an exit because once he turned off he never tried to turn back. He turned off and just went straight off. He went into the ditch, continued off and hit the trees, which acted as a nice barrier, seeing as how they bent a little bit. It turns out that there was an old woman in front of him who saw a tire, and she slammed on the brakes. He couldn't stop fast enough so he just turned off and took his chances in his truck. He was just fine though, so that was a miracle. If it had happened about 200 yards later he wouldn't have had any trees, and would have gone off into another highway. So that spooked us pretty bad, which brings us to...

Item #3. We were going home fast because we had a long day. We were listening to music, and flying up the highway, when we saw a stopped semi with his hazards going. We slowed down to see what happened, and as we passed the semi I saw a black Chevy avalanche (pickup truck), scratched up, squished, with no bumper and the driver side door was missing. We stopped and got out to see what was happening, and we learned that the truck was on the highway going the other direction, and somehow went off the road and went over the grass median. That's crazy because the median was about 40 yards wide. Well, it gets worse because when he got to our side of the highway, a van hit the truck, despite trying to stop. It continues to get worse because we asked where the driver of the truck was, and no one knew. Not only was the driver side door gone, but the driver as well. So the other guys in our APX group went out in the median to look for the guy, and I made sure 911 was called. It took about 20 minutes to find the guy, who had passed away, and the rest of our ride was very very somber. The driver was only 25 years old, and driving at about 10:50 at night. We were lucky as well though, because we learned quickly that the accident had only happened about one minute before we showed up. Had the timing been a little worse, we could have been in trouble.

So, in a nut shell - Arkansas isn't exactly the greatest place to live. But there are always tender mercies and the summer has been quite a learning experience for both Becca and myself.