What if Sunday is the day of unrest?

This weekend was my first outing with the church I've been going to. They asked for volunteer drivers, and since driving is my thing, I signed up. I was asked to bring cookies, which I thought was a bit weird since I was already paying for gas, but whatever, I wasn't going to be picky, so I brought cookie cake.

While I was too financially strapped to buy food for me last week and some of the week prior, Friday evening while buying the ingredients for my cookie cake, I decided (probably naively) that if I give more than I am able, then I'd have to trust God a little more. So I went home, chopped up a 300g bar of French milk chocolate, mixed in some tasty white chocolate chips (not the cheap-tasting kind) and iced it with vanilla icing. It was beyond tasty and particularly hard to not eat all day Saturday.

Sunday morning rolled around and unvelcroed myself from my cozy slumber, pumped myself up with tea and started the drive downtown to the church to pick up the people I was driving an hour away for "outside church" by a lake in Ontario.

The pastor showed up shortly after me in my old car with crazy five-spoke rims and low profile tires... Let's just say that somehow, that affected me in some way. I'll get into it some other time... maybe.

Two people ended up hitching a ride with me- one was a passive, quiet Asian guy and the other, a very flamboyant and demanding Asian girl.

The minute we got onto the open highway, the girl started asking questions.

her: Do you love Jesus, Princess?
me: Excuse me?
her: Do you love Jesus?
me: Yeah, I guess so. Why?
her: Do you work on your relationship with Him?
me: Yeah?
her: Often? Every day?
me: I think so?
her: Read your Bible?
me: Yeah?
her: What about you? [looking at the guy in the front seat] Do you love Jesus?

She went through a similar dialog (interrogation?) with him and then...
her: Read your Bible every day?
him: Nah. I figure I've already read it a few times, so I know it pretty well.

*gasp!*

There was a brief silent pause. My eyes were wide in terror. I was just about to say something (awkward silences and I cannot coexist), when a small voice came from the back seat.

her: but... it's our daily bread... How can you not... um...

She was suffering, so I spoke up. :D

me: Even if you've already read it, if it really is the word of God, there's no way you'll ever be able to comprehend the complexity of it no matter how many times you read it. Every time you read it, it says something different depending on your attitude, mood and what God Himself wants you to see at any particular day and time.
her: Exactly.

We continued on, got lost only once and finally found everybody in the parking lot of the park. We waited for the last car to arrive and then headed to the site, the giant convoy of cars only getting lost once also... :D (It was kind of hilarious watching ten or so cars pull a simultaneous u-turn...)

We parked and everybody got out and wandered to the picnic area by the beach. I stayed behind a little and smuggled two pieces of cookie cake because I was so starved that my belly was being arrogantly overbearing.

We had our service while the coals were burning and blowing away in the barbecue (:D), and then we had the baptism.

When I had mine in North Carolina, there were hundreds of people (or maybe it just felt that way) all cheering me on, and some bystanders saw what was going on and got all into it. This time, there were maybe twenty of us cheering the girl on, and when the bystanders realized what was going on, they fled. I'm not even kidding nor exaggerating. They fled. I thought that was the saddest thing. Even as an agnostic, I would have still stuck around to watch what I would have perceived to be the picnic equivalent of a massive car crash...

Anyway, she got the dunk (not to be judgy or anything, but mine was way smoother and my pastor was way more skilled in the dunkage techniques- I'm so grateful), and she got out and everybody rushed towels onto her on account of it being insanely chilly and crazy windy. She stood there shivering for what must have been the longest prayer I have ever heard (it was a good one though.. just long and I can imagine it being unbearable for a girl on the brink of hypothermia). We sang a couple songs of praise, she dashed off to get dried up and the barbecue started.

Since most of the congregation is of Korean descent, the food was Korean and crazy tasty. It was marinated rib meat sliced "the wrong way", as some people put it, such that it was long narrow slices with cross sections of rib bones piercing through it. It was so tasty.

For dessert... there was cookie cake. Thank God I brought it or there'd have been no sweet things at all. Apparently, Korean people don't value candy as much as I do. I've been told to always bring sweet things from now on. :D

We hung out for another few hours and I don't think I've had that much conversation with strangers in eons. At one point, I had to take a walk to get away from it all and just be with God, but I realized halfway to nowhere that I wasn't getting any solace because it had been God all day. You know? These people were talking God things in such a powerful way to me all day that when I was alone, it was a sort of status quo feeling. I realized maybe they were a more peaceful bunch for my soul than I'd given them credit for and went back and sat down in another heavy conversation.

Eventually, people grew wary and decided a couple cars should take off. I volunteered probably a little overenthusiastically and a carful and I took off towards the city shortly thereafter.

After dropping them off downtown, I was out cookie cake, cookie cake money, gas money, and was headed home to an empty fridge but still, my heart felt worn out in a good way.

And then today, I realized that my problem was never with giving... At this point, I'm not sure God cares what I give because I'm still absolutely incapable of receiving. I can give to the point of needing to trust God fairly easily, even giving up my own old wants (like nice rims for my car...) and to a certain extreme, giving up some of my needs, but I can't trust God to provide for me through fellow Christians.

I can't do it. I feel like I'm conning somebody out of their money or things. Even when I get a gift for a birthday or something, I have a hard time. This year, my sister in law and brother ambushed me with my birthday present near the train station before I got onto it to go home. :D They know I'll dodge it by any means necessary. And even then, I pulled a gift card out of my bag and gave it to them to even things out, telling them I'd never use it anyway... I can't receive properly. I feel entirely undeserving. I have to work on that, or at the very least, work on trying to understand that getting stuff is not the worst thing in the world, that maybe people actually do care about me and I'm potentially worthwhile.

I'll think about it.

Always something new to work on. :D