Trying to Have Faith

Okay, I'm pretty cranky right now because I'm hungry. I'm hungry despite the fact that we have been approved for food stamps and I was able to go grocery shopping today. Not just try to keep us from starving by buying as much as ten or twenty dollars would allow, which isn't much. I really got to grocery shop. For the first time today I used all of my reusable grocery bags.

The reason I'm hungry is I'm fasting and praying. Praying I do everyday anyway. Fasting is usually only done the first Sunday of the month. But when you really want and need something, you fast and pray on it. Or so my current religion tells me. I guess I'm about to find out if it really works.

My car broke down at the beginning of this year in January. It has been sitting at the shop since January 20th. They have put off fixing my car over and over again, telling me that this job is ahead of me and that job is ahead of me. When my car first broke down I had just been recently laid off, but I had money in my savings account.

Well as time has gone on, I have slowly drained my savings account paying my rent, utilities and buying groceries. All I have left in my savings account is $100. They finally said we have it in and we're working on it. I say I need an estimate, I need to know how much it's going to cost. Not the first time I asked for that. I'm told call back in a couple of days and we'll have an estimate for you. So I called back yesterday, Thursday, and they tell me it's going to be $3100 and it should be ready by the end of the day tomorrow.

Now, my church is awesome. It's full of great people. And I have an awesome Bishop that has given me a referral to the storehouse for groceries more than once. And a lady from Relief Society was happy to run me to two grocery stores so I could do all my grocery shopping this morning with my food stamp card. But a $3100 car repair?

I have an appointment with my bishop this Sunday at the end of the block. At this appointment I will inform him what the cost of my car repair is. What his response will be, I have no earthly idea. $3100 is a lot of money.

I pay my tithes and I make fast offerings. Of course, with no job, their hasn't been much by way of tithes and fast offerings from me. I try to make it to church every Sunday, I was really sick for a while and missed like a month or two. I'm not a person with a lot of faith, but I'm trying. I don't know where God is in all of this. Sometimes it's easy for me to see where God has stepped in and gotten me through hard times with the help of good friends and good Samaritans. Other times like now, I just don't know.

So as I sit here hungry with plenty of groceries in my apartment for the first time in a few months, because I'm fasting and praying that my church will come through for me, I'm trying to have hope, and I'm trying to have faith.

I really miss my Betty. Trying to job hunt without a car is a bitch. You can only do so much with the bus. And when a potential employer asks if you have reliable transportation, they do not want to hear: I live within walking distance of bus 627 and 470.