Car Woes

Hello All!

You know, when you pray, God will give you what you ask for. I had just graduated from high school. I was living with my grandparents. And I was trying to maintain some semblance of a social life. Well, in the summer, there were graduation parties and college open houses to attend. There were weddings of friends and baby showers to witness. There was church conferences to glean from. All of these things would have been easy for me to go to if I would've had a car. But I didn't. So out of respect to my grandmother, I regretably had to back out of these important milestones of my adulthood. Anyway, months later, I was praying the Prayer of Jabez and following through with Bruce Wilkerson's book of the same title. I used the "enlarge my territory" to really press on God for a new car. My argument was that I wanted to see the new "territory" I was coming in to so a car would be nice.

One night, my grandfather asked me if I had gotten my driver's license. I said, "Yes sir." He said, " I'm gonna have to get you a car because you're not going to keep having my wife take you everywhere you have to go." The next morning, a Black 1993 Ford Thunderbird LX was sitting in front of the house. I had a car.

Three years and three accidents later, I find myself driving the same car-it's stood the test of time and my driving. And now, it looks like I have to bury Jabez(that's what I named my car because I was praying that when I got it). He won't start up. The driver side door won't open from the inside or the out. The control panels on both doors are hanging on by the threads of their wiring. I have a crack in my windshield. The radio has been stolen twice. The car will only lock on the passenger side. The automatic seatbelts don't work properly with the driver side belt jammed and the passenger side not working at all. The previous owner of the car spraypainted different areas in the car's red interior with black spraypaint. My dad knocked off the only dececnt side view mirror I had. The picture shows what I did to the outside.

I go to school in Rochester Hills. That's in Oakland county. I'm an African-American male. Does anybody see where I'm going with this? Me driving this car anywhere outside of Wayne county is asking for trouble. The kind of trouble I don't need.
You might be asking "Why don't you just get another car?". Here's the answer. No one wants to cosign for a car loan and I'm inelgible for financing because I don't have strong enough credit, no money to spare for a down payment, and I don't have a sufficient amount of income.

I must depend on the kindness of friends to take me around(shout out to Arlando). I don't like it, but it's what I have to do. Why am I sharing this? Because in all of this, I haven't lost my confidence in the fact that God is able to provide for this need. God can and will and does supply my needs according to his riches and glory. My prayer is now that he grant my request not because I deserve, but simply because he can. Won't you touch and agree with me? Are you one who can help? Do you know someone who could help? Post accordingly and I thank you all.

I just HAD to share this...
Origen, one of the earliest Christian theologians, was born in Africa, probably at Alexandria, toward the end of the second century. He endured terrible tortures for the faith after his arrest in 250 during the Decian persecution. Many of his writings, which provoked great controversy during his life and even after his death, have been lost. But we do know that he was a great scripture scholar who worked to secure a more reliable text of the Old Testament by careful comparison of Hebrew and Greek versions. He penned this prayer that I found in a book I recently purchased entitled "An African Prayer Book" by Desmond Tutu.

O Jesus, My Feet Are Dirty-Origen
O Jesus, my feet are dirty. Come even as a slave to me, pour water into your bowl, come and wash my feet. In asking such a thing I know I am overbold but I dread what was threatened when you said to me, "If I do not was your feet I have no fellowship with you." Wash my feet then, because I long for your companionship. And yet, what am I asking? It was well for Peter to ask you to wash his feet; for him what was all that was needed for him to be clean in every part. With me it is different; though you wash me now I shall stand in need of that other washing, the cleansing you promised when your said, "There is a baptisim I must needs be baptized with."

Math Sucks!
I'm certainly no mathmetecian. But I have to take a math course and since I didn't test well on the ACT I get to take Beginning Algebra, which is great. I've been exposed to this material twice-once during the regular semester in high school and again in summer school. But I'm feeling a little self-concious because that was over three years ago. Does anybody know of some study tips I could use and maybe some excercises I could do to prepare?

Until Next Time,
The Minibishop