When Life gives you Paint Bombs… Not Lemons.

When Life gives you Paint Bombs… Not Lemons

By: Mary E. Petrie

When life gives you lemons; you make lemonade. Or that’s what “They” say, but me being the person I am; I say, who is “They”. Well “They” is the wise men and women, who came before us; but “They” is also the world and we are not of the world. So when life gives you lemons, what should I do; is give it to God. I don’t always do this and that is when the lemons, become paint bombs and start staining up my life, and things get messy. I know most people want a neat, clean little lives with white picketed fence, with two and a half kids, big dog and you should have  all of this and by the time you are thirty years old. And for the longest time, so did I, but then God told me in a not so gentle way, that was not going to be my life. I was to at age sixteen when most girls are at high school dances, I was taking care of my bedridden late grandmother while she lived with us this ended up being until her death when I was twenty. At age Twenty- two when most “good” Christian girls are meeting the “One”  and getting married. I was studying the word, at a small bible school, and spent the whole of ‘07’ studying the bible and serving the Lord up in the far away land of Michigan. I thought the Lord was calling me to go into foreign missions, but as usual when I try to control my life. I got a two by four upside my head, and paint bombs thrown at me from all sides. So covered in paint I came home over Christmas break— kicked out of the school I loved so much with my heart broken and scared, not sure where my life was headed. I got two jobs and found a new church where I could grow, with hopes of going back in a year, well a year comes and goes, I feel out that application and call them up and get told that they don’t think I’m ready. I got the Lords message that time, I was not to be a missionary. On the same night, I go back to my Junior college and try my hand at animation that lasted a whole year till, one late night, while looking for cheap Christian colleges with English Majors and Biblical Studies minors— I found Blue Mountain College the only school to show up in my search. What I did not know, was my life was going to change forever that night, because  had found my Alma Mater, what would become my second home, my second family and a start of new chapter in my life. 

I went there in the fall of ‘10’ when most “good” Christian girls were starting to have babies at the age of twenty six, I was starting literary analysis papers and honing my skills as a writer.  I hoped that this would be the time when I would meet the love of my life, but all found was a few Peter Pan's want a be, a man who did not know what he wanted and not willing to take a leap of faith, and one “oh my zing ah ha moments” with a real man, whom I have yet to meet again, but more because I was too scared to say “hi my names is…” because he was the single chapel speaker with the warm eyes. And right in the middle the Lord gave me another two by four upside the head, he took my Mamma home to be with him, breaking my heart again; making piggy back ride him, like I need to be all the time. I lived through that New year and the next, finishing school, with plans to go Dallas Theological Seminary.

 My family had moved on and was getting bigger, but not the way I had thought it would when I was sixteen, I gain a step mom, two step sisters and one nutty chiweenie, who likes to wake me up in the morning. Life was going good and then I got a small letter in the mail from DST, the Lord had shut that door again, I was not going to be trained in formal ministry. I was going home, back to my old room, back to live at home with a stranger, who was now part of my family and told to shine, with another two by fours back upside my head again and paint starting to fly, I ask what now.

I ask that for a whole summer, “what do you do with a B.A. in English?” you work in a coffee shop in a grocery store, with a whole group of introverts, who are just like you. You start teaching junior church and start the Golden Duck Tournament for the third through fifth graders, you take up your first commission paintings and apply to the secular Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico. That you had been looking at as your plain B, so you can maybe go back to the state you once called home, knowing you can get in and praying God will take care of the rest; and maybe you might teach young minds about Shakespeare and MLA.

I know that God will give us the desires of our hearts, I want a husband, a man who serves the Lord with every fiber of his being, who puts his faith at the center of his life and not just as a foot note in it and my dream is still to have that family, but now it’s with ten kids, five of my own and five adopted, so I can sing the song  Jesus Loves the Little Children and when the chorus comes I can point at my kids as all the colors of the rainbow, and I dream of writing and being on the New York Best Sellers list with one of my many ideas for some unwritten novels that are just wiggling around in my head. I know that God does give us the desires of our hearts, but what we don’t always know is we don’t always know our hearts. I did not know my at sixteen-- when I thought I would be married by the time I was twenty and had two to three kids by time I was twenty five, and may not know it now. What I do know is that God knows my heart's true desires, and that amazing God fearing husband and those amazing kids, who I ready love even knowing I will have one will be just like me and God bless me like my sister, but I still long for anyway, will come into this world someday and may already be here. That book will be written, someday, and more so will be published. I know, God knows. What in my life will come and what road He will take me and that is what I will put my faith in that. Not, plans of man, which would have said to make lemonade out of paint bombs, and at twenty nine, single never dated anyone. But a person, who has known heart break more than most at my age, I do know if I don’t give it to Him; my life will be meaningless. That at the end of this road, when all the paint bombs have past,my life will be a masterpiece shining for His glory.