In the storm with a sleeping God

Two posts in one day..I am starting off with ambition :-)
I was in Jackson recently and many people ask me how I like New Orleans.
My honest answer:
"I hated it at first...it was the most horrible six months of my life."
Let me explain. I HATE New Orleans. In fact, I very clearly remember a covo with JK pre-marriage in which I specifically stated my ultra-disgust of the city. So, I was relieved that the Lord seemed to be calling toward North Carolina which is BEAUTIFUL. We got married, and then WHOAH change of plans. Through a lot of decisions much to complicated to go through right now, we both felt like God was changing our plans (imagine that....)! :-) So we dilly-dallied around until about May and then a very wise pastor basically kicked JK in the butt and said OBEY GOD! Who can argue with that? So I submitted my resignation and we put our house on the market.
So here was the situation: I LOVED my God, I LOVED my husband, but I LOVED my church and I LOVED my cute little house in Brandon, and I LOVED everything about our life right then. And I HATED everything about New Orleans.
Regardless of my feelings, I knew you can't just disobey God, so I did my best to keep a positive attitude as we packed up in the middle of July and landed in married housing on the seminary campus. One of my better personality traits is that I am pretty quick to adjust to new situations. I figured that once I got there things would be okay, I just needed to adjust.
Well, I was wrong. Everything about New Orleans was yucky. The people were unkind, everytime you tried to do something it was frustrating,. Nothing ever seemed to go our way. I just wanted to scream, "WHY CAN'T SOMEBODY BE NICE!!!" On top of this, our house wasn't selling. We were getting plenty of calls on it, we took every opportunity to fix it up, and we dropped the price several times, but to no avail. Month after month went by and our "vacation home" was steadily draining the savings account. To top THAT off, I had sincerely felt called to resume my education as well through online graduate school. It ended up being tortuous. As if transitioning from fulltime teacher/ part time homemaker to fulltime teacher/full time student wasn't bad enough, my assignments were insane and my teachers entirely unsympathetic. I had double the work taking two classes that JK had taking 4 classes, if that gives you any idea. This continued all...semester...long. I wish I could say I believed God through it. Not so much. I got really MAD. I was so mad at God. How could he send us here and then leave us? I stopped believing God cared about me. I hurled accusations at him. I became bitter. Not my finest moments.
And it didn't go away all at once. Slowly, the Lord worked on my heart. Finally, we were sitting in Sunday School one day and I heard a story that summed up my story from the last six months. It was the story of Jesus sleeping in the boat. Remember that one? Well, have you ever noticed that God called the disciples into the boat in the first place? He did. Yet, he allowed the storm to happen. It was so violent they were fearing for their life. And what did Jesus do? Did he jump up at the first crash of thunder? Not at all. He slept until they were completely in a panic. When he woke up, he dealt the stinger.."Do you STILL have no faith?" And he calmed the storm.
Well, I realized that story was MY story. God had called us into the "boat" and he had allowed everyone of those situations to happen. In order to test my faith, he withdrew just slightly and hoped that I would keep my faith in him. I failed miserably. After all these years walking, I STILL have no faith. humbling. But he is calming my storm. I am grateful for the rest, but determine that next time this test comes around I will be ready.
I am grateful to a God that has mercy on us in our failings. After all the mean things I said to God and about God, it blows my mind that he has forgiven me and is using me in this city of ours. Let me tell you what he has done. He has expanded my territory. He has given Justin and I a church to call home, an ELL ministry to serve, a ministry called Inward that is reaching out to women working in the sex-industry, and given us the sponsership of 2 little Tanzanian boys through Compassion International. I am amazed that a person that is as big of a spiritual "flop" as me would be entrusted with serving HIM! I wonder if the disciples felt that way?? And an interesting thing is happening, as I pray for these sweet people I meet everyday, I am beginning to love this city called New Orleans an awful lot. Like I don't want to leave anytime soon. God is a god of miracles...he's done one in my heart.