Thoughts on a God-Touched Year

Isn't life funny? We always end up where we least expect, though that's not always a bad thing. This year has brought many unexpected changes in my life and I have grown in many ways. God has been good and has really blessed me this year. He has had His hands all over 2007, and He left some fingerprints that I'll never be able to erase.

I don't even remember much about the beginning of the year. Working at Starbucks was a new experience for me, and I was just beginning to settle down there. I was making my way around Vegas in style thanks to my dad's truck and a driver's license [don't let the gate guards fool you, you are allowed to drive if you have a license at age 16 or 17 ;)]. After much praying and deliberating, I decided to quit Tae Kwon Do altogether because of several incidents which occurred at the school.

I still miss that part of my life, but God knew what was best for me. I soon found that I would need the extra time for my Calculus class. I was also taking Physics, Music and Philosphy that semester, leaving me plenty of time to work ~24 hours per week and still learn the class material well. I made a lot of friends at Starbucks and learned a lot about customer service.

The customer is always right, as I would find out when the hippie lady told me that her milk, which I had just steamed until it boiled out of the pitcher onto my hand, wasn't hot enough. Or the time that the crazy man told me that the first time he had seen the jacket he was wearing it was on James Bond in "Goldfinger." That was the same man that once scared a customer away by telling the frightened gentleman that he deserved to be shot. My personal favorite customer service memory was the time that the older man got feisty because he had ordered a decaf coffee drink, but he could "taste that there was caffeine in it." (I would like to know more about this being able to taste caffeine; it's a totally new concept to me).

Near the end of my short tenure at Starbucks, I was blessed with a visit from someone who I had previously known from Tae Kwon Do. The story that she told me blew me away; I was astonished and humbled by what God had done in her life.

Several months earlier, I had been practicing kicks with this lady at the base community center, where classes were held. On one of the kicks, I somehow brought my knee up into this person's abdominal area. I still don't know how this happened, because I am very careful about minimizing or eliminating contact during kicks, but I hit her rather hard. The kick knocked the wind out of her, but she seemed to be okay. However, in the days after that, she didn't show up to the school to practice. When I saw her later, she appeared to be in pain still, and thought that her ribs may have been broken.

I was overwhelmed with guilt and shame when I learned that I had hit her so hard. I had tried my best not to bring too much power into my kicks, and I had still hurt someone pretty badly. I became convicted about the sport, and never really put my heart back into it. The possibility of hurting someone else was too much for me, and I decided not to fight anyone who was smaller or weaker than me. I should have quit right then, but I felt too attached to the sport to give it up altogether.

God would have it otherwise, though.

Around that time, my Sa Bum Neem started making boys and girls wrestle with each other. I was lucky enough not to be asked to wrestle with a female (I would have refused, anyway). His view about co-ed participation, along with a new attitude toward business because he retired from the the Air Force and took up Tae Kwon Do full-time, caused me to part ways with my teacher.

I have to admit I was rather unthoughtful toward my friends at Tae Kwon Do. I didn't say goodbye to anyone, because I knew that it was best for me not to show my face at the school again. God told me not to go back, and that's what I did.

This brings us back to the part of the story where I'm working at Starbucks. I was busy making drinks one day, when the lady who I had injured showed up in line. She asked to talk to me and I thought that she was going to let me know what injuries she had sustained during the sparring incident.

I was wrong again.

Is anyone else beginning to see a pattern here?

The lady simply told me that she had been to the doctor to get an X-ray, and that the doctor had found something life-threatening when he examined the photographs. She looked me in the eyes and told me matter-of-factly that I had saved her life.

I couldn't see myself when she presented this information to me, but I'm sure I would have set the world record for the farthest someone's jaw has ever dropped. I was astonished that this lady would come in and tell me this. I couldn't believe that something so bad could result in a changed life. At first it was hard for me to accept. But then I realized that it wasn't impossible. God had turned bad things into good ones many times before. That's what He's best at, right?

It's hard to move on from such a memorable event in my life. It may seem trivial to many, but to me it was such an excellent example of exactly what God does. It was a perfect illustration of what He has done in my own life, and how he controls the outcomes of all my actions. I guess you could call that my biggest lesson from 2007.

I'll try to be more concise as I move through the rest of the year. I finished my Associate of Science degree in May, but I didn't receive my diploma until I lived in Colorado. The big move, which had forever seemed so far away, sneaked up on me quicker than a weather change here in Monument, my new location.

I was accepted to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs for the fall semester, pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry. I only took nine credits while I tried to get used to the city and the campus and get settled into my new job as a loan processor for the college. One of the classes was junior-level, though, and it was nice to be able to make a smooth transition into higher lever coursework (which, believe it or not, really is harder). God blessed me with good grades for the fall semester, and helped me to get to know some of the students and staff in my degree area.

My family and I have been going to Hope church, a small home-discipleship oriented congregation in northern Colorado Springs, since we moved to Colorado. We have been amazed at the friends and fellowship that God has provided us with in the short seven months that we have lived in this beautiful place. We even ran into some friends that we knew from Georgia five or six years ago.

So the year has been full of ups and downs for me and my family. I have learned many things mental, physical, and spiritual as God has nurtured me through another amazing year. I know that there are bigger challenges and tests coming my way in the New Year, but by God's grace I will make it through to be a more mature person.

The Blessed Sinner,
Noah

P.S. Management does not allow me to accept tips. I am serious. I could lose my job if I took that money.