Today's topic: Best laid plans.  My plan when I started this blog was to write about things that I care about, but to not be too political or religious.  Just because I didn't want to feel like I was beating a drum all the time.  It was slow coming to me, but I realized that the things I am passionate about are things dear to me.  Like my liberty and my faith.  So, I am kind of stuck but not in a bad way.

I have had a true story from my life on my mind and thought that it is time that I wrote it down and shared it.  It isn't an amazing story, like I lifted a burning car off of a child or discovered the cure for cellulite.  However, in the moment that this happened I was amazed and sad.  You will understand why when you read.

Let me take you first to the scriptures and the parable of The Ten Virgins.   I had the opportunity to live this parable, at least in part.  The parable can be found in Matthew  25:1-13.  The upshot of the parable is that the Bridegroom, (Jesus Christ) is coming and we are to be prepared, spiritually for His coming (oil in our lamps, or faith).  The 5 wise get into the marriage feast and the 5 foolish are out trying to buy oil failing to make it in time.  The reason the 5 foolish are left out is not because the 5 wise are mean.  It seems so when they say no we can't give you our oil.  But if you look at oil as faith, how at the last minute can I give my belief, my faith to someone unprepared?  I can't just pluck it out of my heart and mind and hand it over.  It doesn't work that way.  

I want to tell you in living this parable that I was wise.  But that would be a lie and though I may be foolish, I am not a liar.  I also hope I can convey to you what I mean when I say I lived it.

We had been warned that a bad winter storm was coming.  In North Carolina a bad storm can stop everything.  My dad has always cautioned me to keep at least half a tank of gas.  In case of emergency you can get somewhere or hit the road quickly without having to gas up.  I do shift work and was working every day leading up to the storm.  I also lived very close to work and could get there with the gas gauge on E for days.  I am not happy to admit that this was a common practice of mine.  Knowing that the storm was coming and with my dad's caution on my mind every day on my way in and every evening on my way home I felt prompted to get gas.  My younger sister and a medical student were living with me at the time and they told me that they too felt they should get gas since all three of us were on E. 

By prompted I mean a feeling more than, "Hey maybe I should do this thing."  But a real fervent inward feeling that I should be prepared and every morning and every evening I chose to ignore this prompting.  My only excuse is a poor one because we should never ignore a prompting.  At the time my work was really, really busy, difficult and stressful.  I worked 13-14 hour days and would use the bathroom before I left and when I got home.  Lunches would be gulped down in minutes so I could return to work.  And at the time it seemed that I would run from crisis to crisis for the whole 13-14 hour shift.  So when I left work I was so tired the thought of getting gas was stressful and in the morning I wanted as much time to sleep as I could muster.

My promptings come to me in several ways.  Sometimes they are my own inner voice.  (Don't tell me you don't have one and that I am just hearing voices.)  There have been a few choice times in my life that the prompting has been a still, small voice.  This wasn't one of those still, small voice times.  It was my inner voice, but I knew the prompting was more than my just own thinking.

Know that I chose to ignore the prompting and rationalized why by going over my excuse.  I was tired and work was stressful, blah, blah, blah.  The day the storm really hit was a day off and I was sure I could just get gas then. 

The storm came and it was bad, we were out of power for days.  As we lay in bed (my sister and I together to share our body heat) we could hear the crashing of trees/tree limbs all around us from the weight of the ice. The next morning, being intrepid, I decided to go get gas, on E.  To my surprise the gas station near my home didn't have power, so no pumping gas.  I traveled further and further afield looking for gas.  I finally found a station with power and filled up. I had to wait in line, sweating bullets waiting my turn.  I knew by that point I was literally running on fumes.

Later that day I took the medical student to get gas.  She had spent the night in the hospital and had come home to sleep so it was early afternoon before we set out. This is where my moment really happened, you see I needed to be told twice.  Once when I got gas for my self and again when I got gas with the student.

So there we were on a street with several gas stations and power and not too far from home.  A win, win, win, right?   It was frigidly, icy cold.  So many cars were trying to get gas the police were there to direct traffic and help with the lights that were out, (there were only patches of power).  The police were cold and cranky.  It was much more dramatic than my morning's frantic search for gas.  On the main street cars were lined up, all the lanes, for blocks and blocks and blocks in both directions, and from every side street, trying to get gas.  Unwittingly, we had approached incorrectly.  There was no way for us to know this other than the cold, angry, exasperated officer directing traffic filling us in on how we should have come.

He was not a happy camper.  In the moment I was mad at him but time and hindsight have helped me to see he was doing the best he could trying to not freeze while keeping the public safe.  We figured out how to go and wound up going the right way and a very gracious motorist allowed us in the line of hundreds to get gas.

It was here that I was struck so forcefully.  I realized I had been told all my life to be prepared, to have oil in my lamp to be ready for the coming of the Savior.  There I sat in line with all the other foolish, unprepared souls trying to get gas after the fact.  It was this temporal moment of being unprepared with gas and being witness to cars full of people, as far as the eye could see, waiting in line to put "oil" in their lamps.  It was devastating to see myself there.  I recognize that it was just me not having gas in the car, but the symbolism really hit me.  There I was foolish and unprepared for an event that I had been told by my earthly father to have what I might need ready. Likewise, my Heavenly Father has given me warning after warning to put oil in my lamp, to prepare for the day that the Savior returns.  So that I won't be left out searching for what I may need in the moment.

Speaking of what we need in the moment, I spoke with my sister to try to make sure my timeline was close to correct since this event happened so long ago.   She reminded me of other things I hadn't mentioned that really have no bearing on the parable part but were nice.  We were out of power for almost a week.  We were also lucky enough that our aunt in a near by town had power the day after the storm so we were able to stay with her family.   I worked a night shift the next week and decided to sleep at my freezing house after work.  

When I woke up hungry I tried to think of what I had available to eat that didn't require cooking.  I kept circling back to peanut butter and jelly but knew there was no milk.  I kept looping that around until, reluctant and hungry, I decided I would eat a p and j with, sigh, water.  When I opened the fridge to get the jelly, it was like a Christmas miracle!  There was a whole gallon of unopened milk staring at me!  My sister had bought milk before the storm but I hadn't known.  Oh what a tasty sandwich and big ol' glass milk I had!  And to my further joy, since I love milk, she wouldn't drink it because it hadn't been refrigerated.  The house was a refrigerator it hadn't made it above 30 degrees since the storm so I swigged every drop of that milk.  The next week in the hospital was a trial, just kidding, I was fine and so was the milk. 

I hope this will inspire you in some way.  To see that a moment of being physically unprepared made me aware of the need for spiritual preparedness.  How horrible if felt to be foolish and unprepared after being warned and warned.  And also, knowing, KNOWING what I should do and deciding that it wasn't convenient.  Letting my self rationalize my behaviour.  A long time ago I had a friend tell me that when we rationalize we tell ourselves, rational lies.  It is so true how easy it can be to forget what we have been taught for what seems good or convenient now.