I wasn’t going to blog about it because you can read more than enough stuff about Michael Jackson elsewhere, but I thought this observation of Justin Moffatt’s was right on the money:

To be praised, and adored, and worshiped, and followed and watched, and fawned over is the lot of many famous people like Michael Jackson. But only Jesus the Messiah is able to handle such praise and worship. For he is worthy.

I wonder if one of the reasons that some famous people get so disorientated and distorted is that they find themselves in a place where only Jesus belongs.

Michael Jackson was not the King.

There is only one real King, and it appears that no one else can really bear the red hot heat of worship.

Read the full article - Michael Jackson kept me in church

Had a nice lunch with Lesley today.  It was good to catch up with her, and to have a long, in-depth conversation about life and everything.

But I hadn’t worn my watch, and wasn’t really aware of the time, but thought I had plenty of time to do the fiddly little errands that I had to do.  I went to the post office, went into Hot Dollar to buy materials for Scripture and got stuck wandering around the (cheap!) junk labyrinth, went to Coles to pick up some groceries and back to the car.  Rats.  Overshot the free parking by about five minutes.

I’d spent all the cash I had on me at Coles, but I scraped together some coins from the deep recesses of the car and my bag, and went to pay for parking.  But I didn’t have enough.  Five dollars!  Arg.  That’s okay - the machine takes credit cards, not Amex or Diner’s, but I don’t have Amex or Diner’s so it should be okay.  But no, the temperamental machine wouldn’t take mine either, don’t know why.  Had to go out of the car park, find an ATM, withdraw $20, then find something very cheap I could buy to break the note (because of course the car park machine didn’t take $20 for payments under $10).  Bought chocolate.  Went down to the carpark, paid for parking, drove to the gate and -

The gate was broken, and the boom gate was propped up.  I could have just driven out without paying.

It’s those little things of the modern life that drive me to distraction.  They make me so frustrated I want to cry.  Even more frustrating is that I probably wouldn’t have driven to this shopping centre if I hadn’t at the last minute thought to get groceries (it’s only about a 10 minute walk from my house).  Partly I felt glad I’d done the right thing and dutifully paid for my parking.  Another part of me raged at the hassle it was to pay, and the needless expense of it (If only I’d walked!  If only I hadn’t gone into Hot Dollar!  If only...). 

But there is one upside: at least I have chocolate.

I love the winding, wending way of the internet.

After leaving a rambly comment on Karen‘s Facebook about clothes for larger sized women, and Karen hoping that I’d blog about it, I’ve been musing on the topic.  Not quite ready to post, but found my way to this lovely site today, Grosgrain.  I love her style of sewing: “I’m all about sewing the quick and dirty way! Fast is key. I have such a low attention span, if a project takes more than a couple hours I’m far more likely to abandon it.” That’s me to a T!

In hunting around her site, I found that she does a lot of giveaways and was most taken by this one for the Shabby Apple Marseilles dress.  This then took me to the Shabby Apple site, where I found another bunch of people with excellent philosophies about clothing:

After years of not being able to find stylish dresses that covered enough skin to make you really feel comfortable (without wearing a tank top, cardigan or long slip), owners Emily and CK decided to do something about it.  They visited trade shows, marketplaces and designer studios only to discover the problem was not that department stores weren’t buying the right dresses, but that designers weren’t designing them. Shabby Apple is proud to offer you fantastic dresses that allow you to look fabulous, without having to compromise anything else. A return to what dresses were always meant to be — a one-piece outfit. No need to add anything...no tank tops, no cardigans, nothing (except accessories, of course!).

It seems so simple.  Why aren’t more people doing this?  Well it’s encouraging anyway...More on fashion and clothing later.

[warning: long post]

It’s not anything new to rant about banks.  Money is a touchy subject for most people, and an emotional one at that.  Banks are notoriously unsympathetic when it comes to helping you sort out your personal problems with money; in some ways it’s understandable, I mean it’s just figures to them after all.  I’m sure they hear all sorts of sob stories and people wanting to get away with not paying or just running from their obligations.

I had to type a series of interviews yesterday that were about people defaulting on their mortgages.  It came as something of a shock to realise that this was all still quite raw and painful for me - our home was repossessed around 15 years ago in the middle of my dad’s business going belly up, and my parents’ divorce and it was just a nasty, nasty time. We were exposed to the most unpleasant aspects of the finance world, namely collection agents and sheriffs and cold, aggressive people who didn’t care that you had nothing to do with the debt, they were just doing their job and coming to destroy your life.

So fast forward to the present day.  I have a personal loan with my bank (let’s leave aside the foolishness of getting into this debt and just go with it for the moment).  I had no trouble making my monthly repayments, until recently when work slowed down, the cash flow wasn’t, er, flowing, and it all went a bit pear-shaped.  Most banks now have some sort of assistance program, where you can ring them, explain the situation and they will try to give you some other options to help you sort out your repayments without incurring huge problems.  I wanted to be responsible, accept that I had made unwise decisions, and tell the bank I was prepared to make my repayments, I just needed to rearrange the times and amounts so that it didn’t become burdensome.

The woman wasn’t exactly warm, but she listened to me lay out the situation and suggested that we set up a payment agreement.  Instead of the large monthly payment, I would pay a smaller amount each week, manually, from my bank account.  The large repayments, which were previously direct debited from my account, would not come out so long as I was making this weekly repayment.  Which was manageable and fair and I was happy with that.  “You may get letters or phone calls from the bank if your account goes into arrears, but just ignore them and tell them that you have a payment agreement set up, so it’s covered.  It won’t be a problem.” I wondered why they couldn’t just make a note on my file saying it was all sorted, but no, that’s not how it worked.  Okay.  Fine.

So I dutifully set up my payments, happy that I had been responsible in facing the problem, sorted it out and left it at that.

This week I got a letter, a quite aggressive one, telling me that my account was in arrears.  Although the woman had told me to ignore the letter, I thought I’d better double check.  So I rang the bank, confirmed that I had a payment agreement in place that they knew about, no extra money would come out of my account, and it was all fine.  I filed the letter and thought no more of it.

Until I checked my bank balance and noticed it was at zero.  Crap.  Some money had been taken out for the loan.  That’s odd...For some reason I just ignored it.  It was only about $15 so I just thought perhaps it was some sort of adjustment amount.  Or something.  But then this morning when I checked, after transferring a few hundred dollars into my account to pay for a work expense my account was at zero again.  ARG!  This was more than an adjusment.

So I rang the bank’s personal loan section.  I was calm and I explained the situation and that the money shouldn’t have come out because I had this payment agreement set up.  “Hmm. Let me have a look, I’ll just put you on hold.” Jaunty music.  “Hmm. That probably shouldn’t have happened, should it?  I’ll just see if we can get that money reversed back into your account.” Phew.  Thanks.  More jaunty music.  “I’ll just have to put you through to lending, as we aren’t able to do that here.  Okay?  Thanks.”

I’m transferred to a man with a strong accent of indeterminate origin, who makes me explain it again, umms and ahhs, then says “Okay we can transfer this amount back.” (about a third of what they took out)

“But that’s not the full amount.”

“No, well we will keep the amount for this week’s payment.”

“So I won’t have to make the payment on Saturday?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.  So I’ll transfer that now.  But you won’t get it until tomorrow.”

Well I wasn’t that happy about it because I still needed the full amount of money for that work expense, but whatever.  Sure.  Do it.  So will the bank stop taking money out of my account then?

“Oh, no, since your loan is in arrears, that money will continue to come out.”

“Um...but why?  I have this payment arrangement organised.  If they keep taking out money every time I put money in there, how am I supposed to pay other bills or...buy food?”

“Don’t you have another bank account?”

“No!”

“Oh I can’t do anything about it from here.  You will have to call the lending services to delink your bank account, otherwise it will automatically keep direct debiting.  Here is their number.”

I hung up, burst into tears, rang mum and ranted for a while.  She told me not to let it get to me, that although it sucked (she didn’t use that word) it was just insignificant in the big scheme of things.  She said “when you ring them back, just remember, you are a child of the King.” I had a shower, listened to some uplifting music, prayed, remembered I was a child of the King, and rang lending services.  While I waited to be transferred to an operator, a bubbly voiced recording trilled that the bank had won some great award and “one of our award-winning consultants will be with you shortly!”

One of the award-winning consultants eventually answered the phone.  I calmly explained my situation.

“It’s a personal loan.  I can’t do anything about that.  Your account has to be linked.”

“But I’m making manual payments!”

“I can’t do anything about it.”

“But what am I supposed to do?  When I made this payment agreement, they assured me that this wouldn’t happen.”

“Customer assist you spoke to?”

“Yes.”

“One moment.” Even jauntier music than before.  “I’ll put you through to them.  I can’t do anything about it here, but they probably can.”

I was transferred to a cheerful sounding chap.  I explained it to him in very brief terms because I was sick of talking about it.  “So you just want to delink your account and you’re making manual payments?”

“Yes.”

“Oh okay.” Type type type.  “That’s done for you.”

“Really?  So no more direct debits will come out?”

“That’s right.”

“Wow - thanks!”

“That’s okay.  Goodbye.”

Nobody can do anything.  It’s all somebody else’s problem.  When the bank assures you of something, it is in no way an assurance.  I really should have just listened to my instincts and kept the money under my mattress.

I had written “You are a child of the King” on my whiteboard so I could stare at it in case I started to get upset again.  But as I reflected on it, I realised the truth of what being a child of the King means. He provides. He cares about me and my petty struggles.  He is bigger than any bank or any debt - in fact, he’s cancelled the massive debt I owe to him.  I didn’t need to ring 64 million people to sort it out, all I had to do was accept that Jesus had cancelled it for me.  And I can fully trust when he says it’s done that it is done (tetelestai!!!!).  What an amazing God!

Sicketty sick sick sick. Not much to report as I’ve been in bed for the last three days. Every time I get up the world spins and I remember how much more sensible it is to be horizontal.  It’s a shame because there were lots of things I was going to do this weekend.  Fire Water for Vivid Sydney, partnership course at church, Sydney Craft Fair, music at church. And I did none of it.  Which is okay.  But still.

Going to Adelaide this week because my aunt wants to show me the ropes of the transcribing business she runs.  I’ve been working for her this year, and she thinks I’d be good at managing the day to day running of the business, which I can do from anywhere really, given it’s entirely run online.  She said I could come down to Adelaide (where she lives) to meet the current manager, A, who would like to move on to something else.  We’d chat about what’s involved, train me up in it and see if I want to take it on.  “If you decide you don’t want to,” she said, “that’s okay, A can just keep doing it.” So I thought fine, that’s no pressure, happy to go down and check it out.

Only a few days later, A sent an email out to all the staffers (me included) saying that someone was going to be taking over the managing from her very soon.  That means me.  Um...hmm.  I wonder if she’s gotten the wrong impression, or whether my aunt just didn’t specifically tell her that I wasn’t 100% certainly going to be taking it on.  Even though I know I could probably do the job with no problems at all, I’m a little hesitant to take things on entirely because my health and depression is still cactus, it leaves me less time to do any creative work I can get, it leaves me even less time to write (which I haven’t managed to do much of this year, even though that was the main goal), it doesn’t pay much (though my aunt wasn’t clear on money and said we’d discuss it), and I don’t want to become so enmeshed in this role that I can’t just leave it if I need to (it sounds like a fairly all-encompassing kind of gig).

But given that money has been such an issue this year so far, is it better to take on something like this than to still hope and pray that I’ll get my act together enough for other creative jobs to come in?  A few jobs that were supposed to get off the ground a couple of months ago, that I was quite excited about, haven’t materialised, and I’m starting to think that they may never eventuate.  In just trying to make enough to stay afloat, I haven’t had enough time to make up my portfolio site or even spend any time telling people I exist (though G is helping me with that).  And maybe it wouldn’t be so all-encompassing; if I’m sensible maybe I can just keep it under control. But I have a feeling that it’s the sort of job where you have to manage a constant flow of work coming in whenever the clients decide to send it, so it’s not totally predictable.

Guh. My head’s hurting again just thinking about it.  I shouldn’t have blogged about this while I’m sick!  Anyway...pray that I’ll make wise decisions and God will lead me where he wants me to be.  And, as always, that I will actually trust him (instead of just saying I trust him and panicking away in the background).