Heaven Helps The Man Who Fights His Fear

Quick, what song is the title of this post from? Anyone? Famous dance movie from 1984.... The song is from Kenny Loggins, it's called "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man). So is Tim now trying to do some kind of trivia game or something? No. I'll tell you why I brought this song up.

God definitely works in mysterious ways. God uses scripture and conversations with other people to convict our hearts, but since I have been in Berlin, God has used music for me as well. Since I'm a child of the 80's (teen actually and since 80's music is a large portion of what's on my iTunes), God has spoken to me, challenged my heart and encouraged me immensely through music.

Once again this afternoon, I was just messing around on the computer when this song came on. It's a very upbeat, sort of passionate song with lots of energy and a very powerful rhythm. It played and I hadn't heard it for a while and so I decided to play it again, this time I listened to the lyrics more closely. Not many in the song, but here are the words:  (Sorry this site is not allowing me to copy and paste the words, see below for some excerpts).

I looked at the words to this song and once again, it just felt like God was trying to speak through this song to me. "Nothing I want is out of my reach." and "Heaven helps the man who fights his fear" and "you're the reason that I'm hanging on" and "shaking the past, making my breaks", etc. Song really spoke to me about facing my fears, which I have done a lot of in the past few years. Breaking out of a difficult situation into a different kind of challenge. Struggling, but not deterred.

I have to be honest, this week was so hard for me. Despite having two very encouraging interviews this week, Friday I just felt so humbled and was starting to feel desperate and discouraged. I have 9 days before I have to return to the US unless I have a job or a very good reason to stay here. NINE days..... 

The reality of this has been slowly creeping in the past couple weeks and I was showing my angst in a number of different ways by acting out, feeling stressed, consuming more sweets to feel comforted, but never really feeling fulfilled. Despite being very open with God, there was an underlying fear that God would not come through. If that was the case and I did have to return to the U.S., I would be so discouraged. Seriously I do not know how I could even approach God if he did not give me a job here. Remember, this whole idea of coming to Germany was not my idea, I was just following what I still believe to be clear signs from God that I need to come to Berlin. I have done everything in faith and a trusting heart and have completely put myself in God's hands in a V-E-R-Y real and at times extremely uncomfortable way. 

When I got together with Christian Z on Friday, he chided me about not following his advice that he gave me a few weeks ago. We had talked about being able to ask for help financially from the church here and I didn't do it, mainly because I had requested help from another source and I didn't want it to be perceived as trying to get money from multiple sources. I explained this to him in the past, but he still felt like I should have at least asked for help because they could potentially help me in other ways than financially (ie: where to apply for jobs, how, etc.) I admitted that was not what I was thinking. Still felt stressed about everything and to add that onto the top of all the other emotions and insecurities I had been dealing with really put even more pressure on me. We sat down at a park to pray after a couple minutes of silence and I just broke down in tears because I felt like I was at the end. I had no money and no job here and with the exception of family, had nothing to return to the states to. I felt like it was a failure and that God was waiting too long to answer. I was totally discouraged, disillusioned and had been struggling with other sin as well which certainly was aggravating an already out-of-my-control situation. Waiting on God to answer prayers I am finding is incredibly difficult. Maybe some of you can relate. 

 
Also, two other people mentioned that my last post seemed like I was angry. After the second person mentioned it, I was just decimated. It was later at night and I was tired from the week. I just felt completely beaten down, like God was trying to tear down the old Tim to the foundation so a new Tim could be built on it. I had some things on my heart that I just couldn't go to bed without getting them on "paper". Due to the subject matter, I decided to write my thoughts in a Word document and not add them to this blog for a number of reasons, but it would suffice to say they were just too personal to share in such a forum. Either way, it was worth it because it was very therapeutic to my heart. I also joined a group of people by Skype to deal with some aspects of some of the things I am dealing with, so we had a long talk yesterday and it was super encouraging and helpful to my heart. Man, I had no idea that moving to Germany was going to expose my heart so completely and so painfully. In reality, though, it's really good that this is happening, I'm really taking my relationship with God to a new level. I realize how much HE is God, and how much I'm NOT. Ha!

At any rate, part of what I was struggling with on Friday night was that I received an email about 6pm that I did NOT get the job for the 2nd interview I had earlier in the week. I was struggling, but I feel like I didn't automatically go and try to dull the pain with sweets or anything else. That's growth for me. 

 So after a number of encouraging events on Saturday and being able to go to service today and see my friends, things are going so much better. I had an interview on Friday with a hotel and they told me to call back on Saturday, so I did. They asked me to sleep on it and call them back Saturday, so I did and I told them that I would be interested in the position. He said he would like to have me come in on Tuesday for a "Probearbeiten" (trial work is the best way to translate it), but never called back. If I don't hear from him in the morning, I will call back. I hope it was just him being too busy and not something worse. I'm trying not to be too worried about it though. Please pray for me to be able to do this on Tuesday and to get the job.

So, as for the surprise, I worked a bit more on it today. I'm very excited to hopefully be able to present it sometime this week. Still not going to tell you what it is though.... I did want to report that I have gone down another belt size. It's still pretty snug, but have been able to do it! So excited, but because I don't have a scale at home, I'm not sure where I'm at exactly yet. I'll try to update that soon for you too....

Anyway, thanks for letting me tell you what's going on with Tim in Germany. Stay tuned, I really hope and pray that God allows me to have great news on the job front this week. I don't have much time left... Talk to you all again soon!