ok, I'm going to begin writing, and later edit this post as I recall more details. At this moment, I am on my 14th hour awake, after 3 hours of sleep, after 20.5 hors of being awake.

-backtracking thought- The battle began on Saturday during the day or it was Friday durring the day. And the day before the battle began, I was thinking to myself -- ok... if I'm really headed towards something that God wants me to head towards, then I am going to be attacked. And I'm going to be attacked tomorrow (relativly speaking from the day before) and I knew exactly how I was going to be attacked. As the attack came, I fought it and prayed. He was defeated in that battle and did not deter me from my path.
Saturday night, (the beginning of the day), I didn't feel like waking up at like 8:30 to go to work at 10. prayed for strenght to get up and go. Got to work in good time, God provides. It's still relativly early in the morning for me, so I'm not quite fully up to par yet mentally. (*note... i'm being distracted from writing this at the moment...) that night at work is the busiest night for me that I can recall. my co-worker, Mike, was sitting at the register across from me, sorting ad tags for us to put up in the store. My manager, Mr Chris was in the back half of the store working. And there was a constant steady flow of customers from about 10 o'clock until around 1:00. Constant and steady as in as soon as one customer took their bag of stuff to leave, I was ringing up the next customer. Every few customers had something they needed my manager to take care of, so I had to switch registers a couple times, and sometimes random odd questions, odd system errors, and Mr Chris & Mike didn't do anything to help me with the customers until I asked them to help. Which was a bit bothersome, although later ended up not really mattering because what each of them were working on, they needed to get done. Customers were rushing, so I was rushing, I felt a bit mentally tired so I made sure to focus on what buttons I was pressing on the register so I didn't miss-ring anyone up. The change for one customer's purchase was $6.66. I thought to myself "...o...k..." Swamping me with stuff to get me flustered and unfocused wasn't an attack I had anticipated, but God showed me that's what Satan was trying to do to me. So I just relied on God's strenght to keep my mind focused and clear to be able to help customers in a way that was glorifying to God. At 1, the customer flow stopped, so I tried to get some of my other work done, because the next wave of customers usually starts up again at like 2. The next wave started at 1:30, and didn't end until like 2:30-3:00ish. Mr Chris was finished what he was doing, and customers were scarce, so I was able to work on finishing my normal work from about 3-4:30.
-backtracked note- While I was straightening the store, I found a massive number of missplaced items, many more than I would normally find. And the customers left quite a large number of items at the register that they decided at the last minute that they didn't want to purchase.-
Then I was given the most complicated portion of sale tags to put up -- and we had a tremendous amount of sale tags because it's a tremendously large sale going on this week. Mr Chris had laid out the plan for the evening, and he strayed far off from it and did the very thing he talked to me about weeks before -- not working and spending all night talking to the guard. I wanted to say something to him about it to get him to start working, but I didn't. Instead, I took a relaxed tone to the evening next to him to see if he would notice "hey... work isn't getting done." But no =P so after I finished eating my ice cream, I lingered a bit more, then went back to working on the tags. Eventually the guard left (he stayed about 10 minutes after his shift ended to talk more, when the guards normally leave like 15-20 minutes before their shift ends) and Mr Chris started working on his portion of the tags, he also put a chunk of more tags on Mike to do, after Mike dilligently worked and finished his fair share of them. He's a good manager, just that night he was lazy. Most of the seasonal sale tags are still not up. Anyway, I had planned to leave work promptly when my shift ended at 8, so I could catch the bus at 8:10. Around 6:30, I realized I hadn't mentioned this to Mr. Chris -- normally I linger 15-30 minutes after my schedualed end time -- so I was going to go tell him. As I started on my way, a customer came in for me to assist. so I couldn't go to him. Then a few more customers, and then from about 7:15 on, there was a steady wave of customers like the night before, but this time there were fewer customers purchasing more items at a time. One lady purchased $200 worth of groceries, then had to leave the store to go get more money from her car (which is fine, just makes the process of rining up her items take a good bit more time.) at 7:50, I still didn't get to finish the ad tags, or put away all the itmes in the shopping cart full of random items throughout the store (and they were all small items!) So, the first chance I got to talk to Mr Chris, I said 'There is a bus that I would like to catch at 8:10, so I would like to leave at 8, but I still have a load of ad tags and a shopping cart full of returns to take care of, I will be back in to work tonight, so may I put the shopping cart in the stock room, and deal with it and the ad tags tonight?' He offered to just drop me off at home, but the bus was to church, which is way farther from home and way out of his way, and as it turned out, the person who came in to relieve me, volunteered to put away "some" (she ended up putting away ALL) of the returns for me, and I was allowed to leave at 8 :-D changed my clothes and everything. Also, with all the rush and hustle, I was close to not buying paper that I had planned to buy, but I bought it anyway. --2b continued (sleepy)--
--continuing 10:10AM Nov 29--
Ok where was I... *re-reads...* Okay, so I bought the paper I wanted to buy, and was looking outside to see if the bus came. I got out there a little before 8:10, and was thinking to myself "Ok... this might be another point of attack comming up." The bus was nowhere in sight at 8:10. I called to find out what time the bus was schedualed, to double check what I thought I knew, and I was right according to the schedual. So I thought 'yup... another deterrant... why am I just allowing these attacks to keep comming? Lord, please do not allow the enemy to continue to attack me and try to hinder me.' I walked down a block to the next bus stop, and talked to a gentlemen that was standing there and he said he was waiting for the bus since 7:30. I told him it was schedualed for 8:10, it was about 8:12 or so at the time, and the bus showed up very shortly after. []In hindsight, the bus being 3 minutes late doesn't sound or seem like much of an issue or a concern. But, it was very cold outside, I believe around 38 degrees F and a Sunday morning after a holiday, with the next bus not schedualed until 1 hour later at 9:10. And the only alternative route available would just take more work and end up arriving at the same time as the bus schedualed for 9:10. So missing the bus, or the bus not showing up would have been a problem.[] I spent the entire busride just praying praising and thanking God. I was listening to my MP3 player, and every song was just so full and worshipful. My heart was just opened and my spirit was so full of praises to God. I got off the bus and walked to church singing. I love my Sunday morning worship time as I travel to church.
I got to church at 9:00. She was there... ^_^ i felt as though i lost all my energy, all my courage, all my strenght... i was silent and paralyzed... She was playing the piano, practicing for leading worship, I didn't want to interrupt her to say Hi. So I just set to work on tasks that needed to be done. Why would I go through all that, put forth that much effort, reach the point I was pursuing, just to not take the step I had been prepairing for and working towards for the past 2 weeks? how weak and pathetic am I? no -- i would not allow my opportunity to pass that day. Seconds ticked, minutes passed, she said hello to me while I was moving chairs after she stopped playing the piano. At one point, the few other people in the room, left -- and it was just me and her. She played a song for me to hear by Sufjan Stevens titled "To be alone with you." Why she played that song, at that time, I don't know. It is a beautiful song, and the lyrics are awesome. But if missunderstood or missinterpreted, there is really no limit to what it could be ment to say, so I'm not going to try to interpret that for fear of overanalyzing it (lol, as if I don't overanalyze everything anyway...). My question is this though -- this one blew my mind... Why was there a coffee cup sitting ontop of some audio equipment with a lable that said "Isaac, have a better day." If there were any bit of doubt left to hinder me from asking her out, how much clearer or direct bit of encouragement could I possibly ask for? A little while later, I asked her "Would you be interested in going out with me?" She said "Yes! When?" :-D I was expecting her to take a moment to think about it or hesitate or something, so I was like "woah... Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I kinda studdered over the details I had practiced so clearly in my mind :-} but she really wanted to go see the movie with me ^_^ I was sooooooo sooooo happeeee!!! *Yes "Happee" - v. Happy with glee, could be accompanied by giggling and/or gleeful squeals, always has happy grins with it*

end of story? nope ^_^

I've told 2 of my friends about liking her, one of them knows her, the other doesn't, anyway, I told one of my friends that I asked her out and she said yes! And he asked a good question "Wait wait wait, asked her out as in boyfriend girlfriend, or what?" and I thought about it and didn't have an answer. So I made a mental note to myself to talk with her about it and be clearer that I wanted to ask her out on a date, and see what her response was.
[side story--it ties in, trust me X-D] While everyone was walking around talking and getting coffee, one gentlemen was making paper airplains with the kids out of some of the half-sheet church bulitins. I was like =-O "really..." So I just walked over to my bag, pulled out the pack of paper that I almost didn't buy, put it down beside them, opened it up, pulled out a chunk of paper, and gave it to them. They were sooooooooo thrilled! Paper is one of the greatest things ever made in my opinion :-D I also got a chance to show one of my friends how to make a paper airplane ^_^ Lol, she was nay-saying so much that I was like "Hmm... she really wants to join in but doesn't know how" So I told her "Come here and make one, I'll show you how" She made one and was happy :-D And she had fun playing with the kids as they made more and threw them around the room. [wow... this is a long post... ^^;;]
The sermon was awesome :-D I am seriously officially impressed by my pastor. He preached a sermon on the geneology of Jesus. At the beginning of the service, he read Matthew chapter 1, verses 1-17. It was an awesome sermon! (http://liberti.org/audio/November272005.mp3)
After the service, I made an origami rose, and went up to her and gave it to her just before leaving ^_^ She said "awww... that's so sweet."
When I left, I had a feeling that I should just take the short and simple route, but I didn't feel like it, I felt like going a new way to explore and I figured I could get to where I was going traveling the route I picked. But I didn't take all of the geographic features of this city into account when I picked my route and I ended up walking about 10 or so blocks in one direction, then end up backtracking and negating that by walking back another 12 blocks, and like 8 blocks down to get to public transportation that I was trying to avoid taking. (Basically I went in a big circle to get to a point I could have reached by going with my first thought and taking the short and simple road) It was a pleasant walk though. The afternoon was good :) I got to meet the govenor ^_^ That was pretty neat. I had such an opportunity to learn so much, but I was too tired at the time to take it. I was at my grandmom's 55th highschool reunion. There were people around that knew my grandmom ever since she was in Jr highschool. i have a lot to learn about my parent's history.. It was fun just observing and catching bits and pieces of stories just by being there :) From there I went home, was super tired, my mind was beginning to shut down and run rampant and random, and I had to go to work later that night. Got home, talked online for a bit, then went to sleep, got 3 hours of sleep, and went to work. :) -The end- *for now*

-OH! =P Forgot a part I wanted to mention!-
My friend had introduced me to one of his friends last week, but I only got to speak to him for a brief moment in passing. This week, my friend(A) told me about a conversation with his friend(B)

B) Hey, you know that guy with the hat?
A) Yeah
B) He's really strong with God
A) Woah, how can you tell?
B) I just can..

when people look at me, what do they see? is it an ernest striving after God's will for me?
that was encouraging to hear... ^_^