Is it okay to be mad at God? Is it wrong? Is it sinful? What am I supposed to do if I am pissed off at Him? These were the questions I was wrestling with for the month of April. After much pondering and many long talks with Don and my close friends, I finally found a satisfactory response to those questions. I began by asking myself whether sin management or a genuine, authentic relationship with God is more important to me. If sin management is my top priority, then it would be best to make an attempt to bury my anger and to try to carry on as if it did not exist. If that failed, then I should start shaming myself about it. However, if a genuine, authentic relationship with God is more important to me, then perhaps it is okay to be furious with God, to own up to that and acknowledge it to Him. If I don’t feel particularly guilty about my rage, then I should accept that and tell Him about that, too. It’s not like I could hide anything from Him, anyway. For sixteen years, I had believed that it was inappropriate for a Christian ever to express anger with God, and I was proud that I had never reached that state before. Going through this ordeal has humbled me and brought about a new dimension in my relationship with God. It showed me that, although I believed that Christianity was not supposed to be about sin management, on a subconscious level, part of me had always believed it was.
In mid-May, I knew I had to find a source of quick income. I had been aware of Uber for a while, but I was hesitant to get involved. I had heard about Uber drivers being dissatisfied with their pay; I’d also heard stories of drunk passengers puking in their cars. What’s more, I do not have a particularly nice car: I drive a 2006 Toyota Camry with some marks and dents on the doors. However, desperate for money, I decided to sign up. Being an Uber driver turned out to be not nearly as bad as I had feared it would. If you only take rides before midnight, you avoid most of the drunk people. You can always carry vomit bags in case you do end up encountering them anyway. As for the pay, it averages about $15 an hour before expenses in Orange County: just enough to make a living. The key, however, was for me to see Uber not as a career path but as a stepping stone to something more.