HEATHER HOPES: Trouble and a Soldier, Part III

By HEATHER CATHLEEN COX
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com 

Heather Cathleen Cox

For anyone who hasn’t read the first two installments of “Trouble and a Soldier,” or for those who want a quick refresher, type the keywords: Trouble and a Soldier into the Google search bar.

For everyone else…

When I received the job offer with a prestigious San Antonio wedding photographer, I could not – did not – want to miss the opportunity. Instead of spending a mid-June weekend with Soldier, I worked 28 total hours at a gorgeous Riverwalk hotel, photographing a luxurious Jewish wedding.

Soldier said he understood why I had to rain check. With this being our second-failed attempt at meeting, it seemed timing was not in our favor, though we continued to have cordial correspondence. I also continued much less cordial correspondence with Trouble.

In between not dating Trouble or Soldier, I briefly dated another guy. We were on our second and final date when he exposed his severe road rage. The guy used expressions I hadn’t heard before to yell at the driver of a vehicle that didn’t even come very close to his car.

After he saw the effect his rage had on me, he began apologizing profusely. For 40 minutes, while we drove from outside the San Antonio city limits back to my apartment in the Medical Center area, I was terrified while the guy hit the steering wheel with his open palms. He emphatically said, “I was trying to keep myself under control” and “I can’t have messed this up, I just can’t. I messed this up, didn’t I?”

I said nothing the whole drive back. Not one word. I could have kissed the ground outside my apartment, I was so glad to dart out of that vehicle. I don’t think I waited for him to put it in park to be honest.

I thought I wanted a boyfriend at this point in my life, but I began thinking I had no clue what I wanted.

After the back and forth between Trouble and Soldier, on top of the relocation process and the fact I was still somewhat in rehabilitation from the March wreck, my focus began shifting.

I worked doubles almost every day, at either the souvenir gig or the wedding gig, sometimes taking side jobs with a photography teacher and considering my future as a photographer. While working as a full-time photographer, the Lord blessed me financially. But a padded bank was not worth the cost of losing my ability to live life.

One night, I left the souvenir photography job around 9 p.m. I had sharp pains in my back, my feet were throbbing, my head ached, I was hungry and I felt as though I had no more conversation left inside of me after coercing young children to smile for the camera and assuring mothers and girlfriends their hair looked good enough to be photographed. I just needed to unwind before I went home, so I did what I do: I poured myself and a stack of books, writing utensils and notebooks into a comfy leather seat at Starbuck’s.

I purchased my Venti coffee and cracked open whatever book I was planning to employ. Somehow, I paused to consider that I’d been working so much, I had stopped being myself. Something inside me began stirring, and I couldn’t shake it.

I didn’t want to go home, but when Starbuck’s closed, as it has a bad habit of doing, I aimlessly stopped off at a Redbox. After rummaging through a selection of DVDs, I stumbled upon what looked like a documentary about the Bible, taught by a speaker named Joyce Meyer – a name unfamiliar to me at the time.

I watched Joyce (yes, I refer to her as if I know her…I think I will meet her one day!) talk about a man from the Bible named Joseph. She shared that dreams from the Lord changed Joseph’s life. She explained how he was cast into a dungeon before the Lord appointed him to a position so high he was second-in-command only to Pharaoh.

God had spoken to my heart in San Marcos, saying He hadn’t saved my life from what could have been a fatal automobile accident for me to be too busy to fully live life. He was directing me to spend time with Him, to learn His ways, to develop my faith and trust in who He says He is. He was giving me what will always be the greatest opportunity I’ve ever had, and my eyes water even as I type these words: He afforded me the chance to know His Son, to really intimately get to know Jesus Christ, as more than a name on a page, but as my Savior.

I knew the Bible and had been raised in church, but it was near the end of June 2009 when I answered the call of God on my life, saying: Here am I; send me. I might not have been capable of leaving the world behind if I hadn’t seen with my own eyes the miracle He performed during my relocation from San Marcos to San Antonio. He literally gave me a brand new life (He can do that for anyone, including you, by the way).

But to explain to naysayers that after just two months of doing what I’d uprooted my life entirely to do, to say that I was planning to quit something lucrative and live humbly until I received further instruction from the Lord…well…that wasn’t on my “To Do” list at the time. Nonetheless, I shared my plans with my parents and a few friends who probably thought I was certifiably nuts.

I had become accustomed to working extensive hours, so I kept the idea in tact but changed my routine. Instead of facing an hour of San Antonio rush hour traffic to get to work and not have a moment’s peace until I drove back home 10-12 hours later, I started waking up, brewing coffee or tea, and keeping a steady date with my trusty Bible and my lovely balcony. I read, prayed, wrote music and repeated until evening.

Sometimes, I’d go to the coffee shop, library, to grab lunch or to work-out with a friend, but mostly, I stayed home and read the Word. I also wrote a lot. I didn’t have a laptop, so I could be found with either a spiral notebook full of journal entries or sitting for hours at my desktop computer, cracking away at a short fictional story about a lady named Paula, a 31-year-old woman whose husband walked out on her, took her dog and left her with bills she couldn’t pay and quasi-friends who made her re-evaluate everything she thought was true.

What’s interesting to me at this point – summer 2009 – is I had no idea that that story, titled “Sugar Cane Season,” would be a project I’d revisit in the fall of 2012. I submitted “Sugar Cane Season” to the prestigious literary magazine the New Yorker on October 12, or roughly two months ago. They said they’d let me know if they were planning to publish it within three months.

I digress. I share this to expose the motives of my heart at this point in my life. I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. My forward plan was completely up to the Lord’s direction. At this moment in my existence, neither Trouble nor Soldier seemingly fit into the equation, but that didn’t stop Trouble, who knew I loved amusement parks, from inviting me to Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

Well, again, it looks like I’m all out of space for this week. If you’re still with me, maybe I’ll see you next time for more of the story.

Read this story in the Dec. 16 edition of the San Benito News, or subscribe to our E-Edition by clicking here.