Perhaps I’m being a pessimist, but I just have this creeping, crawling feeling in my stomach that things will not go well tomorrow. I fear that we will not have a clear winner, that one side or the other will become angry over the way the numbers are going and that litigation mayhem will ensue (pun accidental, but ultimately intended).

Please tell me I’m being an incredible pessimist. Please tell me that this election will go better than the last presidential one. Please tell me that….

…well, just tell me when it’s over.

The sad thing is, normally I would say, I’ll cast my vote and hope for the best, knowing I gave it my "all"…. But I can’t do that this time.

I missed the registration deadline. Yes, that’s right all you lovely Democrat friends of mine. My vote will not cancel yours out this year. Celebrate this fact now. Because there won’t be a next time (I hope!). Blame it on the move… blame it on absent-mindedness… heck, blame it on Nashville…. Hey, I think there’s a country song in there somewhere!

Actually, blame it on Tennessee and California. See, California’s deadline for voter registration is sometime in mid-October. So, I thought I had plenty of time. Who knew Tennessee had a different deadline??? An earlier deadline.

Drat! Shoot! Crap! Daggumit! (see me stomping around my apartment in complete frustration) This is the first, FIRST mind you, election EVER since I turned 18 that I haven’t voted. DRAT!

So, who ever wins, or doesn’t win, this election, I won’t be able to say it wasn’t my fault… because, who knows, maybe my vote could’ve been the one to push it over the top….

Of course, this won’t keep me from complaining about all the stupid things that whoever gets the Office does. I’m an equal opportunity complainer. I’ll even complain about the one I wanted to win, if he does.

Who  should win this election? And does God really care about who the US elects as its leader?

I think so… I think the wackiness of the 2000 election proves that God does weird things…. yeah, some people say it was Florida’s fault. Others say it was the Supreme Court’s fault. But I personally think it was God’s doing. But that’s just me… I have no real proof to back that up. Just raw gut belief. Down-to-the-core-of-my-being-belief. God does what He wants, despite our stupidity…

And then again, sometimes He lets us wallow in our self-made mud-encrusted, crap-filled pig-styes… so who knows?

Wow. Re-reading this, I think some may say I’m making God out to be some wacked-out Puppet Master, who does what He likes when He like and how He likes, regardless of our wishes. I don’t believe that at all. I think the writers of ‘Bruce Almighty’ had it right when they wrote: "You can’t mess with free will." We all get to make our own choices… and so does God. He acts on His choices and sometimes His action negates your action based on your choices made in free will… We’re not His puppets, or pawns. We, instead are players in our own right… but we are players in a larger game than we realize. A cosmic one where our souls are the prize and our lives are the on the line….. But I digress….

By the way, if Jesus looks like Jim Caviezel (which I wouldn’t complain if He does!), then God should look like Morgan Freeman. Don’t you think? He made a good God… if I do say so myself… But I digress, again…. which I’m allowed to do, because it’s my blog….

I heard a question the other day on a tv news show, "is God on America’s side?" How quaint. How silly. How down-right arrogant of us "Americans" to think that God would be on our side.

"God doesn’t have any side but His own!" I screamed at the tv media dork who thought to ask such a silly question. Yet even as the words left my mouth (along with chunks of my milk-saturated Oreo cookie), I realized…. many people in America think that very thing. God is on our side. Whatever side they stand on: liberal, conservative, libertarian, independent… for, against, undecided, in the middle…. it doesn’t matter. We all think God is on our side.

When all the while God is walking a completely different path. Playing a completely different game. Waging a completely different war, on a completely different front, for vastly different reasons… and with much higher stakes.

When I lived overseas, American politics was so far removed from my daily activities that it actually annoyed me greatly when someone sent me a politically charged email. Today, working for an organization plumb in the middle of the political arena, by its own choice, I find myself living and breathing it… and choking on all the smoke and…um… fertilizer… I see across the whole political arena.

Does it matter, in the end, who ends up in the Oval office next January? Living here at the crossroads of politics and religion, where it feels like a dark storm is brewing, some part of me wants to give in to the alarmist’s cries and say, "yes! It’s of vital importance." Which causes anxiety to rise from the depths of my stomach and work its way up into my little brain, dragging bits of my Oreo with it…

But when I quiet my soul and listen, I hear God whispering that His will, His work and His plan doesn’t hinge on the one election of one man in one nation on earth. Does He have His favorite, whom He would cast His vote for? I’m sure He does, but He hasn’t bothered to tell me that juicy tidbit… not that it would matter. I can’t vote anyway!!! (hear me stomping around the room again in frustration)

I realize the above appears to contradict what I believe about what happened in 2000. But, really, it doesn’t. God’s plan isn’t hinged upon this election, any more than it was hinged on the 2000 election. But sometimes, God does extraordinary things… sometimes to prove He’s God, sometimes because there’s a bigger picture He’s working on… sometimes I think it’s just because He can.

Not that He plays with people the way I play with my Oreos before I devour them. I think sometimes He gives us something, does something for us just because He loves us and wants to just bless us, for whatever reason.

I realize there are some out there (Kat, I love you!!) who definitely do not see Bush’s election as a blessing for anyone other than Bush… and perhaps it wasn’t a blessing for you. Or for others. I know his choice to go to war in Iraq had all of us serving overseas in the "neighborhood" quite nervous, anxious… and even a little frustrated at how that war would impact our ministries to those we love and were working hard to serve in that region of the world.

But when I quieted my soul, I heard God whispering that His will, His work and His plan doesn’t hinge on one war by one nation in another one nation on earth. He is bigger than that. And so is His purpose.

All this to say, I don’t know who "should" win tomorrow. I don’t know if there even will be a winner tomorrow. I don’t know what the American political landscape will look like come January 2005… Heck, don’t even know what my own life landscape will look like come the new year!

So many things are uncertain. But of this one thing, I am convinced:

I survived eight stinkin’ years of Clinton. I think I can handle whatever comes next year.

"Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels.
Remember the former things, those of long ago;
I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me.
I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say:
My purpose will stand,
and I will do all that I please."
— Isa 46:8-10