09/22/24
Welcome Friends,
I invite you into my most deep, personal and private thoughts of heart and mind. They are only private if I keep them there. Why keep good inspirational thoughts private when I can share my testimony.
As I sit here and write this with heart felt tears in my eyes as I look back at my life from two year ago up to today. There is a new kind of joy that is now in my heart that I have never truly experienced. The transformation that God has been doing in my life though trials, seasons and storms. God has shown great mercy and love for me though these trials in order for me to grow spiritually and draw closer to Him.
I wanted to share an update of what I have once been to what I have become today.
2 years ago, a certain set of unfavorable life circumstance, hit me all at the same time.
Trying to care for my daughter while she is hospice dying of heart failure with outside life
issues attacking me in all directions. I was in the middle of the most devastating storm that I have ever encountered.
As I sat in my boat with the waves engulfing me in all directions with hatred in my heart and my mind constantly racing with repeated negative thoughts, day and night. I turned to the bible to stop these negative thoughts and emotions and put something positive inside my mind and focus on something else by keeping my mind busy. After reading the whole bible, I desired to learn more and wanted to dig deeper into
God’s word as I now had so many questions, with one being-what is life really all about.
Matthew 7:7-8
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
This is exactly what I did
I Ask- I Sought-I Found-and God opened that door and little by little, through my deep studies and daily searching, He is gradually revealing life’s answers to me just as He promised He would.
Jeremiah 33:3
“‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'”
Life isn’t about me sitting in a boat in the middle of a brutal storm, crying and waiting it out.
It’s about humbling myself before the Lord.
Life is about God using me as His vessel to do His work though me.
I just needed to take that the next step of faith and fully humble myself before Him. Give myself and my life fully over to Him to do whatever He asks of me and have Him guide my life. It was a huge step for me to take as my life is no longer my own but a true servant of the Lord.
I can honestly say, when I stopped being in control of my own life and let the Lord guide me, I have never been happier and more at peace.
Yes, I still need His correction, and I am happy with whatever consequences He gives me as I know He is strengthening me though my sins
He took me on a long hard wilderness journey until I finally understood that if I truly wanted to change my circumstances around me, then I needed to start with myself.
This is when the bible started coming to life. This was the most amazing awe feeling that I have ever experience. As I dug deep into scripture, the Lord showed me my life though the characters in the bible. These stories are not just stories but my exact life, my exact self, my exact situation, being played out though the characters in the bible. The bible is a living, breathing guide that speaks directly to me.
When I read about the trials and triumphs of biblical characters, I see my own struggles and triumphs mirrored in their experiences.
This is how God talks to me. I get it !! I can’t even describe this feeling as it is indescribable.
I wake up every morning and can’t wait open up my bible-read my story-and read and learn more about myself and the others around me. The owner’s manual of my life.
The Lord as taken me though many different seasons of transformation though these studies
a season of blessings
a season of faith
a season of learning about how to deal with others
a season of recognizing my own wrong doings
a season of acknowledging
a season of taking personal responsibility
a season of repentance
seasons of all sorts of transformations
The season I am in now is learning that….
Life is about spiritual warfare and not flesh and blood.
This battle is not between me and others
This battle is between good and evil.
This battle is between God, angels and believers against satan and demons.
When I really started to understand this, grasping this concept from deep within my heart and my brain,
I knew I wanted to wake up every morning and put on my full armor of God and stand strong against evil.
Stand strong in my faith to fend off the enemy. I want to be a soldier of God. I want to be in His army.
It deeply grieved me to see how much of a grip that satan had on my heart that I didn’t even realize.
I thought I was a good person but the deeper that I study God’s word, the more God has revealed to me how satan uses his devious tactic to get a foothold on my life causing negative consequences that pulls me that much closer to satan and that much farther from God.
I am anxious to see the next season He will lead me into. Each step is a transformation, a change within myself, drawing me ever closer to the Lord.
I am so very thankful that God has allowed this brutal storm over my life.
I am now a true servant of God, prepared for any task that He wants me to do.
I do have to admit that it can be scary at times as I am afraid that I might say no to what He will call me to do and I know that at times, It will be to uncomfortable and I will say no.
I also know that God is with me and He will sometimes challenge me with uncomfortable tasks but its only to make me stronger and it’s ok if I am afraid and can’t accomplish the task He has given me.
He will give me plenty of more opportunities.
This is where I am going to close
My daughter Andrea had the biggest heart for wanting to help people but her muscular dystrophy caused her brain to stay at a teenage immature level along with her physical challenges and other disabilities, she often attracted, not so good people, into her life. Her life scared me. I mean Literally scared me !!
I now understand that God needs people like her to be in the lives of those scary individuals.
Andrea desired to help people and God answered her prayers and kept her safe in the meantime.
In the end
I wish she could have known that her greatest accomplishment in helping someone- was going to be me. Her life had to end so that my life could truly begin.
If it weren’t for God’s perfect plan of calling her home at just the right time and under the right circumstances, I would not be where I am today—a true servant to the Lord.
The photos I add were taken Sept 14, 2022
2 weeks after she made the heart felt decision to go on hospice instead of fighting.
I have never seen anyone so brave and ready to go home to the Lord.
She never showed sadness, but it did show internally with stress and anxiety.
She developed anxiety about leaving her house and anxiety if I left her side.
I helped her take baby steps and this was her first drive out of her apartment area.
We went to the college just down the road for a drive, and she yelled at me to stop as she seen a feather. I turned the car around and I seen nothing. I got out of my car and walked to where she was pointing…..way over yonder….was a single feather standing straight up out of the grass.
I still have that feather right where Andrea put it…. in the angels hands and hanging on my wall.
