A Whole New Me

I've been in the desert if you haven't noticed.  Really began to question myself spiritually.  Feeling totally abandoned.  Shoot, I was downright angry.  Then the kid gloves came off, and He got my attention.

I was watching John Bevere's, The Bait of Satan.  I had seen this portion of the video months before and it was under different circumstances, so I had applied it to those.  Now, John's words screamed at me.  Actually, it was the voice of God through this man.


He was discussing what really happens when we worry and do not have faith in God.  We are in truth telling God that He is incompetent and that we could do better.  We are saying that He doesn't have the power to fix anything. 

He then continued with a funny section that though funny was the kicker.  He enacted a scene of what heaven must be like if God really is the way we create Him to be when things don't go right.


God says, "Jesus, oh no!  What are we going to do?  Adam lost his job.  Are there any others?  Did we see that coming?  What are we going to do?  That wasn't foreseen!"

Did God know I would face certain things?  Of course.  Did He set wringing His hands?  No.  He knew what was coming and was prepared.  Then why do I act like He was not?  Why do I doubt what will happen next?  Why do I always believe the worst?

I got angry at God because everything was going wrong.  I had a dream and a plan.  The problem was that it was not His.  When that dream was taken away, I fought.  I kicked and I screamed.  I got downright angry.  Time after time, He seemed wrench things from me.  Unbeknownest to me,  I was trying to direct my life and not let Him.  I was arrogant enough to think I knew best.  If I knew so well, why was my world crumbling around me?

I always wanted to teach.  Every time we set up a study, no one would show up.  I'm not kidding.  No one would show up.  I longed to teach and thought He was directing me down that path, yet every door that was open from a distance closed. 

I wanted to go back to school, yet each time I began to step through the open door, it slammed in my face and knocked me on my rear.

I wanted to learn and grow, yet everyone blocked that.  Most of the women I knew didn't want to talk about deep spiritual issues.  They wanted to gossip.  I tried to join the men, yet I was the lowly woman and too many was pushed aside.

So my only purpose in life was to go to various jobs that I deep down hated and line someone else's pockets?  I was to have no dreams at all?  I was to cease to really exist?

I began to find an outlet and a purpose in my writing.  People seemed to enjoy it.  I was actually beginning to feel alive.  Then, I found myself in the middle of the Sahara.

My husband got an online college teaching job.  I was so happy, yet I hated  him.  Here, I longed to teach.  I had worked long hours so he could go to school and get various degrees.  Here he was living my dream.  How could God be so cruel to me?

I came out of it eventually, until my husband and my children wanted no more homeschooling.  The final blow.  My alive and beating heart was totally wrenched out of my chest and laid on the altar as my soul shriveled up and died.  I couldn't even teach my kids.  I was rejected at every turn.  I could do nothing right.  Was there really a God if He would do this to me?

I wished to die at that point.  I wanted to scream and howl at the top of my lungs.  I was dead.  I could not pray.  I truly began to believe that God was nowhere.  He had left me and had used me.

Slowly, through the aid of a few friends who unknowingly helped guide me through the darkened hallway of life, I began to see beyond all those closed doors and discovered one that had once been nailed shut opening ever so slowly.

There was a plan.  Just because things did not happen the way I wanted on my table did not mean that God did not exist or that He was playing a cruel trick on me.  What arrogance on my part!  I thought that I was in control of my life and that my plan was the best.  Now, I am God?  Can I control the winds and the waves?  Can I raise people from the dead?  Who did I think I was?


It is not about me.  I cannot say it enough.  It is not about me.  I am not the center of this universe.  I am not the center of anything but my own self pity.

Who do I think I am?  A few days ago, obviously God.  Today?  A very humbled servant who cannot beg enough for the forgiveness of a Father who will not hesitate to love and forgive.

Surprises in the Desert

It's amazing who God puts in your path as you travel through the desert.  Manna can come from the strangest places.  This time I found manna from old high school friends.

My desert journey came out in my Facebook postings.  I was so down that I had to express myself somehow.  In reality I wanted to stand on the rooftop and scream out my frustration, but that would bring the cops.  So I posted it there instead.

Several people came forward to help, but the two that broke through ironically were two guys I used to date.  They caught the not so obvious fact that I was in a deep dark place.  Before I knew it, a chat box popped up and one of them asked what was going on.  We began talking about high school and were laughing.  My husband had to check out what was causing this person who was crying only an hour earlier to be laughing so hard.  Even he had to get in on the laugh.

The point I'm trying to make here is not about old relationships or anything like that.  It is that God will bring His light through unexpected places.  For the next couple of days, these guys checked in to see how I was doing.  They encouraged me.  That with the love of my husband helped me begin to see the promised land from a distance where before I doubted it even existed anymore.


Friendship from even years ago can break through where those closest to you cannot.  Why?  Because they are from a different time and are not completely in the picture.  They have a much different view of things.

I began to slip back in the darkness a few days ago and the same two along with a girl that used to go to school with us, too, jumped on board.  I was laughing so hard that I was crying.  God uses amazing people to reach us when we tune Him out.

I'm still struggling, but I'm getting a little spunk back.  I want to thank all those friends of  mine that reached out to me.  You mean a lot and I hope God bless you a hundred fold.

Back in the Desert

I'm back in that stinking desert again.  I'm not totally sure what set this one off, but I have been able to see several influences.

My husband and I began to have some strained times.  Not that we are on the verge of divorce, but there was no communication going on.  Other people knew more about his activities than I did.  I got very depressed.  No matter how hard I tried, we could never sit down and just talk.  The kids would interrupt.  He would be engrossed in a show.  Someone would call.  We would have to be somewhere.  This was getting to be too much.  I needed my husband back.

Comments by others were getting to me.  People in church were complaining about being there all the time.  Things were not on the right nights.  Too much of this and too little of that.  I began to feel that I had failed and was making everyone miserable.

Okay, I have to admit that part of it is hormones.  But everyone around me was pulling me and pressing me down all at the same time.  I had so many people around me talking out of both sides of their mouths.  I had people demanding so much and expecting me to give it right then and there. 

I needed to get away from people and regroup.  I needed to find a refuge and some peace.  I couldn't find it at all.  I couldn't pray.  I couldn't read my Bible.  I was totally empty.  I felt that He had abandoned me.  Everything was hitting me from every angle.  Every good thing came with twenty bad things.  I could not take it anymore.

I have to say that this time I am coming out of it faster.  I'm not out of it yet, but I'm in view of the promised land.  I just have some old baggage to get rid of before crossing the Jordan.

Thank you, God, for you patience and understanding.  I don't deserve it.