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.

Seeing the Evil in Others

I try to give people a chance.  But I sour when I see too many "Christians" who put on such righteous acts and then see them act worse than the "heathens".  I wonder why God doesn't go ahead and destroy the world again as He sees what His church is doing to it.

Okay, I'm on my religious soap box again, but I'm see so much of it lately, that I'm disgusted.  There is a man I know that puts on such airs about how religious He is.  He goes on and on about the charity he does and how much he gives in church and what he does for people.  He brags on how frugal and good he is with all that God has given him.  I gag.

I have seen this man with venom in his eyes.  I have heard the hate come out of his mouth.  I have seen the maliciousness that he acts upon.  I have caught him in his lies.  Yet, those in the local church community believe everything he says.

I go between anger and sadness.  How can someone claim the blood of  Jesus and commit the very acts he does?  I guess the same person that was forgiven a debt in one of Jesus' parables and yet refused to forgive a debt he was owed.  I watch this man go on and on how people need to pay for their actions while he never has.

I am watching an old movie as I write this.  It is about some of the fanatics in England centuries ago when everyone began pointing fingers at "witches" and "heretics".  In reality they were masking their own evil as they murdered, raped, and lied.  This man I know reminds me so much of them.

I'm not trying to be mean, but when he lies he does murder a person's reputation.  This led me into a preaching session about how we are not held up to the standard we are supposed to be anymore.  In the Old Testament the Lord demanded that a plum line be laid down and Israel compared to it.  They usually did not measure up due to their sinning.

What if we were put up against a plum line?  Would we measure up?  Looking at those around me, I would have to say no.  We would horribly fall short.  We tend to refuse those with a past to be a part of our fellowship.  We gossip incessantly.  We will tell lies to protect ourselves.  We will turn a blind eye to injustice if it will protect us.  We rarely hold to the true teachings.

Where is our self-control?  Where is our gentleness?  Where is our love?  Where is our patience?  Where are the fruits of the Spirit?  We dismiss our shortcomings and point our fingers at everyone else's.

I guess you could say that this is a plea to today's church to please stop trying to "feel good" and get right with God.  Are we satisfied with being like Ananias and Sapphira?  Are we content to be whitewashed like the Pharisees?  Are we stiff-necked?  Are we the brood of vipers?  What would we see if we looked in the mirror of God? 

We've All Got a Story To Tell

I remember as a child listening to adults give their testimonies and stories that were inspiring and meant to reach out to me and teach me a lesson.  I always felt guilty because I did not have one.  But I grew up and learned that every person who walks this earth has a story to tell.

I can tell you a story of times when logically things should have gone one way and instead went another.  If everything had gone the logical way, I might not be here today.  Everyone has a story to tell.

Today is one about a young boy that I absolutely despised because he was as mean as they get.  For years I endured his evilness each week at church.  He would walk by and jab a pencil in my arm just for spite.  No one liked him.  They were polite because his mother was so sweet and his father was high up in the political circles.

It was the summer before our freshmen year at high school and I learned the most horrific thing imaginable.  We would be going to the same school for high school.  It was bad enough in middle school, but high school?  I knew then that God had it in for me.  In reality, God was preparing a very bitter pill for me to take that would change me forever.

He was his usual pain in the rear-end self.  One day my mom told me that his mother had passed away.  She had been battling cancer for a long time.  I was sad for the whole family.  Then she told me that I needed to send a sympathy card.  Okay.  I'll send one to his dad.  Nope.  I was to send one to him.  Boy, did we have a fight.  I was not going to send a card to that evil boy.  In the end, I did what I was forced to do.

He was out of school a few days naturally.  On the day he returned, I was sitting in my usual spot on the front steps reading or doing some homework.  He pulled up in his father's car.  His dad waved at me.  I waved back and didn't think much of it until the boy began to walk very purposefully toward me.

He sat down.  I didn't know what to say.  I was just waiting on something negative to come out of his mouth.  He was quite for a long time.

"We got thousands of cards," he said.  "But only four were addressed to me."  He looked me right in the eye and for the first time smiled at me.  "Thank you."

From that day on we became friends.  He was still a jerk a lot of the time, but I let him know that he was wrong.  We became study partners in biology and world history.  He let me use his laptop which were extremely new at the time.  We stayed good friends all through high school.

I don't know where he is now, but I think of him differently than I did when I was younger.  I learned that his meanness was because he did not know how to act seeing his own mother die before his very eyes.  He watched cancer eat at her and destroy her.  He lashed out the only way he knew. 

I learned not to judge people too harshly until you get to know them.  We are complex creatures and cannot be made into a two dimensional black and white entity.  We are unique and wonderfully made.  We just need to dig deeper to see that in some people.

People Change

I was under the foolish assumption that people never change.  I knew that wasn't true, but I really didn't accept it.  I didn't realize that until I got in touch with old friends and acquaintances.  That is when I truly understood that people change.

In my mind the last memory I had of a person was the true picture.  I had forgotten that like all teenagers and young foolish adults we all have to grow up and learn.  Here are a few examples.

One girl that I went to school with used to make snide comments about me always going to church.  As we went through middle school and high school she was not directly mean to me, but was never really friendly.  I discovered her on facebook and I've been watching her posts.  She is a Christian and attends church regularly.  It is not uncommon for her to post an encouraging word to me.  I was hesitant about accepting her facebook friend request.  My thoughts were only of the hurt from her attitude.  I'm glad I did.  She has been so sweet.  My memories of old are fading.

That is the way it is with many of the people from my past.  Others have grown up just like I have.  They have changed.  So have I.  Their immature actions have hopefully disappeared.  They are adults in their forties. 

I've learned to not judge people on their past.  It is just the past and the present is a whole new chapter.

Still Growing Up

I'm finding that I'm still growing up.  I have so much to learn.  I'm learning about myself, my family, and the others in my life.  I'm finding that I'm just beginning to discover my dreams.

Growing up in lower Alabama I decided to become an accountant.  Why?  Because I could do the work and it was good money.  Nowhere did my dreams or desires come into play.  From an early age I loved history and learning.  It wasn't until I was put into a position of teaching a Bible study did I fully discover my love to teach.

I felt so fulfilled when I was communicating truths to others and getting them to engage in lively discussion.  Yet, I was still in a job that was dragging me down with all the stress that came with it.  I eventually changed jobs but stayed in accounting.  It only got better for a spell.  I wanted to just teach yet I had to make money for the family.  I continued in the job I had. 

Depression set in as I desired to teach full-time and was stuck helping other people line their pockets.  This was real frustrating.  When we moved to northern Wisconsin I still kept my job and just traveled a lot.  It got worse. 

I eventually began working part time for a friend who unknowingly got me to writing.  I found another passion deep within me that was never tapped in school.  Through my writing I could teach.  I could communicate to others and have fun doing it.  I began to throw myself into my writing.  Yet the desire to teach continued.

It wasn't long before the need to homeschool my children arose.  I found so much fun in teaching them though my teaching is much better for adults.  I lost my job due to the economy.  Everywhere I looked accounting was forcing itself in my face.  I wanted to cry.  Yes, I could do it and do it well, but I hated it. 

I had a dream and it seemed that the world was out to destroy it.  I am by nature a shy person.  Most people are able to walk all over me which is one of the reasons I am struggling with co-dependency.  So, when it comes to following dreams I have to fight for them.  I fight with myself, family, and the world to be able to see even a glimmer of my dreams.  Why?  Because the save road is to stay in accounting.

There are plenty of jobs in accounting.  Writing is a gamble.  It is like being a movie star or rock star.  It is not a "sensible" way to earn a living.  That usually comes from people who never got to achieve their own dreams either.

I am not guaranteed tomorrow.  Today maybe my last day on earth.  What good does it benefit me to let my dreams be directed by others?  If I try writing and fail what did I lose?  Nothing.  In failing I gain a lot.  I gain a little freedom in doing something on my own.  I gain a few moments of following my dream.  If I am successful, I gain self-confidence and of course my dream.

I'm learning that I can stand on my own two feet and make my own decisions.  I do not have to follow the safe route just because others direct me to.  God does not give us dreams only to deny them to us.  He just asks that we do it in His time.

I want to write.  I will stay up all night long to get it done.  I want to go back to school.  I am realistic enough to know that it won't happen this year, but next year there is a chance.  I want to teach.  I am going to look for every available opportunity and I'm going to teach.

The world is not going to force me into a mold and tie me down.  Those around me are not going to keep me in their depression and sense of failure.  I am me!  I am not them!  I am a child of God called to a duty and I will follow!  My dreams are given to me by God and He will make a way.  I need to be willing to go through the door.  Lord, here am I.  Send me!