WOMAN ON FIRE

"It's time," the voice said. "Time to go out and do what the Lord told you to do. You have been sitting on this information long enough. Go out and encourage the world. Let them know that they don't have to live the life they have been this way anymore."

It is true. I have done this for far too long. I am ready to move forward. You cannot leave your comfort zone over there, to enter into another one over here.

God said, "Get up! Share what you've learned. Be an encourager."

I didn't think about it at first, but I had allowed myself to become a recluse again. My son brought it to my attention after I told him of how I met someone who, out of the blue, shared her pain with me. I listened and advised. I couldn't understand why she had cornered me, or the fact that she thought that I cared. Did I have a look of concern on my face, I wondered, or what it could have been. The thing was, I did care. I found out that she was much older than me, but I know that that doesn't matter. The thing is we all have issues. I talked to her and watched as tears formed in her eyes. There was something familiar in them, that same hurt I once had. She was the old me. I, too, thought it would never it would end. I made excuses as to why I allowed it to go on as long as it had. Yeah, she had that deep wound.

My son made me realize that God meant for me to help people. Not to just say a few words. After God, my son is the only person who I would really listen to, because he knows the real me. He knows my struggles. The good thing about it is, he tells me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear. I am the same way, so that is an inherited trait. His words resonated with me, "You deal with people, but you don't like to deal with people." That pretty much summed it up. He continued, "You have to open up and let people hear you. You really help people."

I started my odyssey two and half years ago. God has been with me always. I didn't have the confidence in myself to put myself out there and offer my advice. I felt that there were others out there more qualified, but who is more qualified than a person who lived through it and came out on the other side. This is bigger than me. This is God telling me that I need to do it. He has been showing me all this time and I ran from it, out of fear. I have stop running. You can only run for so long and become exhausted, because whether you realize it or not, God always wins in the end.

I will repeat to myself several times a day: I am a confident woman and God is with me, until someone whom I have help believes that of themselves.

New Year, New Me 2017 Edition

I made it another year. I think about all the things that I went through this past year: I started off living at the house I reluctantly purchased in 2013 and let it go bank to the back. I wouldn't necessarily call it being foreclosed on, more like letting go of something with the knowledge that something bigger and better was on the horizon. Surprisingly, I wasn't the least bit sad about "losing" the house. I never felt that that was the house I wanted to live out my life in. the house was bought when I assumed that I was going to spend the rest of my miserable life, at the time, working for someone I truly needed to get away from.

I ended up moving in with my mother. Lord knows I begged and pleaded with the Him to not send me there. I could almost handle living with the person who birthed me, but not the one who made me feel like I couldn't live my dreams and do what I wanted to do with my life. No, I knew it was going to be a fate worse than death. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother, it's just that I did not want her to make me feel like what I was doing was the worst mistake that I could have made.

What's interesting is, I went from walking away from my job in early 2015 to begin the life God has planned for me and I saw so many things change. Not only did I experience things that are found in scripture, Philippians 4:12, I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 
Needless to say, I wasn't surprised when I lost 50-60 lbs. that really needed to go. God did not let me starve. I always had food, I just didn't have what I wanted to eat. The Lord sustained me. I did not know what to expect when I left my job, but 2015 was an eye opener.

Then when 2016 came and I went to my mother's house I couldn't understand why the lord sent me there instead of directly on to where I want to be, but He knows best. At first things where annoying, but not as bad as I thought. She didn't crowd me with "I told you sos," she made sure I had food. evidently, my weight loss was not as wonderful to her, I gained 10 lbs.

Then there was a  problem with my mother's finances that had gone on for a couple of years and no one could figure out the problem. she is not good with money, modern technology, or understanding certain things that most people take for granted. Most women of her generation had husbands to take care of them. The lord had me sit down one day and go over her checkbook and for the life of me I couldn't see the problem, until one day when I balanced her checkbook and knew how much money she would have. Imagine my confusion when two days later her account was overdrawn again. I took her bank statement and contacted her bank. the associate and I worked for a few minutes until I noticed an amount I knew shouldn't have come out of her account and then another. When the associate searched and the light bulb went off in my mind, the problem that she had been having with her bank account ceased. So, I began with trying to get some semblance to her finances.

It was the lord, sending me to her house to correct her financial problem.

Another time, a few months later, I was here when my mother had to be taken to emergency due to, what we later learned was, acute renal failure.  She hadn't been eating that much and taking too many pills for blood pressure, etc. a female cousin of my mother lives with her, but she isn't a young woman either. I know she wouldn't have known what to do with what was happening to mom.

After a four day stay in the hospital, I set up an appointment with her Primary Care Physician, that Mom decided to take over when we got there. I had questions, but I couldn't ask them.

 After years of having to talk loudly, I set up an appointment to get her hearing checked, something she did not want to do. We found out at the appointment and after the hearing tests, that she is deaf, so she needs hearing aids. She isn't happy about that, but finally  confessed to not being able to hear a lot of things.

While I have helped her out with these things, Mom has helped me as I get myself ready to continue on my journey,

it's not just because she's my mother. All I am going to say is, if it weren't for the Lord putting me here for this moment where would we both be?

I am not saying that everything with us is peachy, but it's not pulling out each other's hair bad either.

Here's to the promise of a wonderful 2017 and all the great things the Lord has planned for me this year.