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.