Passing through the Storm only to Find Another Cloud

July 27, 20167 Comments

I’m not usually a quitter but by the end of the day yesterday that’s exactly where I was…ready to quit!

I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of my alarm at 6 am. I was exhausted from a long night of tossing and turning and my heart had been racing all night.

I have been having an irregular heartbeat on and off for a couple of weeks now and during these episodes my heart beats erratically and I get light headed. Sometimes feel like I’m going to pass out. I really haven’t been feeling very well at all lately and the racing was really starting to frighten me a whole lot. Last week I had lab testing done by my doctor and now I was going to see her for my lab results and so she could check me out some more.

Other than the crazy heartbeat it was a pretty routine morning of me getting ready to leave the house but then suddenly as I was walking down the hall my knee just seemed to come out from under me sending me face first into the floor.

Ten minutes later I sat on my couch with ice bags on my face and both knees assessing the damage… I had a bloody nose, a small cut inside my top lip, a very swollen top lip and nose, a massive headache and both knees hurting and beginning to swell. Thankfully though I had no major injuries.

A couple of hours later I made it my doctor’s appointment where I received the news that my heart isn’t getting enough oxygen to my body and that I am diabetic and my blood pressure is high.

I left the doctor’s office as the owner of a new diet, a prescription for high blood pressure medicine, and an order to turn in for my very own heart monitor 😥

So like I said in the beginning of this post… I am not usually a quitter but by the end of the day yesterday that’s exactly where I was.

Ready to quit…

I felt like I needed a break from the day, or maybe it was the world. Either way all I wanted to do was crawl in my bed, close my eyes, and hide under the covers forever. I seem to be having an overabundance of hard stuff anymore. I usually try my best to keep my head up and look to the good stuff, but today it was hard to see through the tears. I don’t mean to sound like I am complaining… seriously there is a whole lot that is good in my life…But…I do have to say though that in the middle of all that good stuff there also seems to be one hard thing right after another. When one thing stops it seems like something else always starts up. I’ve had one illness right after another for almost 5 years now. People around me are sick too and a whole lot of stuff is always happening in my family. If this is just a season it’s been way too long of a season and I’m ready to get on with a new one. I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve passed through the storm and came out on the other side only to see the sun quickly being covered by another cloud.

Last night I think I may have finally hit my breaking point, crawled under the covers put my headphones on and lay there listening to Pandora hoping to fall asleep.

I heard two songs, both had words that just seemed picked out perfectly for me.
Praise you in This Storm and Eye of the Storm

Coincidence?

I think not.

After hearing those songs I felt at peace and went right to sleep. I finally got some rest last night and I woke up today in a way better mood.

Life isn’t always easy; the truth is sometimes it’s just plain hard.

I still have the same problems this morning when I woke up that I went to sleep with.

But I am so glad I got up and faced the day today, because today things seemed to not be as bad as they felt when I went to sleep last night.

I felt at peace and now I can see all that is good again.

Actually today was a really good day.

Oh and by the way since the fall yesterday I have not had any irregular heartbeats. When the doctor was checking me out yesterday and I told her that since I had fallen it hadn’t happened anymore she said that it is actually possible that the adrenaline rush shocked my heart back into a regular rhythm… Sounds crazy but its been over 24 hours and so far so good! Thank you God!

Before you leave today check out this song by Ryan Stevenson – Eye of the Storm

The Easy Way Out

July 22, 20161 Comment

Today I noticed that there are three Exit doors in my church’s sanctuary.

Actually, there are four doors in the sanctuary but only three of them have exit signs over them.

Why on earth am I talking about Exit doors??

Let me explain….

Today after work there wasn’t anyone at church except for me so I decided to sit in the sanctuary for a while before I went home. I had a lot of my mind and I felt like I just needed some time to breathe and also to just sit with and listen to God.

The sanctuary at my church is a wonderful place to sit in peace and for some reason when I am in there I feel somehow extra close to God.

For a while now I’ve been feeling called towards something a bit different than the path God’s had me on for the past few years. Two weeks ago I wrote a blog post about putting away my fear (I’m Not Afraid of What You Think of Me). It was about surrendering my fear of what others think of me. In the process of surrendering my fear, I also found out that surrendering the fear of what others thought of me was something I needed to do so I could move forward to do this new thing he’s asking me to do.

So I surrendered but now I found myself trying to figure out the how’s and the what do I need to do to get it all moving.

It began feeling just way too big and also hard. I actually really like my life the way it is now and things have actually become quite comfortable. I’m not sure I was ready for any new life changes.

I’ve known for quite some time now that all God stuff is usually somehow life changing. I also know that God has brought me to places that have felt way too big before, but I realize now that he was way bigger and most of those places that used to feel too big and seemed scary are now not scary at all.

So now that I am comfortable I also kept wondering why the sudden switch to something new? Why wouldn’t God just use me where he has me now? For once I finally feel like I know what I am doing.

questions – questions

and so there I sat…

Waiting…

Listening for God.

It was very quiet for a really long time and then I saw … a red ‘Exit’ sign.

And then I saw another…

and another!

I’m not sure how it happened but suddenly I realized my mind had wandered to how many ways there were to exit this one room.

Four doorways to be exact. Three of which were clearly labeled with a bright lighted ‘Exit’ on top.

I tried to get my mind back to listening for God but then I began thinking about how with all of those exit doors just how easy it would be to get out of that room if someone were to need to get out in a hurry.

I was sitting there thinking about exits and when suddenly … Flashback to six years ago… I sat in the parking lot of this very building afraid to come in. Thank you to Jesus taking me by the hand and walking with me I managed to make my way into this same room. I know this may sound silly but I was scared to be there that day. All those Exit doors were there then too but I thankfully I didn’t use any of them. Somehow I knew that choosing to stay was truly my only way out that day. That day I didn’t need to escape the room, though instead what I needed to escape was the life I had been living, or maybe I should call it the life I had been dying…because the life I was living back then was not life.

I chose to not exit the room that day but I did make the choice to exit my old life. To exit my old life seems like it would be the easiest choice but now looking back I realized it may have actually been the harder choice because there was soon to be more feelings of uncomfortable to come.

New people entered my life and things had to change. It seemed hard at first but then but one day I realized life was really good now. So so GOOD.

I learned that in each new challenge or hard place something pretty cool always seemed to follow.

So today I sat in the dark sanctuary pondering another new path and pretty much knowing that it will most likely be uncomfortable and possibly hard… but I have a choice.

Do I take the new path or do I take the nearest exit?

This may sound weird but I’m gonna go ahead and say it anyway… “I think God used exit signs to give me a sign today!“

I had a choice to make – I could take my exit or I could walk with him in faith.

The new path may seem scary and big but my GOD is way BIGGER!

So there was no exit for this lady today!

To be continued….

Have a great Friday!

Trusting is Believing, My One Word for 2016

January 2, 201612 Comments

In 2009 Compassion started a tradition that focused on one word for the year. Two weeks ago I received a blog writing prompt that encouraged me to spend time with the Lord and ask for his guidance as to what word he would choose for me in the coming new year. Though I have never really chosen a word in advance usually by the end of each year I find that there was a particular theme that my year seemed to have taken on as the year progressed.

Even though I have not chosen a word for this year I do know without a doubt my theme and word for 2015 was ‘TRUST’

As 2015 started I began the year with a whole lot of new things on my plate. Now as I look back I can see I had many more things coming my way that I really had no idea were going to be coming. All of those things made way for a whole lot of times I found myself having to Trust the Lord in his guidance and his strength.

There were also many times this past year that He showed me that big things can happen if I just let go of myself and put ALL of my trust in him.

With that said now I will say this has probably been the hardest year in my Christian journey.

I started the year off full of excitement and ready to dive right in to whatever God had in store. But as the year progressed things seemed to get more and more confusing and I will admit it there were times I felt like he was far away, and also sometimes oddly silent.

At one point even though I knew God had led me in to the place I was, things didn’t seem to be going quite as well as I thought they would have been going. I also had conflict going on around me and many times found myself feeling as if I was caught in the middle and for some reason I began to feel as if somehow I was to blame for it. I know now it wasn’t my problem or my fault and also know I did not put myself in the middle of it at all. I can’t really go into detail here but will say that by the end of April my confidence in trusting to what and to where God was leading me was beginning to fall apart. Yet at the same time, he still kept showing time and time again that I was where he wanted me to be.

In April I went on a mission trip to Haiti. While I was there it was really good yet at the same time I had probably one of my worst times ever of feeling like I had somehow messed up and had heard God’s plan in this for me all wrong. Strangely even though I felt that way, at the very same time things happened while I was there that soon proved to me I was actually right where God wanted me to be….Ya I know it sounds totally confusing and weird. It’s a very long story I could never put into words, so I will just say as I now reflect back I can see God’s hand prints all over the place on that trip but at the same time it’s like the enemy somehow was able to distort my vision part of the time that I was there and make me feel really confused. Another thing that happened while on that trip is I was notified that a really close friend of mine had died and I kept a lot of my emotions about her death bottled up until I returned back home. I also think maybe the sadness I felt about her dying may have put a bit of a dark cloud over the trip too. I remember coming home knowing that I was supposed to have been on that trip yet also at the same time feeling even more discouraged.

But here is the cool part….

What I didn’t know at the time was that just a week after returning home from that trip I was going to be invited on another trip. On April 23 I received an email inviting me to attend a vision trip in El Salvador with Compassion International. I know this may sound crazy but even though I was at that time doubting my confidence in discerning what was God and what wasn’t God I clearly heard him say to me “GO on the trip.”

So I signed up.

After I signed up for the trip my confidence still continued to plummet.

Yet God still kept throwing things out there that said I was in the right place but by then I was even more confused and feeling as if I was losing my ability to trust in what I heard from Him was really Him.

I also felt ashamed of my feelings and I didn’t want to tell anyone what was going on so I spiraled through most of it feeling very alone.

Then to top off all those bad feelings in July I started having some serious knee issues and I realized I most likely would not be able to go on the El Salvador trip.

I sent an email to the trip leader explaining to her the situation and I told her that I would not be able to go on the trip. I knew from past experience of going on a trip like this that I may have to walk in places that I couldn’t walk such as rough terrain or long periods of walking which I knew I could not do. I figured most likely they wouldn’t let me go with my knees like they were anyway.

Once again I found myself doubting and I began to tell myself that maybe I had made the decision to go in the first place because I had most likely heard God’s voice wrong. Why would God tell me to sign up for something He knew I wasn’t going to be able to do?

After I sent the email I soon received a reply and a phone call from the trip leader. During the phone call we talked about a lot of things, including the fact that I could possibly have another trip coming up with my church to Haiti, (I forgot to mention that earlier) that I worried if happened the dates may conflict. As we spoke I began to feel as if she was someone I had known forever even though it was my first time ever talking to her by phone. She told me that the trip would not be very physical and that I could still go with the knee problem if I wanted to. She also prayed with me for discernment I would be able to know what God wanted me to do.

We ended the conversation with me having a few more days to pray about my decision which I did and soon I knew without a doubt that God still wanted me to go to El Salvador!

So once again I said, “yes.”

I felt such relief once I made that decision and then suddenly at the end of July I found out that I would have the trip to Haiti but it was not going to be anywhere near the El Salvador trip dates. It was so exciting to know God had worked out the dates!!

But suddenly I had another problem… There was no way I could afford to pay for a trip to El Salvador and also a trip to Haiti.

I felt a loyalty to my church, because I was the new Mission’s director plus I had been a part of setting this trip up. Suddenly I felt like I was torn between the two trips and found myself trying to choose once again. I knew if I was going to have to choose I had to choose my church because I felt a loyalty to our mission there. But God still said to do both! Once again I began struggled with God because I knew I did not have the money to pay for both of these trips!

I made a decision on my own even though deep down I knew God wanted me in both places. I decided I was going to drop the El Salvador trip and I even went so far as to tell a couple of people I would not be going to El Salvador anymore.

As soon as I made that decision suddenly I could not rest.

And God still kept saying, “GO to El Salvador!”

I knew God wanted me to trust him.

I also knew I still had to go on that trip.

I changed my mind and I said, “OKAY, I will go!” but this time I did it differently and I finally gave up my own feelings on the matter. This time placed it back into God’s hands where it belonged; And guess what happened the very next day???? I found out I would not have to pay for my trip to Haiti! Wow! All I had to do was say yes and what I thought was going to be a problem was never a problem at all. God had everything under control!

I know this story is getting really long so if you are still here thank you for hanging in there. I will now try my best to finish this as quickly as possible.

We will fast forward to September….

Since July things had been going really great but then two days before I was supposed to leave for El Salvador something horrible happened. I cannot say much about what happened here because I always try really hard not to put things on the blog that may tell something personal and could possible hurt others. What I will say is that what happened totally threw me for a loop and almost threw me back into my mode of not trusting my ability to truly know what God wanted me to do. I spent the whole next day and night in tears, doubting who I was now and for that matter also doubting who I had ever known myself to be. Its may sound crazy but sometimes old wounds can be opened and when they open you may find new ones you never even knew you had. In a matter of a couple of hours of time I went from feeling closer than I had ever been with God to suddenly feeling like a horrible person. At that point I wasn’t sure how on earth I would ever be able to get myself on that plane to El Salvador.

The day before the trip, I talked to God asking him if what had happened to make me feel that way was true?? I had searched my soul and honestly felt like what I had felt the day and night before was because of lies created by the enemy. But I still wanted and needed God’s input very much.

“Please just give me something to let me know I was truly where you wanted me to be!” I prayed.

As I prayed I opened my Bible and this is what I saw hi-lighted inside – Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” Luke 1:45 That caught my attention and as I recognized the rest of the story suddenly peace just wafted over me.

The next morning as my husband dropped me off at the airport I was still at peace and never one time did I ever find myself thinking that by going on this trip I was making a wrong decision.

A little while later shortly after the plane lifted off the ground I noticed the sun was rising. I remember trying my best to hold back the tears of joy because at that moment I knew like I’d never known anything before that I was exactly where God wanted me to be. I was so thankful that despite all the detours I had taken to get to this place he had never given up on me. I was so thankful that through all the mess I had said yes.

That trip ended up being one of the best times I have ever connected with God and while there he showed me I truly was exactly where he wanted me to be . Another thing about that trip was it was not just a vision trip it was also a spiritual retreat. I had never been on a spiritual retreat before and had no idea what a treat I was in for. Each evening we would all meet for a couple of hours and focus on knowing and just being with God. In the mornings we were encouraged to spend time with Him. we were encouraged to go where ever he took us by walking the grounds or sitting on our porches or whatever felt right. To just BE and connect with God was what we all seemed to do. Never in my life have I experienced something like the closeness I felt with him on that trip. The whole trip from start to finish was perfect. We were very busy yet at the same time it felt like it was the most relaxed time emotionally I ever remember having in my life. It was like God had taken the worst parts of me and my life away for that week.

Another cool thing is that just as the trip had begun with the dawning of a new day and a beautiful sunrise, my trips last leg was finished with my plane taking off from Houston on the journey home with the sun just setting and it was beautiful too. I felt as if I had somehow come full circle and I also knew without a doubt that another chapter of my life was now closing because a new one had just begun.

I knew from that moment on in order for me to do what I am supposed to do for God I had to fully get rid of myself and trust Him.

I also now knew that all the things that had seemed to be reasons for me not to go on the trip were actually all the more reason for me to Go.

Since the trip things have not always been easy but I do now know what God wants from me. I also knew I had to give up a few things that I felt like were getting in the way of what He wants me to do. Giving them up wasn’t easy but oddly once I made my decision and did what I know he wanted me to do I felt relieved and also that peaceful feeling once again.

So my word this past year was Trust

When I looked up the definition of trust it said – “the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. “relationships have to be built on trust.”

I also found this part of the definition interesting, looking at the word trust used as in law. – “confidence placed in a person by making that person the nominal owner of property to be held or used for the benefit of one or more – others.”

.As I started writing this blog post I had not looked up the definition of trust, though I knew what trust meant I hadn’t really ever thought of it that way. also as I started this post I had no idea what my word of 2016 would be. I had planned to stop this post with the definition of trust and tell you that I still had no idea what my word for 2016 was yet.

But as I read the definition from the perspective of setting up a ‘Trust’ I realized that another lesson I learned in El Salvador was from pastor Carlos when he talked about lending to the Lord (see blog post Casa de Pan Lending to the Lord) somehow seems to go with this definition. Suddenly it has occurred to me that though I place my confidence in God, he also has confidence in me and he has placed me where I am because that is where HE wants me to be. Could it be possible he has made me a nominal owner of HIS property, and now it is my job to use his property for the benefit of others?

As this revelation was flooding over me suddenly I looked up and saw a group of pictures hanging on the wall in my bedroom with the words Dream, Imagine, Love, Hope, Faith and Believe on them. The top word on the pictures is the word Believe. Now I can see that without believing He chose me I can never fully trust myself to do what he wants me to do.

I know God wants me to not only trust him but also to totally believe in his ability to make proper decisions and trust that he can and will make things go exactly as he has planned.

I plan to spend this year focusing on believing that God has my life in his hands and no matter what things may look like from the outside to me or anyone else, God knows the truth, he knows the plan and He is the only one I have to believe in.

I said in the beginning of this post that this has probably been one of my hardest years of my Christian journey. I also know, even though it has been a hard year, it has also been my best year on this journey so far.

I am pretty sure it was a good year.

Now I have a question for you.

Do you have a word you feel as if God has given you to focus on this year?

If so add your word to the comments or share your blog post in the link up below I would love to read it.

Thanks for reading my very long blog post and I wish you a blessed and wonderful new year!

P.S. Don’t forget to share your ‘One Word’ below.

[inlinkz_linkup id=595547 mode=1]

The Ripple Effect

October 16, 20152 Comments

Yesterday I had a lot on my mind and since it was a beautiful fall day I decided that a walk in the park would be a good way to hopefully organize my thoughts.

As I walked I noticed there seemed to be a lot of ducks and geese hanging out on the lake and it looked as if they were enjoying the beautiful day too. Some of them were hanging around the outside of the lake and others were in the water just gliding along.

I soon found myself giving up on my walk and just sitting on a bench watching. I’m not sure what it was, but watching them gliding along gave me a feeling of peace inside.

They seemed to move effortlessly across the water and something I noticed was the way they would glide along cutting across the natural ripples of the water, causing two new ripples to go out in a V shape behind them.

The new ripples they made went in two totally different directions than the original ripple of the water.

I also noticed that every single time any goose or duck would glide by there would always be that same identical pattern of the V and two ripples going out behind them.

As each went by leaving two new ripples in the water behind them I couldn’t help but be reminded of how we people also move through our daily lives and how we too can leave ripples behind us.

Everywhere we go we have the ability to leave behind a ripple; and those ripples, just like the ripples the geese left have the capability to go in more than one direction.

We can leave behind good ripples or we can leave behind bad ripples.

And the ripples we leave behind have the ability to live on forever..

The Human Ripple Effect

My life has changed over the course of the past five years because of someone’s ripple crossing my path.

Five years ago I was a bit of a mess…okay make that a lot of a mess! During that time it looked on the outside as if I had everything I could ever possibly want but inside I always felt as if I was missing something and I was always trying to fill that void. I shopped a lot, I yelled a lot and I drank a lot.

During that time of my life, life ended for a Christian that I knew and I was there to see him go, which left me wanting to know more about God. It was also close to that time that a friend shared a lot with me about their own faith in Jesus and then a ‘Jesus Calling‘ book arrived in my mailbox which had words in it that told me how much Jesus loved me.

I was amazed that Jesus could really love someone like me.

A ripple in a new direction from the life I had been living was started and because of that ripple my whole life has totally changed.

Though my life changed because of that good ripple there still have been a few bad ripples that have crossed that ripple.

For example – One time someone said some things to me that let me know they did not think I was in the right place in my Christian walk. Shortly after those remarks were made I began to critique myself on everything I did and I even began questioning my faith. I began worrying that the direction God had been leading me in my life was of my own making instead of His making….All lies…and the effects of a bad bad ripple.

BUT…God still remained the same, and He kept reminding me that it was Him that I was to please and only him I was to believe. I had let one bad ripple start making waves in my life which was causing all the good ripples to be out of wack.

Thankfully I realized that those things that had been said to me were not true at all.

I am no God expert but one of the things that I do know about God is that He uses us to help him do his work. Unfortunately satan uses people to do his work too.

I am so glad we have the power to choose who it is we want to believe, who we want to work for and what type of ripples we want to leave behind.

We can choose to leave behind a good ripple or a bad ripple.

Good ripples bring more people to Jesus.

Bad ripples can chase them away from Him.

Today I am asking myself… what sort of ripple effect is my life creating?

Do I want to leave behind ripples that chase people away from Jesus or do I want to leave the type of ripples that lead straight to Him?

What about you? What sort of ripple effect do you want to leave behind?

Last night I saw a video on Facebook that I thought fit with this post perfectly. After you watch it come back and leave a comment telling me your thoughts about it.

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day,

And the Answer is…Yes!

September 19, 201511 Comments

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. Hebrews 10:35-36

Hola! As many of you know I was in El Salvador last week with a group of women and Compassion International visiting a new Compassion project ‘Casa de Pan’ and various other projects, with the highlight of the trip being the meeting of my sponsor child ‘Ericka’. This week I plan to share with you a few stories from the trip.

My time in El Salvador was a really fun time that was packed full of God’s love and many, many blessings. I experienced some really hard things this week too, but even though some things were hard, God was still so very good and he was there with us on this trip in a mighty big way. At this moment as I am writing this I still feel as if I am overflowing with a whole lot of stuff and I’m still in the process of sorting through the many thoughts that are swirling around inside of my head.

Getting ready to go.

The time leading up to the trip seemed to be an emotional roller coaster at times. There always seemed to be something trying to get in the way.

Things started with me having some pretty bad knee issues going on and I worried I would not be able to keep up on the trip or that they maybe wouldn’t want me go if I couldn’t keep up. At one point I even told the trip leader that I was not going to be able to go because of the knee issues.

I also I worried I wouldn’t have the funds and also that I may have another trip that could possibly conflict with this one. When I told the trip leader I wasn’t going to be able to go she offered to call me. While on the call she prayed with me and then I continued to stay in prayer as much as possible after our conversation and God just kept telling me to trust that I was supposed to go on this trip. So I kept my answer as a YES and God reassured me time and time again after that, that YES most definitely was the correct answer.

After making the decision that the answer was Yes I got really excited about going but the week right before my trip was a really hard week. It seemed like a whole lot of things kept happening that week that kept getting in the way of my getting ready to go. Things that played on my emotions and left me feeling as if I was not physically or mentally prepared to go.

My dad is very sick right now, so I was worried about leaving him. I feared something would happen to him while I was gone and I would not be here for him or my mother.

I also had some family things going on that affected a child that is close to me and I worried about leaving in the middle of all of the drama that surrounded a situation that seemed to be developing daily with no end in sight.

It was also a busier than normal at work that week and I seemed to have many things that were distracting me from getting my work done and caused me to be at work longer than normal. I kept wondering if I would ever have time to get finished with my packing and also finished with all of the things that I needed to get done around my house before I left.

Another thing that happened and that I think bothered me the most that week was that I had conflict with someone two days before I was supposed to leave. What was said left me feeling very sad and very emotional and I began wondering how well I knew myself and also caused me to start second guessing myself and before I knew it my social anxiety was kicking in again.

If you are a long time reader of my blog or one of my friends or family then you already know that I have this social anxiety issue that rears its ugly head from time to time and leaves me very uncomfortable with people, especially people I don’t know. There have also been times in my life that I have found myself running out of meetings and avoiding social occasions with even those people I do know and are usually comfortable with.

I have never really been a very brave person when it comes to being around other people and now here I was soon to be traveling to an airport I had never ever been in to meet a group of ladies that I had never met except for in an online Facebook group. I was going to be with those ladies all week long and most likely be in very close contact with them all week long too. The last thing I needed was for my social anxiety to kick in.

Though my confidence was shaken up a few times, no matter what happened that week I still knew without a doubt that God’s plan was for me to go on this trip and I was determined I was going to go!

And I did…

My journey started with my husband dropping me off at the airport at 3:30 am and as I confidently walked into the building I talked to God. I remember saying to him, “well God, this is it, you have me now so YOU lead and I will follow.”

And he did.

Everything went smoothly and before I knew it I was sitting on my plane.

As the plane began to taxi down the runway I closed my eyes and continued to pray. As we lifted off I remember thinking ‘there’s no turning back now’ and as I opened my eyes to look out the window I saw that the sun was beginning to rise…

All I had done so far was get on the plane and God was already showing up in a huge way.

How could I see something so beautiful and not know that God was right there beside me?…Actually He was surrounding me at that moment showering me with his amazing love and beautiful gift.

He had told me from the moment he asked me to go, from the moment when I had said yes, and now as I was officially on my way he was telling me once again, that He truly had this whole trip under control. Everything was all going to go according to HIS plan, all I ever had to do was just say yes and and then just show up.

Our trip guide had a place inside to fill out while were were enroute. One of the things we were asked to do was to write a brief prayer to God telling him exaclty how I was feeling right then and ask him to show me what he wanted me to see. So while on my way to Houston to meet my group this is the small prayer that I wrote.

Father I am feeling a little nervous but also really, really excited. I wonder will I fit in with the group, will I be a useful part of all of this? Please open my eyes and heart to what you want me to see. Help me to boldly go where you lead me.

With all my Love,

To be continued…..

Music Monday ~ I Will Follow….to El Salvador!

September 7, 201516 Comments

In less than a week I will be in El Salvador with a group of ladies and Compassion International. While there we will be visiting a brand new child development center and I will also get to meet Ericka who is one of my sponsor children.

I’m soooooooooooooo excited about this new Journey I will be adventuring out on but at the same time I can’t allow myself to think about it too hard because this is something that for me would normally be waaaaaaaaaay out of my comfort zone!

I can barely believe that in just a few short days I will be flying ~~alone~~ … with God … across the country to an airport I’ve never stepped foot in, meeting up with people I’ve never met before and then hopping on another plane and heading off to El Salvador! I have never been your social type of person, I’m awkward around strangers and actually a bit of a loner.

I also know that while I’m there I may see some things that might be hard to see and though I know I won’t want to see those things I also know from past experience that its in the hard places that I tend to see God the most.

It seems like I keep finding myself in these so unlike me sort of settings more and more often here lately and like I said in the beginning I can’t let myself think about it to hard, which is what I just did! I now I have a few butterflies fluttering around in my stomach but I still feel really really excited about going on this journey and I can’t wait to see what God has planned!

All of this excitement is why this week my Music Monday song is ‘I Will Follow’ by Chris Tomlin

It’s really amazing the places you will find yourself when let God lead.

Now its time to get to the packing… I have to figure out how to get all of this stuff into one suitcase!

Have a great week!

Making This Life Beautiful

January 10, 2015January 10, 2015Leave a comment

This could be my theme song for the past 5 years,,,,

You changed me from what I used to be, opened my eyes now I can see, your making this life so beautiful. (Dan Bremnes)

Five years ago I was not a Christian, but thankfully five years ago was when Jesus came knocking on the door. I am so glad I answered and but most of all I am glad I invited him in. Since then my life has never been the same and like the words to the song say, he has been making this life so beautiful.

🙂

I’m All In

October 7, 2014October 7, 20144 Comments

I took a trip through my Bible tonight and here are a few things I found along the way.

I hope you are as blessed by them as I am.

Blessings,

This post is part of the 31 day series ‘31 Days of Hushin’ My Mouth”
To read the rest of the posts in the series click the picture below.

#write31days

Pity Party Invite on Facebook

September 15, 2014September 15, 20149 Comments

You all know I have this eye issue going on, well today I found out that my insurance company denied the treatment that would have hopefully kept me from having 2 eye surgeries. The treatment only has a 50 percent chance of working but it will keep me from having to go through a surgery that could possibly cause me to be blind in my eye for 3 weeks to 4 months until some sort of gas bubble they will be putting in my eye dissolves and my eye fills back up with its own fluid (they will take out my own fluid).

As you saw in my last post I thought that the Vitreous gel had released off of my retina because the flashing had suddenly went away and also I could see better than I could in over a year and a half. On Wednesday of last week a new flash started but I still can see really good, though I can see really good the flashing means the gel is still attached but some of it has released. If not for the insurance companies denial I would have had that injection this coming Wednesday. As it stands now I have to make the decision to have the surgery or take a chance on my retina possibly detaching.

When I first found out this morning about all this I was furious, and still may be…How can the insurance company be allowed to play doctor when its MY eyesight at stake? After I found out this news the first thing I did was call my insurance company and argue with them, then cry and even yell at them. I will admit I let them see the side of me I usually only reserve for my poor husband. After that didn’t work I hurried up and sent my daughter a text telling her all about it. She sympathized with me but seriously what did I think she could do to help the situation so of course my next course of action was to go to my phone and post this angry Facebook status…

Of course you all know that was a great solution… Let me tell you I had a very large pity party this morning and I was inviting anyone and everyone who would want to join me. That would show those insurance company executives right?? After all I am sure they read my Facebook status every day and this mean comment with a lot of likes and comments that agreed would for sure make them rethink their decision~

I am sure you know by now I am just being sarcastic I know my insurance company does not see my Facebook statuses or my mean text about them to my daughter. I did discover though that there is one person who did see my anger and frustration and also he saw my facebook post and that would be God…yep he saw it… You know one time someone told me that in my Christian walk that before I did something I should think would I do this if God were sitting beside me? Well guess what??… HE IS! And sometimes he has this way of using other people to reel me in. As soon as I posted right away I got a few likes… oh that made me feel good because people were agreeing and I even got an agreeable comment….But then the next comment shook me up.. “Don’t give up. Remember you have the Great Advocate working behind the scenes.” I saw that comment on my phone just as I opened my curtains to a window that looks out over my back yard, my beautiful lovely green treed back yard with flowers blooming and sun shine streaming through it. Right there in the middle of my anger I saw God is still working and I can see just fine still! It made me feel ashamed because how did I manage to forget? … sheesh just last week I wrote a blog post about how I thought God had healed my eye. Yes I have had new flashing since that post but I can still see great! Better than in over a year! Just the other day I told someone that I had claimed my miracle and I wasn’t going to give it back and now just because my insurance company denied a claim for a treatment I am acting like it’s the end of it all.

After I saw the beauty in my back yard, and comment on my Facebook status, I decided it was time to visit with God so I grabbed my Bible and went off for some quiet time with him. As I was praying I felt led to open my Bible and when I did it opened to this page where for some reason a few things were underlined. I am not sure why or when I underlined them but today what I realized is those words were the voice of God and I realized I could see it so clearly WITHOUT my glasses on in a Bible with writing so small I could not see it just a few short weeks ago.

“I will be with you”

I went on to read the rest of the passage … Isaiah 43:2-3 When you pass through the waters I will be with you and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire you will not be burned the flames will not set you ablaze, For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel your Savior.”

Wow after words like that I have nothing else to say other than, “I know God’s got this and thank you!”

Have a blessed day,

Leaving Panic Behind Under Palapa #39

September 2, 2014September 2, 201417 Comments

Psalm 27:13-14 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

I sit here in awe of the beauty and the spender.

White clouds of cotton floating over deep blue water

A sea gull crying while gliding softly, wings open, floating on the breeze

Your breath blowing softly in my ear whispering words of peace, “do not fear, I am here”

People from all over the world speaking different languages their voices mixed together like music.

The laughter of children playing,

Lovers kissing,

A man selling his wares as plane flies over,

Jet skiers,

Parasail’s drift weightlessly above waves lapping at white sand.

I see your face in this place

When I close my eyes I still see you.

Images forever snapped from the camera of my mind.

A few years ago I had a blood clot in my right eye and lost some of my vision in that eye. At one point almost all of my vision in the eye was gone but God gave me a miracle and healed most of my central vision back though I do have only about half the vision in that eye. I never really notice it unless I close my good eye.

About a year ago I started to see flashes of light in my other eye and gradually over the past year my vision has been having all sorts of odd things happen. I also started to have a bigger blind spot in my other eye and a constant flicker. According to my retina specialist all of this is do to the vitreous gel pulling on my retina. My doctor tells me that what is am seeing is the light reflecting off the gel. Over the past year I have had all sorts of odd things happen in my vision and it seems as if my vision has been getting worse and worse as we wait for the gel to finish pulling lose from my retina.

This past week my husband and I were in Mexico and the second day there I was noticing that I could not really take the bright sunlight a whole lot and my eyes seemed different. A little while later I was reading a book and I realized I was having trouble focusing on the words. It was as if they were jumbled or not clear after a while I closed my right eye and realized that with my left eye the letters in the center of every word was missing. Then I realized that anything I looked at seemed to have a small missing place right in the center. Needless to say I went into a panic I already have an eye which is half blind and now my good eye is missing the center!

Of all the things that have happened to me in my life, vision loss has to be about the scariest thing I have ever been through. Right after this discovery of the missing vision I went into a panic, I was on the beach with my husband, sitting there with my journal and my Bible and just could not bear to open my eyes to read, write or look at the beauty around me. It was like the blind spot in my eye was the only thing I could see. It is very hard to not think about something when it is right there in front of your eyes.

A little while later my husband went and joined a ping pong tournament leaving me alone on the beach. For the longest time I just lay there with my eyes closed, begging God to make this blind spot go away. After a while the sound of the ocean and the people around me started creeping in to my brain it seemed to relax me a bit and then I heard a voice say “open your eyes!” As I heard that voice I knew it was God, I was like “um no I can’t bear to look,” but he kept insisting I look so I finally reluctantly opened my eyes. There before me was the bluest water I have ever seen in my life. There was a storm off in the distance and the clouds were hanging low over the ocean, it had to be just about one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. As I sat there looking at the painting before me I realized that the blind spot does not show so much when I am looking at scenery unless I blink.

Shortly after that I grabbed my journal and managed to write a few things down without looking to closely at the page as I wrote. What I wrote was what you read at the beginning of this post and also yesterday’s post. God still amazes me how he manages to pull me back time and time again to realize that no matter what is going on it really will be okay. The rest of the day was a good day, my husband came back from ping pong and by then I was in a new frame of mind. We went for a short walk down the beach and watched the storm come in and then we sat under the palapa in the rain laughing as everyone else left the beach…Question…. if you have your swimming suit on why not just stay out in the rain?.. 😀 Later the sun came back out and we went for a swim and the rest of our evening was really great.

I seemed to be in great peace the next day and until we came home Overall I think we both had a great trip. Once we got home I seemed to have peace until this morning when I realized my eye is getting worse. When I woke up this morning I was so upset I decided I was going to stay in bed with my eyes closed because I could not bear to be seeing what is missing in my vision. I had the television on and there was a preacher speaking, I was not really paying much attention but all the sudden I heard him say, “The only way to be delivered is to get your eyes off yourself and keep them on Jesus.” At that moment I realized that I was laying there panicking worrying about something I have no control over. About that same time a friend of mine who is very very sick with cancer sent me a text, I spent some time with her and oddly I was able to talk to her without thinking to much about my eye. After that my mother called and said she and my dad were close to my house and wanted to come over, and two minutes later my son called saying he was coming over. I ended up spending the morning happily with my family. Today was a great day. I know God sent me those people in my time of need to distract me. No more panic and I truly am at peace about whatever happens. I can not say that I like it, but really I am sure it will all work out in some sort of good way. It always does.

My doctor seems to think I have a macular hole which she says if fixable. I am seeing her on Wednesday to get the for sure diagnosis. Until then all I can do is wait. I think I may be getting pretty good at that.