Things change

     Since my last post I have started school.  I am pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice with a saturation in Human Services.  My oldest son and his fiance' has had our first granddaughter and my youngest son is in the Air Force.  There has been a lot of adjusting going on and some of it has not been easy but we're making it work.

Hello again

Well since my last post a lot has happened. I have lost (was fired from ) my job. Which may be a blessing in disguise. The only looming question is "WHAT NOW?""" Do I go to college and try and get a degree or do I try and find another job. I've been doing a lot of seeking God on this and feel like I need to pursue the school thing. The only thing is with us down to one income now, are we going to be able to make it with all the bills?? I guess since God has led me to go back to school instead of work, then He'll provide for us. I just have to believe that. I know the meaning of doing things afraid. Back to the scenario of Indiana Jones about to step off that cliff into what seems like nothingness and finding out that there is a unseen path across.

Ever been??

I don't like my job. I could care less about the company I work for. I could care less about where the company is going and what new things that are happening.. When they obviously could care less about me. I'm just interested in making it to 5 p.m without breaking a sweat and not losing my sanity in the process. The company filing for bankruptcy and then coming out of it hasn't done much to fatten my wallet. In fact it has actually thinned my wallet. Since I had to lose 7 days of pay , plus have my pay lowered .60 per hour two years ago. I have gotten however more gray hairs.. The only thing it does do which is the only things I'm grateful for in having the job is that it allows me to make my house payment and provide insurance for me and my Husband. Which I guess that should be all that matters and I should just shut up and be grateful that it does at least do that. That's what most people would tell me.

Working in the desert

I have just realized that I'm not working in a field of opportunity to be a witness to anyone, but in fact am working in a desert. In saying that I'm still there to be a light for God. I'm just not there to be anything other than an employee. I'm not there to be a help to anyone, unless God sees to open a door to help. I'm just not there to go out of my way to be anything other than a coworker. My nature is to be helpful which I guess this is why its so hard to go against everything that's in my nature. Which maybe why I'm being carried through this.

Lest We Forget

I hope I never forget the journey and what I have learned and what I've been shown because I don't want to be taken through the things that God has taken me through again.. I want to never forget what I've learned. The knowledge that God wants a submitted vessel that is only here to do His will.

Understanding

There are things I just don't understand.. Things that I may never understand.. The whys and wherefores of my life.. Knowing I want something different or better or however you want to look at it.. Knowing that my wanting may not be enough. Feeling like that I'm suppose to be living my life differently and not understanding what exactly that's suppose to be. Maybe I'm just not asking the right questions..

The more things change

I got to spend some time with a girl that I went to high school with, that I haven't seen in almost 25 years today.. She looks the same and she's just as happy as I remember her.. I know that her life has had a lot of ups and downs just like mine, but she seems to handled better than I have mine.. Of course I haven't watched her walk the road of faith that she has so I don't know the times she's either fallen off the path or fallen down and had to pull herself together and get back up and keep on walking.. I can't see the spiritual patches she's had to sew on her armor to keep her shield of faith together.. I haven't seen the battles she's had to fight either against a living and breathing adversary, or the battles within her own self. It reminds me of the song " The Warrior Is A Child," by Twila Paris.

That's why I never understand the people who when someone has fallen or isn't living up to their expectations thinks its their right to correct or judge, or try and put them back on the path that they think is holy and honorable. Not realizing that the battle to get back up is part of the strengthening of the faith process that God is needing them to go through..

I also have a problem with someone thinking that they're more holy and because they think that their more holy can sit in the judgement seat and say if your saved or living right or whatever.. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAS GOTTEN THEM WHERE THEY'RE AT!!! You can say it's unconfessed sin or their running away from the will of God. BUT YOU DON'T KNOW!!

Meat and taters

To continue with my previous post, some people would rather go to a church where the pastor only knows how to give milk to his people, because the person thinks that they'll have an opportunity to preach and choose to walk away from God's will for his life in order to get man's approval. Not knowing that by choosing to walk away from where God has placed them, they are denying the people that God has given them the opportunity to find Jesus. Why why why???

God or as some people refer to Him as "My Gimme God"

First off let me say I'm not judging ANYONE, because I'm guilty of this. I just wasn't aware to what extent.. Until recently

Do you know anyone or are you ever guilty of: When God puts you where HE wants you, but it isn't exactly where YOU want to be and you keep asking Him to move you to where YOU believe you're suppose to be, or where YOU think you would be better used and He doesn't. You think "God doesn't really know what He's doing." So YOU move to where you really want to be or initiate circumstances around you to make it where you can or are forced to move to where YOU want to be. Because YOU think "God ought to know I would be better used here than where He has me."Then when it all falls apart you blame GOD, because He ought to have know you wouldn't have been happy and stopped you from moving yourself.. Never mind the FREE WILL He has so graciously given us, to screw up whenever necessary.

As I said at the beginning I'm guilty of this to some extent. Right now in my current circumstances with my job.. To stay put and wait, because I surely don't want to move before I'm suppose to.

Maturety

There are things in my life that are still in the infant stage. There are things in my life that I'm in the adolescent stage. There are few things that I'm in the adult stage about.. I just mean in the thought processes or attitudes or the way I react when I come against things. I've been shown that there is a lot of things that I've still got to grow in especially in the last few weeks. I don't understand a lot of what's going on in my life right now.. I just know that God is right here with me..

Can't Help But Wonder

Just wondering why when I can't understand things that I see right in front of my the most extreme circumstances come floating through my head as to what's actually going on ..

Focus

Does anyone besides me ever feel like that their focus is way off where it needs to be? Has anyone ever started a project knowing that God had opened the door for it happened, but in the process of just doing what needs to be done, everything got bogged down in the doing and there was no resting??

Worrying unnecessarily

Why do we see small things in the eyes of God as great big huge things in our own site? If we simply hand our problem and our own thinking of how things should be done, it is taken care of in a way that can only be God. We just have to take our hands off of it and leave it with Him. Let Him handle it in HIS time and in HIS way..

Keeping your word

I had a person who calls himself a pastor or shepherd. That's suppose to be my pastor or shepherd tell me he would meet me and my husband at a building I'm planning on renting and putting a Christian Bookstore in to walk the building and pray with us about it while we're there. Right before he was suppose to meet us he calls and cancels for what I found out later was to help his daughter-in-law move a bed. I guess that couldn't wait 45 minutes max to meet us for something that was important to us, members of his flock.
My Husband thinks that if it was meant to be for him to be there he would have been there. I'm afraid I don't see things exactly like that. Since he's up until recently, would cancel our bible study for one reason or another. Since we and and another couple, plus him and his wife, were the only ones attending, it was usually because the other couple couldn't make it or his wife was out of town. My thought on this is either we're a church or not. If we are we have our regular bible study regardless, if not let's just call it a bible club and get it over with.

Needless to say the Saturday after he canceled meeting us was our regular bible study. Now if you know me you know that I can't pretend to act like everything is O.K. when it's not. His wife kept wanting to know what was wrong, I kept saying that I was O.K., which at the time I was, but she kept persisting. So it finally got to me enough that I finally told her that I was upset with Robert because he canceled on something that was extremely important to me, but I was over it. She kept pushing and saying "No you're not." Finally I had enough of that and said. "No, I'm over asking help from any of you for anything." I had to walk out and told my Husband we needed to leave.
Now I feel like the door is closed as far as anything having to do with the Bible Study, other than to the extent of just showing up, because my Husband still wants to go. . They want me to lead Praise and Worship, once the church is started, but I'm not doing that.
I'm sure they're going to think that I'm holding a grudge, but I frankly don't care.

Stepping off into nothingness

I'm finding that my life is becoming like that scene in Indiana Jones, where he's having to step off a cliff into what looks like nothingness. When he finally gets the courage to step off the cliff, he finds that there are steps he couldn't see.
Welcome to my world.. Trying not to fear what could happen, but knowing that the only way across is to trust God with whatever the future holds.. Not knowing if I'll succeed or fail, but knowing I have to at least try. If I don't at least try, I'll never know if I could do it or not.

Nothing speaks

I'm in a place where nothing I read, or hear, speaks to me. Nothing.. Isolated, alone. Everything is still.. No breeze.. No still small voice.. Just silence and stillness. I'll just sit here and wait for something, anything to spark around me, to let me know that I still matter.. What I think or feel still matters.
Honestly it really doesn't matter to me whether it happens or not. I can be here, and live here. Even if it is all by myself. After all I've been here before.. It's funny when I think about it, because, if this is a trick and Satan is just trying to mess with me, then he's wasting his energy, because like I said, I've been here before.
If it's God trying to stretch my faith, then I guess He thinks it's worth it, for the journey, He's fixing to take me on. Which for me I guess is all a matter of trust and reliance on His will for me.

What to do...

Sometimes I'm overwhelmed with the feelings of "what are we going to do??".. I'm not sure of anything other than I feel like I'm being sucked down into the quicksand of my circumstances.. I don't even know when or how I got in this .. I have just realized that I wake up this way, and I dwell on it all day long. If I just can remember to get up thankful to be able to get up everyday.. I might be able to get through this..

He's just like me

My youngest son, is a lot like me.. Which is highly irritating to me.. When he tries to get me to change my mind on something concerning him, his arguments make a lot of sense, so it's hard to find a defense against them other than, "because I said so." He's 18 and still lives at home.. That's the only reason why that line still holds water..

The Kingdom of God

What is that really? In the context of "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you." What does that mean exactly?? When you're faced with tithing, feeding your family, or paying your bills.. It seems like tithing doesn't seem as important as the rest.. That's with the assumption that the "seek ye first" reference is concerning that.. If it is then we should tithe first, then do the rest.. I've never seen in the bible where it says, pay your bills first, then tithe.. Even though when it comes to eating or paying bills, bills seem to be first. I can live without, cable tv, internet, phone, unfortunately some in my household can't. So the bills get paid, then we eat, then if there is any left, we tithe. Sad isn't it?

Swift Kick/ Resting and Knowing

Have you ever had someone in your life that you just want to go up to and give a swift kick and say, "What is the matter with you??" Have you ever been that very person? I have.. I have had times in my life where I've rolled things around in my head, sometimes for days. Then somehow I would get the answer, and it was usually a simple answer. I had just let the noise of my thoughts get too loud for the "quiet" answer to get through. Then I would say to myself "What's wrong with you??"
Sometimes it was the Holy Spirit trying to tell me something new, but most of the time it was a case of I knew the answer all the time, because I had been there in some form or fashion before. I just was looking at the problem, instead of looking for the answer.
Here lately it's been that I have been over thinking things, instead of just resting in the peace of God. Doing what I know to do, until He tells me something else to do. Even if I don't particularly like what I'm doing at the time. If He hasn't told me to move, I stay put. That is where I fight most of my battles. Learning how to just do what I know I'm suppose to be doing, and not looking to the right or left, but keep my focus on Him.