My new vow.....

My new vow is to blog once a week.  I will start there and then hopefully be able to go more often.  Everything gets crazy this time of year, with pulling out the winter clothes which I love and school starting.....busy busy.  However, there are still things to say and I want to take the time to say them.

You know a lot of time I am critized in how I believe in Christ.  I am not christian enough, or I do not worship the right way.  What I have learned in my journey with Christ is that I am who I am.  My relationship with Christ is just that mine with him alone.  I know how I believe as does he.  I have been tested to the brink this year.  I have felt like evil was trying to turn me away from him.  I feel like I am winning that battle.  Sunday a really weird thing happened.  Here is it believe it or not.....

I had put Roger to bed and I was playing games trying to calm down from the busy day.  I stood up and immediately felt wrong....I felt evil in my house.  I was looking towards my bedroom door that was mostly close but cracked enough that the door could move.  I could feel a spirit that I did not like in my presence and I knew what it was.  I watched the door and I will admit this to you, I felt my husband was in danger as I watched the door slowly move open and then closed, it happened 4 or 5 times.  There were no windows open in the house and I knew that there was no draft.  Without even thinking I said it 3 times.  Evil has no place in this house, God is my savior, the Lord is present.  Again Evil has no place here.....God is my savior and is present.....Leave this house.  The door stood still and I felt a peace and entered the room.  I crawled into bed and rubbed my husband's back and like I normally do told him I loved him as he slept.

Believe my story or not.  This really did happen.  My husband and I made awesome progress with our relationship this weekend and for some reason that night I felt like something was trying to get in.  That thing, that evil was not welcome and I let him know it.  I felt better and slept well.  I guess the point to the story is just when you feel you have a victory with Christ, with feeling like you are over a hump, or getting something that you have long prayed for, Evil will always try to take that from you.  That is evil's job.  Our job is to stay the course and believe that no matter the challenge that with our belief that God is greater that we will prevail and that things will get better.

When you are stuck in the muck and the crap that seems like your whole life is ending.  When you think that everything you have ever worked for your family, your job, your home, when you are losing it all including yourself.  That is when you have to take a step back and understand you are in the valley.  It is dark, but the Lord is with you.  In March, April, I felt that maybe I had been forsaken.  What had I done?  What could anyone have done to deserve all this??  I always tried to be the best mom, wife, friend, lover, and assistant that I could.  In fact I had never asked to be in pain.  ALL the time in pain.  I did not tell the doctors to give me whatever it would take to shut me up.  The drug of choice was Percoset.  So it wasn't bad enough that I was dealing with the pain, I had to be losing my marriage, losing my job, losing my home, and losing the world that I thought and fought so hard to build with the man I never thought would completely shatter and leave me stranded alone in the middle of the ocean without a life vest.

WHAT HAD I DONE??  I was reminded at that time.....What had Job done?  Look at all he lost, look at what he had to go through, look at he STAYED loyal to the Lord.  He lost completely everything.  His CHILDREN, his family, he lost EVERYTHING, and still he believed that it would be better, God would make it that way.  What happened to Job?  Everything got better, a lot better.  Through the faithful losses he was rewarded with faith based rewards.  So as hard as it is to lose a child at any age or for any reason, God has a plan, be faithful like Job was.  As hard as it is to face the fact that you may lose the man you love and the father to your children.  The person that was your best friend and your champion.  You have to stand up and say I can take it, and trust that this is HIS plan not yours.  Maybe you made the wrong choice by getting married?  Even though you put blood sweat and tears into the home you lived in, handing it over and moving out would be his plan, maybe you should have waited and not purchased that house to begin with.  You have to start to understand that all the things that you want, they are not ALWAYS all the things that he wants.  Before all the crap that now is my life began, I wondered why God would let a 14 year old get pregnant but I couldn't.  How could God let innocent little puppied be tortured by Michael Vick?  How could God..........

But wait, and a clarification to something my step sister emailed me.  God did not make those things happen.  People did.  (Thanks Eve!  I really enjoy my period, maybe that's why they names Fem Products Summers Eve?)  I digress, but God did not do those things PEOPLE did them.  God did not wire the murderer to kill, but he gave them the choice to follow.  Follow me or follow evil.  Unfortunately for some of us, the path of evil was chosen.  In that same respect, because of the choices that we make, God maybe trying to teach us lessons he doesn't feel we have learned.  I could speculate as to yours dear step sister, but I will only address mine as I know them best.  I had become detached from my family.  I had begun to take life for granted.  I had been living above my means no matter the reason or excuses.  I had become selfish and introverted.  I had stopped being all the things I thought I was doing so well.  I had stopped living due to my pain.

The answer came, ironically with the life changing pain and termoil.  God gave me an answer to my pain as I had prayed so hard for and cried so hard for, but he also delivered the blows to my home, heart, and head.  Perhaps a test, I know you are faithful when I cure your pain, but will you remain faithful with no pain, and utter chaos?  The answer should always be YES.  Though its hard and we fall, but be honest with God talk to him.  Tell him you feel left behind, tell him you are pissed off, yell and scream at him.......

At the end of the day, do all of those things.  BUT, when you lay your head on the pillow do this for me:
1.  Thank God for blessing you with something, even if its lower gas prices
2.  Thank God for listening to you
3.  Ask God for continued guidance and understanding as you stay faithful through this hard time
4.  Tell God exactly..word for word what you need, then lift it up to him and trust that he will take care of it....in HIS time, not yours.  (Never thought this "rebuilding would take 8 months)
5.  Thank God for being the kind of God you can talk to like he was your best friend.  A God that would let you vent and curse and fall to the ground and shake your fist at the sky, and understand, and still love you the same as he did before...

Family, friends.........take faith in the fact that my story is living proof that God does truly exsist, and that he just wants us to do the right thing.  Anyone find in it was maybe God's timing that all this happened only months after I was baptized?  Test?  Only he knows, I can only make assumptions, and I no longer wish to.  I am just dealing and learning from what has happened and moving forward with Christ and hoping for a better and brighter tomorrow, because after today.........tomorrow can only be better!!

Love Ya
CAB