Lately my life has been miserable. There's no other way to put it. Not only am I jobless and flat broke, but I've been sending out resumes and interviewing like crazy, and I can't seem to get a job even if I tried to buy it. It's really weird because I've even gotten some tentative offers. Everything will be going great, and then I'll never hear from them again. Just like those guys that seem to drop off of the face of the earth, after going on a seemingly great date. And then there's all of the debt and money problems that keep piling up as a result of not having a job for the last ten months. Oh and let's not forget the fact that I'm going through a divorce, I still have not totally regained the use of my right foot because of my accident last August. Also, some of my more significant relationships seem to be disappearing before my very eyes. And did I mention that if all this weren't bad enough, I've just turned forty, as if that in itself wasn't enough of a traumatizing experience.

It's just been one catastrophe after another. My joy has all but dried up and my faith is hanging on by a thread. In fact a few days ago, my faith was severely shaken. I had a major melt down in front of my teenage daughter. I cried out asking God, "where are you?" I knew everything on my dresser to the floor, breaking all of the contents. My life did not seem to be lining up with scripture. I kept asking myself what I had done wrong. What was God trying to teach me? Why was He not answering my prayers? I was confused, hurt and angry all at one time. For the first time in my life since I've been saved, I'd felt so vulnerable to the things of the world. Like I had no shelter, no covering, totally naked. Everywhere I turned it seems as though the doors were being slammed shut and locked in my face. Emotionally, financially and spiritually, I've barely just been hanging on. I don't know how many times I thought I was going to loose it. I just haven't been able to fully see the purpose in all of this. I finally broke down last night and begged God to give me some strength and help me through this trial. It seems as though it has been forever.

Then finally this morning I woke up, it must have been about three-thirty I'd say. I was coughing uncontrollably, for no apparent reason. After it was over, I still couldn't go back to sleep, and started thinking about my situation. And suddenly it came to me, I am UNDER ATTACK. I feel like there's some enemy shooting at me with an automatic assault rifle. I've never gone to war but I would imagine that it's got to feel similar. I'm sure some might say that comparing my latest experiences with being at war was a bit mellow-dramatic, but that's exactly the case, we are at war with satan. I heard the Holy Spirit speak to me last night and say, "Remember, satan has come to steal, kill and destroy." I don't think that I ever really understood how serious he is about his job until now. he is trying to kill my spirit, steal my hopes, dreams and purpose, and ultimately kill me spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and yes, even physically, if need be. We as Christians had better get this through our heads, WE ARE AT WAR! satan is taking no prisoners, and neither should we.

I have to constantly remind myself of this. We need to put on the full armor of Jesus everyday. Another scripture that came to mind was, "The violent taketh by force." satan is definitely violent with us, so it is up to us not to be meek, mild and passive with him. We must also defend our spirit, our lives and our purpose by any means necessary. I thought about this for a minute and I became really angry and a little bit stupid for letting satan beat me down the way he has been for so long now. I've been getting seriously punked by satan. I've never been one to back down from a fight, so why was I just handing my life over to him on a silver platter? So last night I decided that I was not going to let him just take me down so easily, I was going to study to learn everything that I need to do during times of spiritual warfare to win this battle in the name of Jesus. After all, didn't Jesus already win this fight when He died, went to the gates of hell and stepped on the head of satan, returned and rose again, and ascended into heaven. I'm told that all we have to do is claim this victory that has already been won for us, so my mission is to learn how to do exactly that. And as for me not knowing why I'm going through what I'm going through now...well I just choose to trust in God and in the fact that He is allowing this for a reason. And every time I start to have one of my pity parities, I will just have to remind myself that His ways are so much higher and wiser than our ways. Higher are they as the heavens are above the earth. And that His love for us is perfect and complete, and with complete love comes judgement, chastising and discipline>And finally as Job said, "Are we to accept only the good from God and not the bad?"

THE LIFE PRESERVER

A couple days ago I lost my life preserver. It wasn't much, but it was all I thought I had. For the last couple of years it seems with each passing month my life had steadily been going from bad to worst. I've experienced everything from stress induced illness, impending divorce, a major injury and surgery to follow and finally near poverty brought on by the inability to work which led to a depletion of my savings. My latest challenges have been learning to use my right foot again and learning to walk all over again, and of course trying to find a job.

Lately I've been consumed with finding a job. I've sent out hundreds of resumes, been on dozens of interviews. I've even gotten hired a couple of times, but both times something weird happened and the offers have got rescinded or some such nonsense. It has never taken me this long to find a job. I've always been very blessed in this area, but for some reason it seems every door I've tried to walk through, has been slammed shut in my face. Even very low paying jobs that I knew I was over qualified for. I've been living a life of just enough. I've prayed, cried, fasted, sacrificed, gave offerings, I've done everything spiritually and naturally possible to find a job, with absolutely no success. Some say it's just a sign of the times, the recession that our country seems to be in. But I've always believed that God could provide a feast to His people even in times of famine.

Ever since my injury, I had been living on a shoestring budget. And it seems that on Friday the shoestring budget that I was living on fell apart. I brought my car to the mechanics for some very routine maintenance work, which I thought was covered under warranty. I did not expect to be coming out of pocket for any type of payment. But of course that was not the case. The mechanic said that my car was coming apart at the seams and that it was in desperate need of some repair. It was going to cost me a small fortune, my only resource was a credit card. I was dead set on not living on credit while going through this temporary dry season. This was a mistake I had made before, and I was determined not to go down that road again. To top it all off, the small stream of weekly income that I was living on was for some reason not deposited into my bank account. I called the bank, the institution from where it should have originated, but no one could tell me why it wasn't there. No reason, it just wasn't there. I was literally penniless, with no warning. No money for food, gas, nothing. The balance in my account was a negative five dollars. I felt my heart sink. Panic was starting to set in.

None of this made sense to me. Why was all of this happening to me? Why was God not answering my cries for help, as He said He would in His word? I was a tither, a giver. It clearly states that the righteous would not be forsaken. That those who call on His name would not be disappointed. That we, those who love the Lord and follow His commandments, would be the head and not the tail. That Christ died to give us life and life more abundantly. So what was up with this? Why was my life not reflecting His Word? I felt my spirit breaking within me. I felt that I had no control over any of the circumstances in my life. I just gave up.

It was about this time a friend of mine called me and told me that he felt the same way about a week ago. He was actually sitting in a bible study service, feeling the exact same way that I was feeling right now. But he said it was about this time when he heard God speaking to him. And this is what He said to him. He said he heard God say to him, "Go deeper." Now I don't know exactly what that meant for my friend, but the moment I heard him say the words, I knew what it meant for me. God was speaking to me through my friend, and he was telling me to cast off my worries and the superficial cares of this world. He was saying to me, "Go deeper in your faith and trust in me to take care of you. Place your burdens on me, and this time, don't take them back. Make a solid life decision, to trust me or not, to believe My Word or not.

So I did. I chose. NO I'm not saying it was or is easy. But I chose to make a decision, a decision to trust God no matter how things actually looked. To walk the walk we Christians are always talking about. To walk by faith and not by sight. And in making this decision to trust God to be the loving father He says He is. I chose to believe that He would never do anything to hurt me. And that everything He allows in my life, is for my eternal good. And not just for my good but for the good of all those whom I might come into contact with on the path to my purpose. I believe that all the doors He has been closing and not allowing me to walk through, have been closed to prevent me from falling back into things that are comfortable to me. I believe that He is trying to move me forward into my purpose. Into HIS PERFECT WILL for my life, and preventing me from going backwards. This is what we as humans tend to do when we are faced with a new, uncomfortable or painful situation. Maybe, just maybe God is trying to answer the prayers that I had been praying for for so many years. That He would bless me with a consistent, prosperous income, in an unconventional way. Maybe, just maybe God trusts me to be strong and pass this test. I choose to believe that He is refining me like silver, so that I can shine on others by sharing with them the story of my test, and and how through His strength, I gave the controls of my life to Him and victoriously passed the test. The test that became my testimony.

Removing The Blessing Barricade

It has become very clear to me over the past few weeks that God has placed a barricade in front of the door to my blessings. This thought arrived in my mind, via my spirit after realizing that I had literally sent out over one-hundred resumes for jobs and only gotten one potentially viable response. You see, I've not been gainfully employed for over seven months now. Last summer I left my job at a fortune 500 company because of the onset of physical ailments brought on by the pressure, stress and hostility of my work environment there. I left with a plan, a plan to pursue a career in the real estate industry. I did this even though I knew that the market was suffering and that it was on a definite downswing. I did not do this lightly, but very pray fully, and I felt, I had done this with God's approval. Knowing that even in times of famine God could bless me with abundance. Well there's a saying that goes, "Men plan...God laughs." Ironically, that has always been one of my favorite quotes. And boy is it ever true. Because three months after leaving my job I had an awful accident. I suffered a ten foot drop from a deck and shattered the heel in my foot. It may not sound all that serious or life threatening, but it sure did throw a monkey wrench into my plans. I had to have reconstructive surgery to correct the break in my foot and I would be totally confided to bed rest for what would turn out to be about four months. I was unable to leave my bedroom, except to use the restroom of course, and even that proved to be a challenge. It's funny how you don't realize how important one little part of your body is until you completely loose the ability to use it. Anyway, the combination of my accident and the crash of the mortgage industry pretty much put my real estate career to bed, (no pun intended :)... for a while anyway.

But according to the carefully orchestrated plan I devised while lying in bed for all those months, a few weeks before the doctor said it would be okay for me to walk without my crutches, I would start sending out resumes and lickedie split, I would have a job all ready and waiting for me by the time I was healthy enough to actually do it. I was always very blessed in the area of finding and acquiring great, well paid jobs. Believe me, I know that I was definitely blessed and not skilled in this area. The fact of the matter is that most of the jobs that I got, I didn't have the skills or education for. I've known many people in my life that were far more intelligent, articulate and that have had degrees of an advance nature, that have not made the type of money that I have been blessed to make. And like I've said before, I'm not saying this to boast or brag on myself but to give all the praise to God for anointing me and blessing me in this area. That is until now.

All of a sudden the tables had turned. It seemed as though God had placed a barricade in front of the door to my blessings. My financial resources had all but run out and things were starting to get extremely tight. It's not as though I had not experienced my share of hard times before, because Lord knows I have. But God has always shown up in the nick of time and carried me through them. But somehow I sensed in my spirit that this time was different. I knew that God had deliberately blocked my blessings for some reason. I knew that He knew, in His infinite wisdom, because He knows me better than I know myself, that this was going to be the best way to get my complete and undivided attention. So today I fell to my knees in frustration and said to God, "Lord, you have my attention, what is it you are trying to tell me?" It just so happened that a matter of minutes before falling to my knees and asking God this question, I had just heard T.D Jakes ask a question. The question was one that he suggested that King Hezikiah may have proposed to himself, right after Isaiah told him that his time on earth was about to end and that his life was now required of him. The question was, "Have I started to thirst for things or stuff, more than I used to thirst for God?" And while I was down there on my knees, face buried in the carpet, the answer hit me. Yes, I had! It felt as though someone had just jumped in my stomach, with all of their weight. Immediately I felt sick to my stomach, and literally ran to the bathroom to throw up.

All at once, I knew, I realized that for months, maybe even for the last couple of years, my heart, my prayers and my motives had not been born out of genuine love, dedication and reverence for God, but were acts of pure selfishness. I was suffering from what I like to call the "SANTAGOD" Syndrome. This is the syndrome where we make this list of requests for the things that we feel we may want, or even need in our lives and give them to God in prayer. And because we are good Christians that live our lives for God, in the morning when we wake up, just like Santa Clause, He will have provided us with all of the items on our list. I realized that my supposed acts of worship, my tithes and offerings, deeds and sacrifices were nothing but mere attempted trades of service to manipulate God into doing my bidding. I couldn't believe that I had allowed myself to go on for so long, without doing a self examination of my heart and my motives for doing all the things that I said I was doing for God all these months. I was totally disgusted with myself.

But then I realized that because of Jesus and His sacrifice for us, all I had to do was repent, and ask our loving Father for forgiveness. And then I did. I also praised Him and genuinely worshipped Him for placing me in this place. This place that I started to feel was made of four walls with no doors. This place where I felt trapped like an animal in a cage with no way out. Because it was only here, in this place of isolation and despair, where I would come to ask Him what was He trying to tell me. And it was only here in this place where I would ask myself this difficult question, that made me hold a mirror up to my face and to see the ugly truth about myself. Almost immediately, I knew that God had forgiven me and that He had removed the barricades that were blocking my blessings. I felt that I had purged myself of a truckload of filth and burdens. So if you also are in that place where no matter how hard you try or fight to move ahead, and it seems that you just can't break through the apparent barricades that are holding you back. You may find yourself wondering if you are being cursed or is God simply trying to communicate with you and to get your attention. Stop wondering, shut your life down and ask God, "God, what is it you are trying to tell me?" Just as it says in James 1:5, "But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him."

MOTIVATION FOR REVELATION

A couple days ago, I watched a movie called " Lorenzo's Oil". It was made in 1992 I believe, it was a pretty well known movie. Nominated for several awards. But somehow I never got a chance to see it until now. It was about a little boy whose parents discovered that he had a rare, aggressive illness, to which there was no cure, called ALD.

Failing to find a doctor capable of treating their young son Lorenzo's rare disease, Augusto and Michaela Odone seek their own cure. They set out on a mission to find a treatment and save their child. In their quest for a treatment the Odones clash with doctors, scientists, and support groups, who are skeptical that anything could be done about ALD, much less by laypeople. But they persist, setting up camp in medical libraries, reviewing animal experiments, badgering researchers, questioning top doctors all over the world, and even organizing an international symposium about the disease. Despite dead ends of research, the horror of watching their son's health decline, and being surrounded by skeptics (including the coordinators of the support group they attend), they persist until they finally hit upon a therapy involving adding a certain kind of oil (actually olive oil with two specific long chain fatty acids removed) to their son's diet. They contact over 100 firms around the world until they find an elderly British chemist working for Croda International who is willing to take on the challenge of distilling the proper formula. It proves successful in normalizing the accumulation of the very long chain fatty acids in the brain that have been causing their son's steady decline, thereby halting the progression of the disease. There is still a great deal of neurological damage remaining which cannot be reversed until new treatments are found to regenerate the myelin sheath (a lipid insulator) around the nerves.

The film ends with Lorenzo at the age of 14 showing definite improvement (he can swallow for himself and answer yes or no questions by blinking) but indicating more medical research is still needed. The end credits of the film say that Lorenzo also regained his sight and was learning to use a computer. Many healthy children are shown who, having followed a course of treatment with Lorenzo's oil, have remained symptom-free. Lorenzo can communicate again via a modified sign language, and that Augusto Odone later received an honorary M.D. for his pioneering work in researching and discovering a significant treatment for ALD.

As I watched this movie I thought, why? Why did God allow this child, this family to endure such pain and suffering? And I don't mean why as in...Oh God why them, they were so good, why not someone else? I didn't mean it in that way at all. I meant, there must be a reason God chose them. Just the way he allowed Job to endure the trials satan chose to inflict on him. I believe that God is so good and wise, He made each of us, He knows what circumstances will motivate us to be our best and to live our purpose, even when we don't. I thought wow, God is so remarkable that He knew even before this kid (Lorenzo Odone) was born, how his parents would fight for his life. In fact I believe that He paired these parents together because of their own unique and remarkable traits. His father for his scientific background and his mother for her unrelenting passion and persistence. I believe that God allowed this to happen to them for the greater good of all the other boys in the world with this awful disease. For the boys whose parents didn't have the education, resources, will or patience to help find a cure. Today because of their determination and faith, thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of children and their families are spared from this debilitating disease.

So when I think about all of the ordeals that I have suffered in my life, oddly enough, I praise God for His wisdom and His Omniscience. He knows exactly what circumstances to allow in our lives to spur us on to be the best that we can be. He knows how to nudge us onto the path to our purpose. While I'm going through bad times I'm not necessarily skipping and jumping for j0y, but I try to remind myself to count it all joy, because the God that I Love, and trust, the God whose only intention is for good in my life, is pushing me to reach my full potential. He is refining us like silver. Challenging us to turn our Grief into Greatness. But only He knows exactly what will motivate and inspire each one of us to our own individual revelations to change our lives and the lives of those around us.

HERE I GO AGAIN

Well guys here I go again, blogging that is. Somehow this all seems so pointless to me. I always feel like this is such a waste of time, I mean who actually ever reads this stuff anyway. I can't imagine who even has the time these days. But I guess if no one read these things blogging wouldn't be so popular. And right about now if there is anyone reading this thing you must be thinking, "If your so skeptical about this whole blog thing what the hell are you doing writing a blog?" That is a very sensible, logical question. But as you can see from the name of my blog, it is a "Christian" type of blog, designed to target a more "Spiritual" type of a reader. And we all know that walking the path of a Spirit led Christian is not always logical. Sometimes, especially in the "natural" world, it's not even sensible. We know that as Christians we are supposed to be walking by faith and not by sight.

So here's the deal, I love to write, I always have. Writing for me has always been like having my own personal Shrink. I write down whatever is going on in my head and suddenly it makes sense. Somehow I don't feel alone or crazy anymore, it just makes everything in the world okay for me. I also see it as a beautiful opportunity to share some of my funniest, weirdest, most creative, even sick, twisted thoughts with the rest of the world. It's a friend that's always there for me. So as you can see it's not like I don't like to write. I absolutely love it. I even love the whole idea of this Blogging thing. I mean, it's so cool that the whole world can log on and read each other's crap and then actually even talk to one another about it. It's an opportunity for those of us who may have thought that they would never have a word published, to actually kind of be published. To cool.

But the thing is, even though I like to write, I never thought that I was any spectacular writer and that anyone would actually read my stuff. So a few years ago, after praying for many years for God to reveal to me His purpose for my life. He starts by telling me that I am supposed to be writing about my spiritual experiences and life lessons and stuff. The first thing I say is "Okay God, I'll write this stuff down, but how is anyone gonna ever get to read it, with my schedule, and cash flow issues, it'll take me a life time just to get published." I thought, "This is great, I'll be obedient by writing, but getting published, well that's a whole other thing. God knows, that I don't have the time or the money for that." And almost as soon as I finished saying those words to myself, I hear about this new inexpensive way to get your work to the public. This internet thing where you can publish your stuff for free on your on website, that you don't even have to host, called a Blog. Well there goes my excuse. So about three years ago I started blogging. I would do it off and on. I believe I have started and stopped three or four sites in the past few years. I guess the problem was that not only did I not believe that anyone was ever gonna read it, but who the heck was I gonna help? I mean it's not like I'm some spiritual guru or something. I'm just a regular ole Joe or (Josephine) struggling to stay on the straight and narrow path of Christianity. Not hardly worthy to give, especially write advice to others. As I said, I'm no "Hemingway", I'm an average writer at best.

But somehow, no matter which way I turn, God keeps bringing me back to this place. Why I don't quite know. As much as I try to reason with Him and rationalize with God, and try to get Him to let me off the hook about this thing, He just won't let it go. So what's a "Christian" girl to do? It's been said that it's better to obey than to sacrifice. Now see, that is a quote from scripture, but don't ask me exactly what chapter, or verse, I'm not that good yet. :)

Anyway, I know that I know that I know, that God is preparing me for something. Some assignment, some purpose that He has designed for me, still yet to come. Even though I can't quite see it clearly from this place I stand at today. And even though I have absolutely no faith in myself as a writer, I do have absolute faith in my faith in God, to lead me down the right path, the one that He's designed me for all along. And when you think about it, isn't that what life is all about? Having faith in what you believe in, and acting on that faith, maybe without ever really knowing the result of your actions. I think that in the "natural" world, they call that "Blind Faith" don't they?