Learning to Survive: Learning to Survive from Breaking, Blessing and Gi...

Being broken isn't easy see how to overcome it....



Learning to Survive: Learning to Survive from Breaking, Blessing and Gi...: Sometimes we wonder why God puts us where He does readers. Sometimes we wonder why we go through the trials and the tribulations we do. Some...

Learning to Survive from Breaking, Blessing and Giving.

Sometimes we wonder why God puts us where He does readers. Sometimes we wonder why we go through the trials and the tribulations we do. Sometimes we wonder why me? I grew up hearing God only puts His strongest through the fire. I use to think wow that is so not fair God! I mean your reward for being strong is God making you have to continue to use your strength time and time again. Applying all that pressure until you break? How fair is that God? But then I had to grow up. Something that is not fun to do and well quite difficult to do as well. Growing up and facing one battle after another people would tell me that same phrase: God only gives His greatest warriors the hardest time. I remember crying and saying God please don't think that I am strong because I know me and I know I am weak. I would beg to be weak enough so that I did not have to face the issues that I faced. 

Pray that my marriage would work out even though we married each other barely knowing each other because we were going to be parents. Praying that God would give me the strength to overcome when my second pregnancy did not take and one day I awoke bleeding knowing that baby was no longer inside of me. Praying that each time he lost a job we can make ends meet. Praying that I could find a way to better myself in order to better my family. Praying that he would be safe when he left to war. Praying the cancer wouldn't take my life. Praying that I was not being a burden to my family, friends and most importantly my children who had to care for me at that time. Praying that he came back differently because of something he saw in war and not because the sight of me was something he couldn't stand. Praying that we made it back to Orlando safe after 72 hours on the long road home. Praying to find a job and be able to support my children. Praying to be able to heal a broken, correction no shattered heart. Praying my children's hearts be healed as well. Praying that I could be enough for them because physically, spiritually and even emotionally at that time I was all they had. Praying to be able to love again. Praying to be able to finally see myself how apparently God saw me because He believed I was strong and so therefore I had to be right? Wrong! I did not have to be strong I had to be willing and that is all!

At church we are talking about the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan: 

By Francis Chan

This is an amazing book but let me tell you something it makes you really evaluate yourself. In this book Francis Chan talks how It's crazy, if you think about it. The God of the universe – the creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor – loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. This God who can do all of that loves us with such a crazy love and that His crazy love for us changes us. 

So our Pastor in our church tells us the story about when Jesus is on the road and appears to two men, this story is found in the 24th chapter of Luke, and they recognize Jesus after the breaking of the bread. Our Pastor during our lesson asks us how we think about it that it took them to be blessed by the breaking and the giving of the bread. And so I got to thinking. I mean my life has been far from perfect. I have dealt with more ups and downs than a roller coaster at Disney World. Did it happen like that for me?

So I am thinking. The bread that is me. I had to be broken. Jesus had to come and allow me to break in order to put me together again. Not like Humpty Dumpty readers when we break we have a God who has all the power to put us back together again. Before my life took a turn for the worse I was working hard at being the model Christian. The one that was at the church every Wednesday Night and Sunday Morning. I was at church actually 7 days a week since I worked there and technically it felt like I had no days off. Man I think I should have just paid rent at the church I was there more than my own home. While I was serving God I wasn't doing it right. I was self centered and self absorbed in my own world of my own holiness. But you see that is when God allows His people to go through the fire and the trials. I needed a wake up call. So long story short (I've shared my story with you all already) I was broken. In that breaking is when I re-discovered Christ again. Like those two men who had walked along with Jesus but did not recognize Him that was me. But when the breaking of the bread happened they did recognize and when my breaking happened is when I recognized and found Him again. Because of the breaking I received my blessing. A better relationship with Christ which led to a better relationships in my life with family and friends. I have told that through this blog that started because of a breaking point in my life (my cancer) I have been reached by different women's groups to speak to them on issues and so then I am able to give because of the breaking, the blessing and the giving.

So do I still believe the old saying that God only gives His strongest tests to His strongest warriors? Absolutely not. I believe none of us are truly strong alone. I believe our strength to combat it all only comes from God. He is our strength but we do not have it on our own. So when trials come to break you cling closer to God because after the breaking comes the blessing and then the giving! 

Thanks readers for reading and as always....

Be Blessed in HIM

Learning to Survive the New Chapter in my Life

What a week, last week was. The emotions, the raw painful and almost crippling emotions I felt over all that was happening last week. Truth be told I was not sure I was going to survive it all. I thought the sheer amount of pain I was in in my heart was surely going to be the end of me. I thought I was going to break under the extreme amount of pressure I was placed in. 

So last week was my divorce week. A week that for 2 years I have waited for, anticipated, longed for. Readers it's one thing when you are in the frame of mind that you love the other person, that you want to make things work, that you long for reconciliation but I was not there. Once upon a time I was but no longer. Looking back I remember that time like it was yesterday. I remember the endless tears I cried! I remembered the countless prayers I yelled out to God to fix me so my marriage would be fixed. I remember the heartache and broken feeling but you know what readers looking back now God had set me on the path He wanted and needed me at. I could go on and on about how woe is me and he left me and he found another woman and so on and so forth. I could be the scorned woman who holds resentment in her heart, her mind, her life. I could be the bitter divorcee who bashes on her ex for ruining the best years of my life but what good is that going to do me? And how true would that even be? The best years of my life were not with him! Don't get me wrong I had good times and wonderful times with him. I have three of the most amazing kids to ever walk the surface of this earth because of him but the best years? No. The best years have been now. And the best years are still to come. 

Readers I have found a new me. She is a woman who has overcome and came out on top. I have found a strength through having to depend on God. I have found a new joy in my life through the process of discovering myself as the woman God created me to be all along. I found love in places I never thought of before and in people I never thought before. I have found acceptance and community and roots in life. I was meant for this life, this joy, this love, this strength, this overcoming all along and God finally brought me back to the place He always intended me to be in. 

I strayed many years ago without really knowing. I became of myself who I thought God wanted me to be without really knowing that I took a wrong turn in life. I was destined to be here and honestly I could have gotten here faster had I not taken the wheel and gone the very long scenic route to get to where I am now. But you wanna know something? Without detouring and taking the scenic route I would not have come across the obstacles that have made me the woman I am today. 

So I am about to say something I never thought I would say. I want to thank my ex husband for helping to make me the strong, resilient and overcoming woman I am today. I do not mean this sarcastically or even satirical because had he not forced me and jump start me on the path that I am today I would not be where I am. 

Pain and resentment of the past need to stay in the past. I am a new creature the Bible says. All the old has been washed away. I went through the fire and I went through the pressure but now I am coming out a diamond in the rough. Still need some polishing but I am what God has called me to be. I am strong, courageous, overcoming, resilient and most importantly I am His and on the path He has set me on. 

I am working hard to finish my race and I know that God is with me every step of the way. While trials come and they always do He will be the one to lift me up when others try to bring me down and the one to hold me when I'm at my weakest point. 

Thanks readers for all your prayers. They truly have been my saving grace. And as always...

Be Blessed in HIM