Hello To All My Sisters

You know, I was thinking today in terms of where the Lord has brought me and where just in this last year, despite seemingly unsurmountable obstacles, He just keeps me floating above the worst of it and how He can restore your entire perspective.

For a long time, my lifes' perspective was so limited. My afflictions and trials were mine and so personal and so ABOVE anything that any other mortals and in my estimation, sometimes even God Himself, couldn't understand.

During my twenties I was at war with my Mothers' Christianity. Freed from the confines of piano lessons and Moody Bible Institute and every Sunday church attendance, I was loose in a world that was hell-bent to destroy me. I was far too ignorant and too eager to find out stuff to know the path of destruction that I was headed for.

I went from bad to worse and having been through the "valley of the shadow of death" SEVERAL times over and by now you are saying, "What has she got in mind to share"? Okay, as a writer, I tend to go on and on, but what I am trying to share is how having the power God in your life can CHANGE and RESTORE your perspective.

God has been dealing with me strongly in the area of debt payments and telling the ABSOLUTE truth and get off the spirit of offense wagon and the spirit of envy and the spirit of procrastination. Sister ? You might, or might not ask. Yes, Sister. I have accepted that the spirit of poverty is wrought with envy and grumbling....I heard my 23 year old son say something the other day that mirrored the effect that I have had on my children. He is a faithful worker and a son who is a joy to me, but the stuff that I planted in him years ago...still prevails..the STUFF about people who work and save and HAVE things , and because we did not have those things as I raised the children..so I often bad-mouthed people who had cars and money and bank acounts and my son said, "Some people at work said I should buy a car instead of riding three buses back and forth to work" I did not answer. He went on and his voice mimicked my own voice from the past and it was filled with bitterness and anger as he said, "THEY can do that..just go out and get a car"...I can NEVER do that"!!

I fell silent. I was so ashamed ..because I thought of how often I had said things like that aloud and in my spirit, as we walked down the street in the snow and rain...a line of poverty stricken people or so I thought, because I was bitter and angry with God that the husband or the boyfriend had not stayed, and we had no car and no Daddy in the house, and EVERYONE else had a car and there we were walking..and ALL the pretty women kept husbands and boyfriends..but not ME...so I had unkowingly planted a seed of offense, of anger, of pettiness, of not paying bills, of changing our names so as not to be caught by bill collectors. Oh well.

God has just been renewing and restoring my life and the lives of my children these days and I am so happy. I have had a lot of my financial needs met by dealing with the bills head on..TALKING to my creditors and MIRACULOUSLY there have been doors opened and debts removed from credit rolls and I intend to be debt free very soon! Creditors speak civilly and respectfully to me. Visa is getting paid. Fingerhut is getting paid. The Student loan is getting paid. No, I do not have a lot of money left over and what I do have I try and tithe or share with someone less fortunate. Did I say less fortunate? Yes..because God is showing me HOW to do this and have our cupboards NEVER run empty. I recieved my raise and my VIP hours and God is BLESSING us BIG TIME! This is a PRAISE report!! And I have to share!

I share this with you because of the blemished perspective I had. The petty, guilt-ridden eyes of the lost, are always tunnel-visioned and cannot see the BIG picture. God is making me so completly and totally responsive to His voice and to His touch. I have been through that valley of weeping and mourning..my soul has thirsted and my heart has longed for so much...and I didnt know that all it took was to be come submissive to My Lord..it took unspeakable affliction and trials and tribulations and debts and falling back into sin and out of it and back-sliding again, before I lay before Him TOTALLY broken..totally open to Him in every area of my life!

If I have rambled, its only because I want so much to SHARE what a loving God can do in your life..if only you let Him! I always say that our hurts are the boo-boos of our life and He only wants to take a peek and make your WHOLE perspective a TRUE restoration in HIM!! Well, I have shared and I guess I had better get out of the pulpit now. God Bless You all and Goodnight! (Gotta get up early for work!)