God's Instruments of Love

God's overwhelming love for us comes in so many forms; in answers to many prayers, the blessings we have and continue to be given, and in our beloved relationships with others. God sends this love through The Spirit and our counselor, Jesus Christ by way of many instruments. It is up to us to respond to it and when we do, we are left in awe and will never forget the comfort we are given with this true and unconditional love He has for us.

For me it was about 11 years ago when I really come to know the love God has for me. Sure I've always known it was there but I didn't comprehend His love until it was given to me by a complete stranger. It was as if Christ had knocked on my door himself. I am still overwhelmed with emotion as I recall the experience.

It was the morning of my youngest son's 7th birthday. I was still deeply depressed from all the turmoil from my ex-husband leaving me to moving back with him thinking we were working on things all the while living in a drug-addicted lifestyle. (That's another story.) I still remember that morning asking Todd if he would take the kids to school that day cause I just didn't feel up to it and wanted to remain in bed. He grumbled and gave me a hard time as if I had asked him to do a miracle or something and tried to make me feel guilty. I gave the boys my kisses and told Jacob "Happy Birthday" as they went out the door to school. After they left I remember enjoying the silence - not from the kids being away but because Todd was no longer there nor the reminder of the drug induced life he had brought into our house. If even for only a quick run to the school that he was gone, it was a relief that made me feel as if there were no problems around me.

About an hour had passed and I noticed Todd pulling in the driveway finally coming home. He had a couple of people with him, there was always someone new around him it seemed. I remember thinking to myself how old this was getting - his drug business and the lifestyle that tried to exist around me that is. And then no sooner than he got out of the car a couple cop cars pulled up. I remember it was like slow motion standing on the porch as I watched him getting arrested. I was not surprised by the matter after all the illegal activities he'd been involved in and I was very grateful the boys were at school by this time and not subjected to the event. I am sure Todd thinks to this day that I set him up by having him take the boys to school. It was always the way he thought - thinking that someone was out to do things in spite of him. He thought this way because this is how he was with others. But I have never been that way and little did he know me once the drugs took his life over.

After Todd was escorted away, the cops came into the house to inspect the place further. They asked me to look around at what I saw. I admit now from my depression and the drug use that my house was a mess, but at that time I was in denial. They had every right to tell me what they did about how my kids should not have to be subjected to such living conditions and yet I didn't want to hear it. I knew I was a good mom. I was just in a rut at the moment. It wasn't so much the house was messy but more that it was empty with not much sign of life. The cat's litter box was in the boys' room that I was sharing with them. I decided to keep the kids and my quarters separated in the house so that I had some sort of sanity left in feeling like I was a family with them. It didn't matter that we all stayed in that room with the doors closed. It was simply a way to co-habitate so that I didn't have to rely on my family continuously for support. I felt safer that the cat and I stayed in the boys' room together away from Todd.

As the cop left, I remember sitting on the couch feeling so empty inside. I remember thinking to myself, "and on my son's birthday of all days." It was the first time I had actually seen Todd arrested for his activity and yet I had no concern for him, only for my kids. The quiet air was all I could hear. What would I do with myself between that time and the time to get the kids from school? There was no life without those boys there. I wanted to pick them up sooner, but didn't know what I would say to them just yet. So I just sat there.

At that next moment there was a knock on the door. I was hesitant to open it for fear of another drug addict or cop looking for Todd. When I looked out the window there stood on the porch a soft faced woman holding a baby. I could tell she was older than I was. I had not ever seen her before, but this wasn't surprising since I was usually cooped up in that hell of a house and didn't socialize with anyone outside of Todd's circle. I felt a little embarrassed when I opened the door, but this passed as soon as she asked me if I was okay. She stated that she couldn't help but notice cops at my house from view of her window. I'm not sure how long she had been living across the street, in fact from what I remember the house looked vacant and had no life in it - almost like the one I was suffering in myself.

When she asked if there was anything she could do, my heart sank and the floodgates were opened with the love God was giving me through her presence. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that it was Jesus who was the one standing right there in her place and was holding His hands out to me. My emotions were so strong in return I felt my spirit literally fall down on my knees at His feet as I said, "Yes, could you please pray for me?" I then noticed that there were tears welled up in my eyes and that I had wept as I said those simple words without any thought. At that moment her eyes softened even more as they filled with tears. Her response had no words. She asked me my name and took my hands as she prayed. I don't even remember if she knew what had happened or why but I do remember how I was shaking and trembling through fear. I then felt Christ's love through the Spirit who comforted me and let me know He was listening. That He was glad that I had finally come to Him and that I received His special messenger that day. That everything would be okay, but that it would take some time. That through Him, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

After she left I felt a sense of hopefulness and began to realize something. From the time Todd left me, I thought I what I wanted and needed to be happy again was for my marriage to be repaired and back to normalcy without the desire or lifestyle influenced by drugs. I learned that in my heart that I already had the key to happiness all along. Thereafter I did try to influence Todd with what God was telling me, but I saw no results and decided that I would pursue without him. I am grateful every day that He never let the drug use get larger than the love I had of Christ. However at that time I didn't realize that I needed to actively seek God each and every moment of the day in order to receive guidance and strength. I just thought He was only there when I needed Him most and that my calling on Him at those times would be sufficient just as it did the day the perfect stranger came. Eventually I learned that I must move forward and continue to seek Him in order to get my children out of the mess I've let them live in, but God was right. It did take time.

I will never forget how much love I felt from God that day. It was my turning point and at that moment I knew my answer to all happiness. Seek God. It seems so easy, doesn't it? Looking back my relationship in the past with God was always one that was held in crisis situations. I didn't really understand that I needed commit to walk with God and really submit to Him in order to be truly happy. It has been a long time coming to finally figure this out. It can be hard work to keep on top of it every day, but it is so worth it. I think He sends these perfect strangers to us more than we know so that we will learn how He works through them for our sake. Without this experience I would never have grown. God has a perfect and strange love for me that I will never truly understand but just for a moment on that day I was given a small taste of what is is store for me when I meet with Him once again and it excites me to no end!

Motherhood and Working - My Balancing Act

It is inherent that only after a few days of not reading the Bible nor listening to praise and worship on radio I am and have become lost in feeding the spirit. Already have I gone astray and not even realized this until now. So feeling emotionally down from it all can be a benefit in my realizing where I am at - go figure. I feel emotionally super tired and super overwhelmed in life. Maybe this is more prominent that I am sick and fatigued - sure I have an excuse to be lazy about getting into God's word - but really there isn't any excuse. To pick up the Bible would take just as much effort as hitting the button on the remote and watching TV. My head is full of nothing but goo either way and I know there is always room in there for prayer.

This morning I was at work and it was one of the many times in the past few months that I just simply wanted to weep as I missed my daughter. I thought about her and how she cried this morning that she was tired. I remembered yesterday morning when I informed her we were staying home for the holiday and how her little eyes lit up. I find that Mondays I hyper focus on the time I spend away from my daughter. But it doesn't stop there...my emotions inevitably turn into more hyper focusing on everything especially in what I need to face at work. I then don't want to meet with my customers and secretly hope they would call and reschedule. It all starts in the morning each time too. I don't want to leave my bedroom - I feel safe there. This has happened on several occasions. It reminds me of my days of agoraphobia yet so different. It scares me.

Why God? What then are you putting on my heart? I asked you to put me in a job that was worth my time doing if I were to be away from Savannah, yet here I am and am so totally unhappy. Does my not wanting to get out of bed to come to work have to do with Savannah or is it just that I am not happy doing what I am doing at work? Am I justifying the need to stay home with Savannah for this reason? Am I just being lazy?

A few weeks ago after fasting you gave me courage and knowledge that I cannot explain that made a tremendous change in how I viewed my job and was able to perform. But why did this not last? Why am I feeling back to where I was previously? What Lord, am I to do with this? Can you help to show me the way? If I am to help the poor and disabled, why then can I not be more patient as I get to know them and learn to work with them? Why are some days easier than others? Am I wrong in pursuing keeping my employment instead of being at home with my child and you just haven't told me? Or am I not listening? You know me Lord, I am not good at making changes. If you have told me I may not have listened too afraid of the change.

Just like my mom's puppy that I watched over this weekend, you have been there - incessantly and loyally by my side keeping me warm and comforted. Yet there are times I don't pay attention to you. But when I call to you - just like that puppy - you always come back and with great enthusiasm just for me. While I know You love me, I still don't understand why. So I know you are listening.

Lord, I am not great at vocalizing my prayers and you know this, but please listen to my heart as well as my words here. Am I fighting for what I want as a mother and you are fighting for what you need as God? I know there is reward in my public career so why can't I keep the vision of the reward as I do Your reward? I would rather spend time with my kids than trying to help a population that is almost beyond help. But You have put me here to do this, I know, and I know You know I can do it. But why don't I have the desire to?

Am I feeling this way more so now than ever because Savannah is starting school this year? I know I have many regrets for all three of my children and not being there for them so many times when I could have, but I thought I had accepted the reasons. Did I not ask for forgiveness for the times I should have when I wasn't doing what a mother should? If so I don't recall your prompting me to but now I am really learning from them. After 20 years I've worked and been a mom, this is impressing me now more than it ever has. You have put me here in this job long ago, and with a good plan, but why does it not seem to "fit" any longer? Have I been disobedient to you and am now learning the hard way?

In reading other mother's blogs today I am finding that they are not what I thought - just stay at home moms that is. They are lawyers and writers and home schooling moms who have the chance to work around life with their kids, not their kids having to have life around their work. Since they are working nonetheless, then why do I feel so picked on? Is it that they made their choice of what they are doing prior with having a family and children in mind? Is it that what they do they can be more personal with You in their work where I cannot cross those lines with the public sector? Why do I compare myself to other mothers when I know it is wrong? Is my dream to be both mother and employee as equally as the other unrealistic? Would there be a chance that I could work part time? Why am I in such a need for something to change? And why is it that at the end of the day all feels okay? Is it because my kids are at my side and I cherish the time I do have with them?

I admit I may have too much time to think at work which causes me to tear at emotions and desires...so please help me to be patient as things progress I know this will change.I can't help but seek balance for all. Please Lord can you give me any indication of what I am doing here and where should I be going? What is going on inside me and this balancing act I am fighting with? And if there is nothing to be revealed just yet, then I pray that you would help me to be patient. Please Lord, I am struggling. I pray that you will fill me with your Word so that I am with You and walking again. Always walking, no matter how tired or sick I may feel.

Intervention

I can't explain it. I just know what I know. People may think I'm crazy but I know I am not. I have been before, crazy that is, but there is a difference between becoming clinically psychotic and true feelings and visions of super natural things. Thing is I don't always listen to what is being told to me when I have these feelings or promptings.

It is only now that I am learning to adhere to these instances as they happen. Looking back at the dreams I have had over the past year I now realize they can be used to interpret what actions I should be taking in my life. I feel it is God's way to speak to me using visions and metaphors so that my human mind will "get" it and make needed changes!

It was about 5 years ago that I was driving home from work when this overwhelmingly heavy feeling that something "big" was going to happen. It was something big and life changing yet I didn't discern if it would be for good or for worse. As I drove I felt pressure on my shoulders letting me know to prepare. But prepare for what? I finally concluded that I must prepare to lose something close to me but that it was supposed to happen and that I would be okay. So somehow I assumed to be watchful for my husband thinking that something would happen to him while he was driving home at night. So I prepared myself for the thoughts of it happening and waited for something to happen. Two days later the premonition came in a very different way.

My dad died. It was Good Friday. It was a beautiful morning - one that I will always remember. The air was full of spring and the birds were chirping and reminded me of all the other spring mornings when Dad would say, "Good Morning!" to me while looking up from his newspaper and silly reading glasses. It was his day. He was finally free from pain and depression that he was suffering from. That is when mine began.

Now that time has passed and he's moved on in heaven and I've moved on too. That day to me now is remembered no longer in grief but in a different light. But I still wonder why I didn't know what God was telling me. I don't think I knew how to listen or even more important how to ask Him what the feelings were. Maybe it was that I didn't want to know? I remember a dream I had a few nights before my fathers death occurred. I woke up after dreaming I had called my mother to tell her I had a night mare she had died. I did not think anything of it and just went about the same business of what I was feeling while awake. I still insisted that something was going to happen to me or my direct family but not my immediate family. I was completely incorrect.

I have had other experiences in life with people dying and my receiving super natural messages, only these were after they were gone. My uncle died of colon cancer just prior to my first marriage ending in 1996. I was living at my parents at the time and remember how sick he was and we all knew it could be at any time that he would go. The night it happened I woke up in a sweat and unable to breathe with panic attacking me. I didn't know why or what I was dreaming but just after I got over it the phone call came. We were told he had passed and at the exact time I had the panic attack.

Another instance happened when I was reading the newspaper at my parents. Often when I'd stop by to visit them I'd lounge back and read their newspaper. Being a single mom, I never really wanted to spend the money on my own subscription. I would always look at the comics and the classifieds, you know the important stuff. Well one day out of the blue I was prompted to look at the obituaries before anything else. There I found a good friend in there that I had a relationship with in past employment. It was odd to me to think of her as gone, but I got the feeling she wanted to tell me good bye and that she held me dear to her heart. She wasn't very old either. About a month or two later the same instance happened and it was that same friend's mother. I knew the both of them. I remember feeling that they were letting me know what happened to them, but I also admit I didn't dig very deep and accepted that it was just chance. I have only held in the back of my heart that it was really much more than that.

About a few years later I had this great urge to write a letter to an old friend who was living with us for a while and was really there for me when I needed some one to talk to. He needed a place to stay and at the time my ex husband was living a lifestyle that I did not take to. He was gone all the time out dealing drugs or hanging out with druggies and never home. He had left me about a month before this friend started living with us as he needed a place to stay. Turns out I needed him there more than he needed to be there. Long story short, this friend really helped me in such a great way that it made an impression in my life and what I went through at that time. One day I felt pressure of memories and thoughts that reminded me of him and led me to write him a letter. Prior to finishing the long letter, word came to me that he had killed himself the week before. I was devastated that he didn't ever really get to know what he meant to me as a friend. But somehow I know he knows.

I have pondered and pondered how things like this are present in my life. Not only in the past, but what has been happening of recent. At the time I didn't think anything of them but somewhere in the back of my heart I believe that the people we have encountered in life who have passed are simply remembering us while entering heaven. They communicate to us feelings because we really made a difference to them and they to us while they were here. These "accounts" are given before the Lord who is recognizing what is held in hearts of the living that are still treasurable of them and their time spent here on earth. And it is at that time of their passing when God's hands reach down to our hearts right at that very moment when we feel it. He uses us so that He may create something beautiful to put on their crown that is to be placed on their head at judgement day.

In addition to instances with loved ones that have passed, I have very vivid and meaningful dreams about my own life. About a year after my dad had passed I started drinking and smoking and each year it progressively got worse. With this also came recurring incubus of people or things killing me and I would sit straight up in bed swearing to my husband of shadows in the room and would scream in horror. I thought it was just because of my dad dying and my not dealing with it, but now know it was warning signs to me about what hell consists of and that I may end up there some day if I don't change my ways.

I started to attend church with my family from the prompting of my husband. It was about the same time and thereafter is where I started having true conviction. I think hearing the word of God at church in addition to wondering where and why God took my dad really got me to thinking about what life is about and where do I fit in the picture? I felt lost and at first thought if I stopped going to church it would alleviate my convicted nature.

It's only been since last November that I have completely stopped having the night terrors. This past year I have learned to reason with God about my convictions and to ask Him for help. I have asked Him to show me ways out and He has given them to me. The dreams I have had during this past year He gave to me over and over again until I got it. They were recurring and consisting of my driving in a car for which I could not stop the brakes. I finally decided I needed to interpret the dreams and really started to back off what was giving me conviction and started changing my life with God's help. The car represented my life and my not being able to stop was going to lead me into a wreck.

Since then these dreams have changed. I am now driving in a car for other reasons and am never trying to stop but end up in odd places that have different meanings to me at the time I am dreaming them. I also realize that the people in my dreams are very significant signs as well. I have had so many dreams these past few months that I could write a book about them. I know now that they are signs from God, that he communicates to me in what direction my life may be heading and I am usually given promptings of what to look for and to seek from Him in order to move forward.

I'd like to share of a dream I had this morning. I was driving and Jake was in the passenger seat. We were driving on the same road we drive on every day out where we live but the road was surrounded by vibrant green grass- it was as if a rainstorm just occurred and gave life to all the vegetation. The sky was a bit gray and foggy, but it was beautiful and we could not see far ahead of us. Jake was telling me where to turn and where to go and Savannah was in the back seat, but it wasn't her, it was like a hologram of her or a thought of her. Just at the moment Jake no longer knew where to go, I woke up. I have interpreted this dream to mean that our children (not mine, but all children) think they know the directions in life but are depending on us parents to drive them there. Just prior to this dream I had dreamt that Charlie and I were in a group of adults that were asked to create an anti-venom for snakes that were around, and that it was "up to us" to protect our children from the devils servants with the medicine we created.

The dreams stem from a recent presentation we attended at our church about an opportunity for being involved to participate in the vision of LifeStation, a Christian organization designed for the future youth. Our old church building is in need to relocate or be completely restored but thus far we haven't enough finances to make a final decision. We all have been praying about it, and a miraculous option has derived to us in pursuit that we could be the "sponsor church" to assist in the initial phase of this organization's vision for where we live.

I believe the dream I had today is revelation from God that we, our small "insignificant" church congregation, have been given an opportunity to start something no one has done before, but that it is up to us to do this for our children. That it would be something "big" and is His will. Like when my father died I didn't know what to foresee, but knew that something "big" was about to happen. I still don't comprehend how something like this could become real, but God can. I can't deny that the folks at church have all been feeling the same "big" pressure of some thing's about to change the past few months. Like me they all have been saying, "We just don't know." Yet we knew God's work has been at hand. To see the fruit that has just started to reveal itself from our prayers is a bit overwhelming I must say. I can't even describe to you what is going on here, but it is the power of God.

It will be interesting to see what dreams come ahead as time goes on...God works in the most mysterious ways, doesn't He? I pray that He will continue to give me revelation as well as the others so we know what His plan is and that we as parents, adults, grandparents, and a community know how we can drive our children to God's hands in safety. I just pray.