When I grow up...

I’ve found my passion, my purpose, my goal and now I have to channel it in the right arenas and allow God to direct my path so that it can be done for His glory.

When I grow up I want to be a life coach and trainer. I want to share all these wonderful experiences I have had in my life with those that are going through similar situations. I don’t want them to go it alone, not when I have so much experience, empathy and sympathy that can be shared with them.

I love helping people. Encouraging them and being their voice when they don’t have one.

I like to talk with them and get them to see things from a different perspective than what they may be currently seeing it as and succeeding in working through the situation and coming out on the other side better, stronger and happier than they have ever been.

I like figuring things out. Teaching and training people to trust themselves, their instincts and the voice of reason that most of us have but at times fail to use or listen to.

I love posing questions and watching them figure out the answers, especially when they are stuck. To see the results that come from within when I knew they had it hidden deep inside them all along but we just needed to work at getting it out is so satisfying and fulfilling to me.

There is great joy in seeing other’s accomplish their dreams. To realize that life is good and they can have the best life ever if they work for it just a little harder, smarter and with passion. And mostly, they don’t have to go it alone.

Confusion

Lysa talked about being a little mad and a lot confused in this post. She gave us three pieces of great advice that if followed will bring you closer with God even during the silent times.

1. Press in to God when you want to pull away. (Jeremiah 29:13)
2. Praise God out loud when you want to get lost in complaints. (Psalms 40:3)
3. Put yourself in the company of truth. (Proverbs 12:26)

Now to see how I can put it to use in my life...

Confusion is my friend when it comes to my relationship with God. I don’t understand how I can be so sure of something one moment and so out of context with it the next but that is where I find myself time and time again. Mainly at my own doing but there nonetheless. I have come to realize that the silence I get from God is because I’m not fully engaged.

My relationship with God is one of longing and desire for something more than what currently is but until I plug in and stay plugged in it can’t come to fruition. I don’t just pull away, I unplug myself and run so far in the other direction I might as well be back at the starting blocks and after a while of doing this I have a tendency to stay arm’s length away just so I don’t have to continuously repeat the cycle of plugging and unplugging. I just stay unplugged, which is where I am right now. I can’t hear Him because I’ve distanced myself from Him; intentionally, deliberately and with calculated precision I pulled the plug. Part of me doesn’t want to hear and the other part of me is craving that one on one attention. I’m fighting a battle within myself and until it is settled I can’t move forward.

Praising Him is so hard to do when you don’t feel like it. And I don’t feel like it. I’m not lost in complaints I just am existing. I don’t have anything to complain about that isn’t due to some fault of my own so that is not the issue. But when I do try to get some words out they fall flat without feeling. Vain repetitions just like my prayers so I’ve stopped praying and praising for the moment. (I pray with the girls each night but I don’t have prayers where I praise Him and lay my cares at His feet) Not sure what it will take to get it started again but just not feeling it at the moment so no need to pretend. I know the saying “fake it til you make it” but I can’t do that with Him. I have to be my true authentic self and He’d know I didn’t mean it which to me is worse than not saying anything at all at this time. A hypocrite I don’t want to be.

Put yourself in the company of truth. That’s what I’m doing. Trying to surround myself with warriors of God that will keep me uplifted in prayer and girded about with the truthfulness of His word. I’m reaching out through my blog, through email, in person – let’s do lunch (hint, hint), and prayerfully those that He has purposed to support me at this time will rally together and I will be in good company.

Book Review - How to Reach Your Full Potential for God by Charles F. Stanley

Do you know what God has in store for you? Have you reached your maximum potential? In Dr. Stanley’s latest book he offers you 7 essentials to help you answer those questions and reach your full potential for God. It will enlighten, challenge and guide you to the deep recesses of your being and pull forth all that God has planted in you and help you develop them into their best.

It was not a quick read but a thoughtful read. I underlined, wrote notes and spent lots of time pondering and journaling as I read this book. I came away feeling like I had a road map that over time would lead me to be the best person I can be for God. It gave me a deeper understanding of who I am and what my purpose is and how to tap into the God-given gifts and potential that are stored up in me. You cannot read this book and walk away not having been touched in some way to think, do or be better than you were before you started. I highly recommend it for those who want to take their relationship with God to a whole new level.

Back in the saddle

When I posted my last blog entry over a year ago I had no idea the impact it would have on my life. How cut off from the world, my thoughts and emotions it would make me but I was running. Running from the demons and trying to keep my sanity at the same time. I had been found, my perfect world shattered and in order to maintain what little composure I had left I had to sign off and walk away from the best therapy I had received over the past two years of hell I had been living through.

Now I'm back and I'm not running any more. I've come to grips with my demons and am actively working them out. It's a daily process but one that I know I can live up to and succeed at as long as I keep my eye on the prize.

I have grown from being a victim to being a victor and now I am an advocate. I won't let all that I have been through be for naught. I'm gearing myself up to step out there and make a difference in the life of someone else who is going through what I have gone through. I will advocate for the broken down, battered and abused women and children of this world. I won't sit back in silence because I'm not going through it any more. As long as one person is still living under physical bondage, fear, isolation, depression and emotional purgatory at the hands of another person what right do I have to turn a blind eye?

God brought me through this for a purpose and I shall fulfill it. According to His word: "...We are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us." Romans 8:37 (AMP)

I have gained a victory through Him who was my strength when I was weak and my light in the darkness when I was lost. "... I am the light of the world. He who follows Me will not be walking in the dark, but will have the Light which is life." John 8:12 (AMP)

His word is filled with truth beyond my greatest comprehension but as I live each day I get closer and closer to Him and my knowledge grows deeper and deeper and my faith gets stronger and stronger.

I speak His Words to keep myself encouraged, I pray his words to keep myself protected and I try to live His words to make my life have meaning and purpose. Through it all, every trial, tribulation, or stumbling block the enemy chooses to toss my way I stand strong in knowing that "...no weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall show to be wrong. This [peace, righteousness, security, triumph over opposition] is the heritage of the servants of the Lord [those in whom the ideal Servant of the Lord is reproduced]; this is the righteousness or the vindication which they obtain from Me [this is that which I impart to them as their justification], says the Lord. " Isaiah 54:17 (AMP)

I am back!!!