Do you ever have a day when everything goes so well, it feels like God is preparing every step for you to succeed?

Today has been like this for me. I talked with a woman after church and when I mentioned my blog she said, “It is good practice to write every day.”

I didn’t tell her it is more like every few weeks I publish something. But God has given me the ability to sit up and write on my computer every day for the last year, save the funeral. Considering my scoliosis it is a miracle.

Her comment has stayed with me all day, but to publish something daily seems much more intimate.

The rest of the day has gone wonderful until I sat down at my computer and found both my key board and mouse were out of battery, so I have turned to my laptop computer to write. It is not as comfortable, but maybe God is suggesting I use it more often and get comfortable with it?

Some times a God uses a problem to move us to a new area we don’t want to do but really need to.

This last winter I watched a movie with a girl who couldn’t read until her mother showed her using different highlight colors separate the words.

Dose anyone else do this?

It explained why I color my Bible, books, and my blog posts. When everything is all one color it all bleeds together.

Forty years ago in college I understood my trouble with tests, dates, and directions is from  dyslexic tendencies.

Now at sixty I learn highlighting  and different color ink helped me overcome deficiencies?

Who Knew It Would Help Me Read? I thought color only brings Joy! Only Jesus would Know what I Need!

GOD IS SO VERY GOOD!

 

This morning as I was putting on my Face and Neck cream and thought, “Today, I need to pick up a refill.”

First I have prayer meeting, the reason I am up and moving. Afterward, I take the chance to talk and of course a trip to the bathroom before I can drive to Target.

Parking, I see a woman  a few rows over, with a cane and a young child. I pray for her healing from a distance and go on into the store. Getting my bearings, I start walking in the probable direction to find my face cream.

Walking down the isle, I see the lady I prayed for. She pushed a cart into the isle in front of me.

I walk past her.

“Go back and talk to her!”

Approaching her I said, “I saw you in the parking lot and I prayed for you, but I was wondering if I could pray for you in person.”

“Yes.”

I remember, “Do you mind if I touch you?

“No.”

Laying my hand on her shoulder I Pray, “God Bless you with healing in every cell in your body from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, and The LOVE  of God Fill you giving you strength, courage, and joy.”

Afterward, I wanted her to know God has done miracles in me and that God will do the same thing for her.

Her little friend becomes restless so I move on to the reason I came, or so I thought. What  I find is a box saying they are out.

When I felt the nudge of God to go to Target, God was setting up a meeting with this woman to say, “I SEE YOU! I KNOW YOU AND WANT TO PUT COURAGE INTO YOU!”

Beautiful Woman, if you read this remember, God set up the meeting just for me to pray over you and let you Know He Sees you. You are not alone. You ARE LOVED!

God is finally getting my attention.

All my life God has been first, but now setting time aside to commune with Him has been pushed to the evening before bed.  I am still talking with Him all day but it is not the same.

The first reason has to do with turning 50. I started waking up in the middle of the night for hours, so now I just stay up.

The second reason  I used to get up with the sun spend time with God and take care of my family. Now my husband who was the night owl is up long before me. Things are different.

So what does this have to do with pain?

I have been reading Facebook memories often about waking in great pain and not able to do anything.

But, then I spend time with God

the pain leaves, and I get up and run or clean or do yard work free of pain.

I am not saying that always happened but it is often enough; I need to take account, and get back to PUTTING GOD FIRST!

LORD HELP ME SUCCEED IN PUTTING YOU FIRST IN MY DAY!

IN CHRIST JESUS NAME I PRAY, AMEN.

God has been showing me things He has done for my good that are difficult circumstances.

Do you think some of the tough things in your life could actually be for your good?

This week God surprised me with the difficult memory that bad dreams are made of. Dad took us across the country to start a new life without Mom. Mom didn’t give up and got detectives to find us.

A year and 3000 miles later we were found. She wanted take us the same way he did. The detectives drove up and asked us to take a drive with them.  We hopped into the vehicle.

Mom was trying to take my little sister out of daycare, but they wouldn’t give my sister to her.  This was the God step. It kept us in  town to work things out.

My brother and I arrive behind my mom’s vehicle. She jumps out of her vehicle and comes to give me a hug. I haven’t seen her in a year and was last told that she didn’t love me so I am confused and upset.

The daycare people must have called the police or maybe Mom did so Dad wouldn’t take off with us again. The police come and we are put into the system and Dad goes to jail.

What God showed me this week was that He made it possible for us to go through the court system so Mom received custody. Dad cannot come and take us again legally.

The fact that my mom could find us was a miracle in the first place.

How many instances do you have in your life that you could to see differently?

God used my story to help a woman who’s husband left her with the kids, she let go of her bitterness and become thankful to have her children.

Do you have a story that God can use to help others? Be Brave and Step Out of Your Comfort Zone!

Waking the day after Christmas I looked in the mirror and the face I saw was of someone who has been through a hard fought battle. I am still here, alive.

I slept 24 hours through Christmas.

I hear so many preachers teach putting things away from your past using Paul’s comments about the garbage of works ( Philippians 3:7-8), or Jesus heals everything you are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Others say, “Stop thinking about it and get on with what is happening today.”

My mom lived this and she raised me saying,”Life happens, your alive so keep moving.” What she did in practice is stuff everything.

When I returned to college my sophomore year my suite mate told me, “If you don’t get counseling you will end up a wicked old witch.”

The next thing I did was find the counseling in student health. After 6 months of listening to a man on the far end of the room, I came away with 2 facts. I still loved my dad (Rich) and healing will come if I get mad instead of becoming depressed.

The realization that I Loved  Dad no matter what he did was hard to comprehend. But it didn’t take long for me to use the advice of using anger to expel the emotion instead of internalize it and get depressed with thoughts of what garbage I was.

Many times I have paid a counselor but most of the time it has been the Great Counselor, Holy Spirit who has taken me through the healing. This year I was taken aback. My body shut down for Christmas.

I went to bed with frustration. The oven unknowingly shut off it’s gas. This meant neither the roast nor my coffee cake could be cooked on Christmas. Who knew my coffee cake was my protection?  I have made it every year since I was 9 years old save the year with the flu.

Have you ever been surprised how important some item is or the meaning connected to a tradition?

The day after Christmas I text my neighbor about using her oven, and I was shocked to have tears flow. This helped me realize the importance of Christmas with my coffee cake. They go together.

In my ninth year in life the four of us my mom, brother, and sister and I were living in an apartment after moving out of our grandparents farm,(our place of healing).

Mom said, “We are not going to open gifts until we have eaten. Justine would you like to make a coffee cake?”

Was this the reason my body shut down or does it have something to do with what happened the next year?

My tenth Christmas we were in a house with a new father, (who needed to be loved). I woke up early to sit in front of the tree and the lights. I plugged in the tree and the next thing I heard was…

“HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU! What Do you Think you Are you Doing?”

Mom appeared, “What’s going on here?”

“She isn’t old enough to plug in the lights!”

“Justine since you are up why don’t you make the coffee cake you made last year? The others will be getting up soon.”

I’m sure my mom suggested that we children have our own tree in the basement to decorate the next year, they bought a fake tree for themselves.

This scene stuck in my head and popped up every once and a while. I might have even told someone but it never was connected to emotion.

Talking about something doesn’t heal you. Healing comes when it connects to your emotions.

A friend ask, “Why couldn’t God just go down and pull up the root of all your pain.”

What I know now is my pain is weaved into every fiber of my being and if God tried to heal it all at once it would kill me. It is God’s Grace to give me what I am able to handle at the appropriate time.

I am 60 Years old and I have had Great amounts of healing in many areas, but there might always be another area needing healing. But God, My Father of LOVE, knows when and how to bring the healing in the most LOVING WAY.

Today, my flesh arose. This strong desire to have it MY WAY!  I failed miserably in putting it down.

My husband wanted to watch a show with me, but he wanted to watch it live. I wanted to watch by DVR.  IT was evident that I pouted like a child when the commercials came on. I could feel it, this thing rising in my soul that has not been crucified with Jesus, yet.

IT is amazing how some small difference can grow into discord, pushing Peace from the room.

I did ask God for help, after the fact. Maybe if I had spent time with Him earlier I would have had self control.

Philippians 2:3 -4 do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of us regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for our own personal interests but also the interests of others.

Help me Holy Spirit be more like Jesus. Amen.

 I chose God over Satan when I was 8 years old and I was excited to get to KNOW HIM; in 5th grade I took communion for the first time and I was FILLED WITH JOY, but was immediately chastised for the joy I had.

“You are suppose to be serious not joyful!”

Life became much more difficult after that, I remember reading my Bible and finding this thing I was doing was  not good and God didn’t approve. I took note and tried to stop, (I needed Jesus to help, but I didn’t know I could ask). Around that time, I remember asking God if  it was ok to use His name in vain to blend in. He was silent.

The next God moment happened when I moved back to North Dakota for college and saw in others something I wanted and God was very Happy to accommodate this desire and He Filled me with His Joy and LOVE overflowing like I was dumped in a bucket of LOVE. My desire since then has been to tell everyone how wonderful God IS!

A few years later after being married and hearing things on the radio that helped me grow in God, the desire to Know Him as Enoch grew. I wanted to KNOW HIM and be taken up to be with God. It was probably around this point that I found Psalm 27:4 the one thing I ask from the LORD, that I may seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE TO BEHOLD THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD and to MEDITATE in HIS TEMPLE!”

This verse calls to my spirit and Fills me with Joy. It almost takes me to Heaven Filled up in Love!

Many years later I was in a class and we were talking about forgiveness . Writing a listing of who we needed to forgive, The teacher asked, “Why didn’t you put God down as someone who you need to forgive?”

I answered, “He is the only one who has never done me wrong!”

Around this time I had come to the place where I realized my mother and father treated me badly because they didn’t understand how sexual abuse changed me and changed my needs. They didn’t have it in them to give. So I needed to forgive them for what they could not give and this verse became real to me!

Psalm 27:10 “Father and Mother have forsaken me but The LORD will take me up.” God covers the broken parts and heals us as no one else!

When I was eight years old my mom gave me my first Bible and taught me the 23rd Psalm. I carried it with me for years!

About 20 years later I split my intestines  and ended up with a blood infection, I found it lacking. Returning home after the hospital stay, I searched the Psalms for something that could do what I need in times of trouble and It was just a few chapters away.

The first thing that caught my attention was verse 27:4;

“the one thing I ask from the LORD, that I may seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE TO BEHOLD THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD and to MEDITATE in HIS TEMPLE!”

Little did I know it would carry me through my whole life!

When Bart’s job was in trouble the first three verses helped:

“The LORD is my light and my salvation, Whom shall I fear?

The LORD is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread?

When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, My adversaries and my enemies they stumbled and fell!

Though a host encamp against me My heart will not fear; though war arise against me IN SPITE OF THIS I SHALL BE CONFIDENT!”

These verses where enough for probably twenty more years! They carried me through until God decided to give me 5 new vertebrae in the middle of a CT Scan. I was meditating on these verses when all of a sudden the pain quit and I asked God, “what’s up?”

I walked out of the hospital with no pain.

I will continue the story of the 27th Psalm later this week.

God Bless You and try meditating on this Psalm or find one that helps you!