The Journey

Photo by Priscila Du Preez Over the summer, I began the tedious process of reviewing blogs I had previously written and putting them into a personal collection. As I read, I was delighted in the transformation of my writing over the years. It was a hot mess in the beginning to say the least. Oh, my goodness the grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors were enough to make me blush! Yet, God blessed anyway! Some of the blogs encouraged and  ministered to  me from the pulpit of past experiences and deliverances. Other blogs quite frankly embarrassed me. I removed them because the arrogance of my faith was a stench even to me.  Since beginning this project, I have been thinking a lot about the personality of Jesus. God in the flesh walking amongst His creation who undoubtedly told Him things He already knew or knew to be false. Imagine communing with that one "friend" that you knew would ultimately betray you. Yet, He was a teacher walking in oneness with God Almighty le...

"Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed because His compassions fail not.  They are new every morning; Great is your faithfulness."  Lamentations 3:22-23     New year. New perspectives, right? Many of us spend time in self-reflection and muster determination to do things differently in the new year. A fresh start.   Full disclosure. I began this year in penitence because I have worn the heavy cloak of conviction for several weeks. During the mundane task of taking the pup out for his morning stroll, the Lord dropped a question in my spirit. "Do you believe I am God?" Obviously, I responded readily with prayers of affirmation and praise for Him as the God of my salvation! Then, this. "So why aren't you living as though you believe?"  Ouch! "I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless." Genesis 17:1 Have you ever thought about who God truly is? Do we know who it is we worship? Do we imagine an invisible, mystical ...

I hate cancer. Like a thief in the night, the emaciating disease invades the body and steals life. There is no respecter of person, body type, or age and the cancerous tentacles are far more reaching than the person it kills. Cancer destroys homes, crushes relationships, dashes dreams, and shakes rock-solid faith. Cancer proliferates, devastates, and destroys in a cruel, uncontrolled, meaningless way. This past year, cancer invaded my life. Not my body, but my life. Someone so dear to me died in his forties. Once the diagnosis came, everything stopped. Then, he was gone. So many faith-filled people prayed, begged, fasted, and jumped through all the hoops we think God wants us to so we can have our prayers answered. There were so many questions as to why God did not answer, but God did answer. The answer was no. "A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted."  -Ecclesiastes 3:2  We know by scripture that there is a time f...

If you had to choose one word to describe yourself, what would it be? Only a few months ago, my word would have been gray. The same word used to describe ashes or overcast skies. I woke up with the new year realizing I had taken up residence in a perpetual state of nothingness. Merely existing. Barely walking, barely talking, barely breathing, no identity. I was melting into the gray walls of life.  Going through the motions, but dying from the inside out. Two failed marriages and a brief, yet destructive relationship later, my prayer was to not become entangled in another relationship, romantic or otherwise, that was not a divine connection. I prayed,  do not let anyone cross my path lest you send them.  For years, it seemed as though that prayer had been answered until I found myself at the end of another it-wasn't-what-it-seemed and how-could-I-be-so-blind misadventure. The shiny apple with a rotten core. This time instead of shouldering all ...

Photo by Kristopher Roller Over the past several years, I have had a series of circumstances that kept me in a seemingly never-ending funnel of turmoil.  Divorce, illness, long seasons of mediocre jobs, and unemployment and single parenting came together in a whirlwind of chaos and destruction. My days have been filled with putting out fires, but never gaining any real ground. My daily mantra has been,  If I can get through one more day, take one more step, pay one more payment, work one more hour, we will be okay.  Survival mode. Over the past few months, I have had an idea formulating in my spirit that will quite possibly set my little family on the path from a place of merely surviving to a thriving existence. Early one morning, I was mentally rehearsing the bullet points of my plan and prayerfully explaining why these changes will work, why they are necessary, and why they need to happen now when a little nugget was dropped into my spirit. The church has been ...

Photo by Kent Pilcher Over the past few months, I have been battling my way through some of those "fiery trials" the Bible speaks of...the past 6 years, really, but there have been seasons of reprieve. Lately, the battle has been to test my faith. Things I never wanted to happen, did happen. Things I prayed would never be an issue, were suddenly an issue. Things I thought I had surely overcome by now were rearing their ugly heads, and things I never knew were in my heart spewed out of my mouth! God, where are You? In a world fraught with lies and dishonesty, a man's word has lost its value. A handshake is merely a means to solidify a deception. We have become a nation that has to see to believe. Show me; only then will I believe you. Unfortunately, our reliance on God has been tainted by our inability to trust mankind. We compare Him to a once godly society that has gone awry. In John 20:29, Jesus told Thomas (aka doubting Thomas), "...because you have seen me, yo...