Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Preppers or Homesteading
I sometimes feel like God leads me to develop an interest in things for a reason.
Years ago I use to refuse to go camping and then in 2011 my friend Misty encouraged me to go on a camping trip. Since then I have been hooked. I have come leaps and bounds from the first camping trip. I am now engaged, soon to be married in 18 days, and my fiance and I have camped together on several trips and will also be camping on our honeymoon.
We have found many tips and tricks we have tried to enhance our camping experiences. Most of the ideas I have found have been on pinterest.
While surfing pinterest I have ran across other things created or pinned by "preppers" and "homesteaders". I'm not a believer in the zombie Apocalypse, but I have to say some of their tricks, tips and techniques do interest me. I've always been sort of a "susie homemaker" anyway by cooking and baking "from scratch", sewing, quilting, crafting and etc. My low budget has kind of enforced that type of quality in me. You know that saying, "necessity is the mother of invention".
So seeing these pins are peaking my interest. It's touching every aspect of my "susie homemaker" side. I wanna know how to open a can without a can opener, how to cure a ham, how to grown a garden and not lawn, how to make a solar oven, how to cook on a rocket stove in a dutch oven. My interest in these things may be promptings from the Lord because I will need this knowledge for the future, out of necessity. Necessity for a national disaster? Necessity for Storm Preparations. I don't know what the leading is about, but while I can I plan to learn as much as possible.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Though I walked....
One morning in December of 2012 I was in the lab at work cleaning the dirty instruments and a verse popped into my mind. It's one of my favorites. I felt as if the Lord placed it on my heart for a reason, but the reason I thought was to comfort my sister-in-law who was the receptionist in the same office.
Within the week of my termination, my previous employer Laura contacted me via Facebook and asked if I was interested in working one day a week. I was ecstatic! I loved that job and had always regretted leaving. Yea, so originally it started out being one day a week, but quickly turned into 3, but only temporarily until April. I was determined to stick it out and have faith that the temporary would become permanent. Sure enough it has!
And might I add, not once did I have to borrow money from family or friends, and my car was paid off a few weeks ago.
What looked like a destitute situation, God turned around for good. What was meant for evil, God turned around for my blessings.
You see our employer was, well to put it mildly, crazy! It was always an eggshell walk with her, you never knew what mood she would be in, only thing you could count on was how many times her moods would shift. With that said she and my sister-in-law had come face to face on several occasions about different issues. Basically my sister-in-law would defend herself. On this particular day we knew she was going to meet with her 3 employees face to face and because of her history of trying to tear down my sister-in-law we all thought for sure Rachel would get fired. So when the verse came to me I ran to tell Rachel and hopefully it would comfort her before her meeting.
As the day went on the time came for our meetings. Rachel came out of the meeting, emotional but her job still intact. I was surprised, now it was my turn. I had no idea before going in what would happen, other than I was not going to allow her to continue to lie and try to manipulate the situation. Before I continue with what transpired, let me remind you that I, was at the time, a single income mom with two children and a car payment on top of the usual bills. Oh and did I mention it was two weeks before Christmas! I go in sit down and of course. I'm the type of person to stand my ground and having dealt with emotional roller coaster type people I could tell where this meeting was going to end up, with me getting fired. Now what was so amazing through all of this is that even knowing my financial situation I wasn't scared, I knew I had to stand on what was right. I knew God would provide. I was actually calm, I think I was more calm than my sister-in-law was when she heard the news. Granted I did have a little "freak out" session when the shock wore off, but I'm telling you God was with me in that meeting comforting me. Encouraging me it was going to be ok.
Oh and for the verse that was placed in my mind that morning...
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Pslam 23"
Within the week of my termination, my previous employer Laura contacted me via Facebook and asked if I was interested in working one day a week. I was ecstatic! I loved that job and had always regretted leaving. Yea, so originally it started out being one day a week, but quickly turned into 3, but only temporarily until April. I was determined to stick it out and have faith that the temporary would become permanent. Sure enough it has!
And might I add, not once did I have to borrow money from family or friends, and my car was paid off a few weeks ago.
What looked like a destitute situation, God turned around for good. What was meant for evil, God turned around for my blessings.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
I'm no Job; but blessings I have received
Coming up this weekend is the 2 year marker of my divorce. It's also another much more important marker to one of the biggest blessings I've received; the 1 year anniversary to my one and only true love.
So last night as I reflecting upon this during my prayers, I felt the Lord place on my heart to write this blog. It was almost 12 am and of course I argued to get out of bed since I had to work this morning. I couldn't fall asleep until after 1 am, guess I should have listened to his prompting. I probably could have gotten 45 mins more of sleep if I had.
So let me go back to 2010.
After 14 years in a miserable, emotionally and mentally abusive marriage. I had reached my breaking point and was DONE. I had given him opportunity during the last few months I was in the same home to redeem himself and show change, he did, but instead of towards the positive it only worsened then with the threat of physical abuse. Needless to say since it was escalating I escaped and filed a FPO for my safety This started the long and painful divorce process.
The divorce process was probably more painful than most because during the process my integrity as a mother was slandered and my small business was built up to be something it wasn't to benefit him as if I had more valuables than he did. The lies that were told were unbelievable. I knew him to be a liar, but as badly and to the extreme as he was doing it just totally baffled me. I knew his motive for doing these things were to gain full or partial custody, but not because he was this loving father it was based on the fact that he didn't want to pay child support. I could go on for an eternity with all the wrongs he had done against me and basically, it seemed, he got away with all of these wrongs because he had spent more money on an attorney than I had. I pretty much was in the battle for myself. I was trying to stand in faith that vengeance was the Lords; on my behalf. I was expecting immediate vindication. In the end of the divorce I was striped of almost everything. Let's put it this way I walked away from that marriage with less belongings than I did when I entered the marriage. And to top it off, he got more than visitation he was granted joint custody. So while going through this process I compared myself to Job, but like I said before I was expecting immediate vindication so when that didn't happen I started to become bitter towards God. The icing on the cake were my "fellow brothers and sisters in Christ" turning their noses up and judging me for the divorce. I basically turned my back on God because I was mad and thought he had forsaken me.
I won't go into all the details of my seeking forgiveness from Him and myself for my actions but I will say this.
Even though I thought He had turned his back on me he hadn't. And even though I had lost all my worldy possessions he blessed me with more and better than I had before. The support of friends and family was priceless. In the midst of my trials I learned how to stand on my own two feet supporting my children and even had the blessing of taking them on a vacation to Myrtle Beach. Something as a single mom I wasn't sure I'd get the opportunity to do.
Now fast forward to 2012. I was reunited with my one and only true love from 20 years prior and for all those years we never had any contact, I wasn't even sure he lived in the same state anymore. Like me he had went through and ugly divorce. Both he and I had carried feelings for one another over the years that time did not diminish. So with that we have been a couple since and we are planning to get married this April.
So even though I was being put through the fire and I turned my back for a minute, God was still faithful, merciful and loved and blessed me.
He blessed me with support of family and friends and reunited me with my true love. And that is PRICELESS.
And as far as vindication I see that too. It didn't happen instant, but it's happening and still is.
So last night as I reflecting upon this during my prayers, I felt the Lord place on my heart to write this blog. It was almost 12 am and of course I argued to get out of bed since I had to work this morning. I couldn't fall asleep until after 1 am, guess I should have listened to his prompting. I probably could have gotten 45 mins more of sleep if I had.
So let me go back to 2010.
After 14 years in a miserable, emotionally and mentally abusive marriage. I had reached my breaking point and was DONE. I had given him opportunity during the last few months I was in the same home to redeem himself and show change, he did, but instead of towards the positive it only worsened then with the threat of physical abuse. Needless to say since it was escalating I escaped and filed a FPO for my safety This started the long and painful divorce process.
The divorce process was probably more painful than most because during the process my integrity as a mother was slandered and my small business was built up to be something it wasn't to benefit him as if I had more valuables than he did. The lies that were told were unbelievable. I knew him to be a liar, but as badly and to the extreme as he was doing it just totally baffled me. I knew his motive for doing these things were to gain full or partial custody, but not because he was this loving father it was based on the fact that he didn't want to pay child support. I could go on for an eternity with all the wrongs he had done against me and basically, it seemed, he got away with all of these wrongs because he had spent more money on an attorney than I had. I pretty much was in the battle for myself. I was trying to stand in faith that vengeance was the Lords; on my behalf. I was expecting immediate vindication. In the end of the divorce I was striped of almost everything. Let's put it this way I walked away from that marriage with less belongings than I did when I entered the marriage. And to top it off, he got more than visitation he was granted joint custody. So while going through this process I compared myself to Job, but like I said before I was expecting immediate vindication so when that didn't happen I started to become bitter towards God. The icing on the cake were my "fellow brothers and sisters in Christ" turning their noses up and judging me for the divorce. I basically turned my back on God because I was mad and thought he had forsaken me.
I won't go into all the details of my seeking forgiveness from Him and myself for my actions but I will say this.
Even though I thought He had turned his back on me he hadn't. And even though I had lost all my worldy possessions he blessed me with more and better than I had before. The support of friends and family was priceless. In the midst of my trials I learned how to stand on my own two feet supporting my children and even had the blessing of taking them on a vacation to Myrtle Beach. Something as a single mom I wasn't sure I'd get the opportunity to do.
Now fast forward to 2012. I was reunited with my one and only true love from 20 years prior and for all those years we never had any contact, I wasn't even sure he lived in the same state anymore. Like me he had went through and ugly divorce. Both he and I had carried feelings for one another over the years that time did not diminish. So with that we have been a couple since and we are planning to get married this April.
So even though I was being put through the fire and I turned my back for a minute, God was still faithful, merciful and loved and blessed me.
He blessed me with support of family and friends and reunited me with my true love. And that is PRICELESS.
And as far as vindication I see that too. It didn't happen instant, but it's happening and still is.
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