Sunday, July 8, 2012

New Beginnings



Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. - Helen Keller

This quote touched me today. Boy, oh boy, have I had some experiences of trials and suffering in the last few years. Can my soul be strengthened? Can ambition be inspired? Can success be achieved? Time will tell.
It's been a year since I last blogged on here. Took a break from many things. I felt like I didn't want to share if I didn't have anything good going on. But I did have some good over the last year. I found a good job working with good people, I had a good relationship for awhile again, I took college classes and learned a lot. It was a busy year of trying to balance all of that with the kids. They've grown so much too. Chloe has blossomed into a pre-teen, going on 13 in a few months. She's become very responsible and her beauty radiates inside and out. Carson is slowly becoming a young man. Turning 9 tomorrow. Life at this age can be self-centered but he's trying hard to be more aware of himself and others needs. I can see it -- even if it comes and goes.
Myself, well, a foreclosure and a bankruptcy is a humbling experience. It was the trickle effect from the cancer and divorce 3 years ago. I did my best with the state I was in. I listened to advice that may not have been the best to listen to. I tried to sell the house and had a short sale offer but the second mortgage company held it all up and then ---poof--- every way I tried, my attorney who helped, my realtor who tried...it didn't stop the foreclosure from happening. With my faith, I have to see it as this is how God wanted it to go. Right now, I'm not sure where we are going to live but hopeful with some possibilities. It's the waiting that's hard.
Seems like I've been doing a lot of waiting on God lately. It's been a long season of waiting and unknown. I thought for sure some things were going to go differently but I've learned how He likes to throw me curveballs or pull the rug out from under me and make me depend solely on Him.
I'm not very fond of it personally and we have certainly had it out about it. I've even wavered in faith over everything. But I know what I know, I've seen what I've seen and there's no turning around for me...only forward. During a desperate time of prayer He led me here:
Philippians 3:12-16 Pressing on toward the goal
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear for you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained."
How the Holy Spirit translated this to me -- I don't know everything, nor can I predict any future that God has planned for me. But I have to keep pressing on and trusting that Jesus has my back. I might not be where I'm happiest at but for now it's ok. I need to forget all that has happened and keep moving forward even one baby step at a time. There is a prize in the end -- maybe not in this worldly end -- but a prize knowing that Jesus' arms are where I will go someday. Nothing else here should matter. Still working on accepting that part.
Thanks for reading.
Blessings to all,
Jennifer

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