Faith Without Works...

When I think about the journey that my life has taken, I know that if it had not been for God's grace in my life I would not be here today. I woke up today feeling really discouraged really lost and just hopeless.


I have been laid off from work for 2 months now, company cut backs and budget reform. It hurt to lose that job (which was an awesome job) but I didn't worry or get down. I packed up my desk and left, knowing that God was going to take care of it all. Now here it is 2 months later, hundreds of resumes later and I am still making it.


But this morning I lost sight of that. I forgot how much I have overcome by the grace of God. This morning I was down and out sad at the direction my life is going, or should I say the lack of direction my life is going. I feel like I have no real plan, no real goal I am striving for nothing that I am building towards, and for this I feel hopeless. I guess I feel like I should be doing more, doing something with this time that God has given me. I think about how busy I was when I was working my 9 to 5 everyday and how much I didn't get finished due to me having that full-time job. But now I have all the time and all the freedom to complete and do so much yet I haven't. My cousin told me that God is giving me this time to sort through things and to get myself prepared. I should be taking this time and reading, learning and trying to enhance myself and my resume. I haven't made a plan, I haven't barely had any job interviews. I am discouraged yet not defeated. My cousin, who is my counselor (spiritually and mentally at times,  Check out my Cousin's blog... she is a beautiful inspiration) definitely help me to bring things back into perspective today. She reminded me to pray and that Faith without works is dead. That was it... FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS DEAD. I had been feeling like I was doing so much but in all actuality I have been doing the bare minimum trying to get by and get a pass off of just that. Its not good enough! I am constantly reminding people around me that anything in life that you want you have to work for. It is mentioned in the Bible at James 2:17 & 26. I need to put in more work somewhere in my life, not quite sure where but somewhere. I need to stop BSing!!!


I don't know what God has in store for me but I plan to keep praying. My cousin gave me Mark 14:1-9 to read, briefly telling me "God says do what you can and He will do what you can't". Live, Laugh, Love!

Inspirations from Church

Today was a good day. I woke up and went to church and got a lot done. Today in church the sermon was about "The Stewardship of Time". I love the church I go to because the pastor really takes the time to break down the bible so that we can take the word and apply it to our lives. But the sermon basically was talking about how we make plans without including God. We started out first by discussing how to seek God prayerfully or through prayer. The Bible says ask and you shall receive. The story we were reading from was from James 4:13-17, and was about how these people had this perfect plan about going to a city and making a great profit. They understood who, what, when, where, and why, which are all very important factors in making a plan. However, they forgot to include God into those plans, my pastor called this pretentious planning, when you leave God out. He also told us about presumptuous planning, where we can't handle the events of today but we want to worry about tomorrow. Take care of today first, you must live in the now and the today and not tomorrow, for the Word says that tomorrow is not promised, that our lives are like a fog, here one minute and gone the next. The purpose of the sermon was really to get us to understand that life is too short to worry about tomorrow, not to say that planning is not good, but what good is it without God. My pastor gave us a few notes of advice saying that we should go to God first with our plans and ask him what his will is for ourselves. Secondly he said that we should write our plans out in pencil and not in ink so that God can erase anything that He does not want in our lives. He finally gave us the option of sitting down and evaluating how we spend our time. He told us that there are 3 things you can do with time: you can spend time, waste time, or invest time. The thing to consider seriously is how much time do you waste. You could be spending more time with God, rather than worrying about something that God will take care of in the end anyway. You could invest more time in your daily devotion to God, instead of investing time in watching TV. My pastor said that "if you know better than do better" meaning that if you know that you could do all of these things that you may not do, you should do them and not waste time.
The service was really good and it really touched on what is going on in my life right now. Dealing with my whole graduation issue is something that I have to just wait out and let God handle cause I have done all that I have in my power to do. My cousin told me at the end of church that if it be in God's will for me to graduate in May then I will and not to worry about it now. Also at the service today a women who gave her life to Christ today as a candidate for baptism gave us her testimony. Her story really touched me and I was emotional about it cause it was not just only sad and tragic but it was also a prophecy of what was just taught to us by our pastor that life is too short. Her and her fiance were in church one Sunday and he had rode his motorcycle to church ten minutes down the road on the highway he was in a fatal accident. The week that his funeral took place was the week that they were to be married. She got up there and she told us how she had just came straight from the airport to church to tell us about this man she had met and how she had left her phone in another city. The significance of this was that the man had given her reassurance that everything was going to be OK. In light of all of this, her flight had been extended and she had no way of contacting the person who was to pick her up from the airport. But something told her not to worry about it and that her friend was going to be there to get her, and when she arrived her friend was there, and she told her that she almost left but something told her to stay. And the women from church said that was the Holy Spirit. God knows what you need before you even have a need for it, he will take care of you before the storm even hits. It is so good to know that someone has my back, when I can't see it myself.

Just when you think that there is a light at the end of the tunnel a big boulder comes and blocks the way. On top of all the things that I am going through, I have just recently lost my job. My only source of income, no matter how little it was, I can no longer depend on it. I really just don't know what to do now. Like I have so much going on I have so much to pay for and the holiday's are coming up. Like I am just so disappointed and discouraged right now, but I know that the Lord will make a way. I just have to allow myself to fully give myself to him and let him take control. I needed a new job anyway so this was placed in my life as a test to show how or if I would allow myself to be submissive to Him and not worry about it and know that everything will be ok. Every trial in my life has been for a purpose and this one will serve that purpose. No more old me who always misses the test and never gets the point of going through all of the trials and tribulations of life. I will look at this situation positively and know that it will all be taken care of. The pastor of my church once said that the Lord already knows what you need he knew what you needed before you knew that there was a need for it, and that he has already put into effect the thing that you need in your life. I know that the Lord has already planned this for me and is allowing me to go through this to show me something, I am not quite sure what that is but I am pretty sure that I will know soon enough. The Lord knows what I need and he will take care of it for me. So now that I am once again unemployed I will rejoice to the Lord and pray for my situation. I will not worry or cry about it cause it will do nothing but cause me stress, and I have already proven that stress is no good it will diminish your health and make you physically ill. I will make it through the storm with the grace that God has given me. Like they always say it will get worse before it gets better, and I will continue to pray for the strength to make it through the rain.

The Beginning ... My Reconstruction

I have never blogged before and it was suggested to me as a means of getting my emotions out and keeping my mind busy. I have been going through a lot lately and I am now currently in the process of getting better and making everything OK. So let me start with the fact that I am trying to gain control of my emotions and making myself happy.
I thought I was happy, I had a great relationship with a man who I love so much. He didn't know how to help me so he is giving me the time to help myself so that we can move forward in our relationship. It is so hard to admit you have a problem and now that I have, I need to figure out what to do. I have been doing a lot of reading and a lot of analyzing of my situation. I have done some reading up on anger management and self esteem, cause they are my major problems right now. I have been doing a daily regimen of reading my bible and exercise to get myself out of this funk that I am in. It seems to be working some what.
I have always believed that things in life happen for a reason and that God has a purpose for things happening to you. First let me say that I am not any holier than anyone else. I have a strong belief in God and yes I do slip up I do fall back, but so does everyone else.I believe that my current situation is being based on the fact that I ignored the Holy Spirit that was speaking to me Thursday night, telling me to stay home and not go out. I had a strong feeling, like someone was whispering to me in the back of my mind, but I just ignored it. My cousin told me that, it was the Holy Spirit that I was feeling. But I chose to ignore it and the Lord was testing me to see what I would do. I FAILED, clearly cause all of the things that transpired from that one choice made is the reason that I am no longer in the great relationship. My cousin told me that the Lord wanted me to hear what he was trying to tell me He was trying to show the right path and I ignored his direction and because of that he had to take something away from me. I understand it all a little too much now, but it's better late than never, right.
I am unhappy with who I am, and how people view me. Nobody ever has anything good to say about me, it is always something negative. I don't know, I am a likable person but I just have certain things in my personality that I guess people can't just get with. I always have been so misunderstood by everyone around me and I can truly say that there are only like three people in the whole world who really know me and how I am. I am a handful, a live wire, a feisty individual with a whole lot of attitude, but I know that I have something good about me. I guess that lately I have not been able to identify what that "good" thing is. I have literally made myself physically ill with constant headaches, nausea, colds, and flu with all the constant stress and worry I have put in my life.
But now I am on a new path, a path to make myself better and love myself no matter what. I will continue to use my blog to express my self and get out what I need to. Not just that but I will use it to keep my mind busy while I go through this whole process of reconstruction. I need to take this time to really spend with myself, by myself. Being alone is no fun and leaves room for idleness, and "an idle mind is the devil's playground" and I have no time for the devil to bring me down anymore!