When everything looks hopeless.

When I decided on this title I thought of how many other things I have read over the years with this same first line. Hundreds, probably thousands. Because I was attracted to anything that might lead me to an answer for my own hopelessness.

I read these articles like a starving person. Would this be the one that finally caused me to believe in life again? Would I find that keyword or phrase or five or ten-step plan to follow to lift my life out of the daily despair I fought with all my might?

Sometimes it worked for a little while but then it was like trying to walk in someone else’s shoes. I had two problems, the hopelessness I started with, and now I failed yet again to be able to do what the author had obviously been able to accomplish in their life. So much so that they felt led to write about it for others to read.

So I have to ask myself, do I have anything different to offer someone who might stumble upon this page who went searching as I did for a solution that would lift them permanently out of the pit of hopelessness?

I don’t know if what I’ll write here under that popular title will be what you came looking for. That’s my most honest answer. I never did find a solution. Believe me when I say that I earnestly searched for one. It would have been so much easier if someone could have just handed me a set of steps to take. I’d have done it in a heartbeat.

I remember reading some of those articles with tears running down my face. I repeated aloud many times, “How! How do these people do this?!”  I thought I had carefully noted every bit of advice they gave and rose up just knowing that this time I was going to be victorious—until the next time.

If my title led you here, as it often did me in search of that—fix—I’m so sorry if my title has given you false hope. But I can offer you something else. It might not be the answer you are looking for. It wasn’t for me either when God led me to befriend a woman who wanted me to do her hair as my last customer on a Friday night.

I almost said, no. It meant having to wait for her to arrive around 5:30 and then not finishing up my day until probably 7 o'clock or so. I had a young son that needed to be picked up by 5 o'clock or I would be charged more. So my thoughts were, would what I made by staying to do this woman’s hair offset the extra babysitting cost? If not, then why do it?

At that time I had no idea what made me say yes, come on, I’ll wait on you. Today, I know exactly not what but Who moved me to agree to stay late.

That night a friendship began and after watching her life for about a year, I found the answer to my hopelessness. And because I try very hard to be honest with any reader, I’ll tell you what she said to me when I asked her why she was so  happy all the time. She proceeded to say, “Because I have a hotline to heaven.”

My very first thought was, and again I make no apology for my honesty because you might have the same thought after you read my response. I said, “Oh, please don’t tell me that it’s religion.”

She said, “No, not religion.”

I said, “Then, what? What are you talking about?”

She said, “I have, Jesus.”

I wish you could have heard the groan that came out of me when I heard her final response. I went home that night to have my own debate. I did this because at that time I had no idea about the Trinity of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All I knew was there was a God somewhere. I did give myself credit for not being totally ignorant.

With respect to your time and length of this posting, I’ll try to be brief. I spent the next week going back to her over and over again, sometimes in a heated confrontation, demanding she tell me something different as to why she was so happy all the time and I was a miserable mess. Her, Jesus, was all she kept offering me. She gave me a brief description of what I needed to do to be saved and that ended our conversation.

I wrestled with this for several days until one night I sat upright in my bed and yelled out, “Ok! Ok! God, if you are real and you are the one who has been bringing all this to a head, I can’t take it anymore!”

I had been under such conviction that even to this day I have never forgotten what I felt like that night. I had absolutely no idea exactly who God was, what He was about to do, or even if what I said would be the right words. The first thing that came out of my mouth was, “God, if I give you my life I have two requests. I have to know that the buck stops with you; that no one will ever be able to change your mind about me. That I can trust you and that you will never leave me.”

I didn’t really know that night just how Biblical my first prayer was. My heart was crying out for someone I could trust who would always have the final say about me and that they would never leave me or as I later learned—never forsake me. Even right now, my heart swells remembering how utterly forsaken I felt that night. I voiced my confession of needing Jesus to forgive me and accepted his death in my place. 

I don’t want to put words in your mouth, dear reader. And I don’t want to give you false hope. If all I can offer you is some process I took, then that isn’t going to help you. So I’ll give you what did help me.

The surrendering of my life to a God I couldn’t see, didn’t even know at the time if He was listening or would do what my friend said that He did for her. But, seconds after I uttered my first prayer to God, my eyes were opened. I understood for myself at that moment what my friend had been telling me was true.

Something wonderfully, explicitly, and unexplainable happened that night. It was as if my whole life lifted off me and I was born all over again. Yes, the term born again is actually what happens.

In closing, I went to my friend’s house the next night and asked her, “What does it feel like to become a Christian? I’m not sure, but I think I became a Christian last night.” Needless to say, tears filled her eyes, and she welcomed me into the family.

Well, dear reader, here it is almost Easter again. The world will display its bright baskets, chocolate rabbits, and colored eggs, and the Bunny will take center stage. We see it every year. You can accept this as the reason for Easter, load up on all the leftover candy sales, and go another year still hunting for the solution to your feeling of hopelessness—or maybe stop and ask the same questions I did.

If one word you read here has set something off in you that will make you so uncomfortable until you face the fact that it is God knocking on your heart asking to come in, then I have done my job.

Dear, dear, reader, I pray that you don’t go another second in your hopelessness. So I’ll offer you the only solution that I know. The same one that has been offered to the world since the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Perhaps at some other time in your life, you have heard these verses, and I’ll remind you of them again.

John 3: 16-18 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

This is Easter.

This is the answer; When everything looks hopeless.

I bless you.

 

 

 

 

Who would do such a thing to a child?

Matthew 19: 14 But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and don’t prevent them. For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Once there was a man who always wanted a racehorse. One day, quite out of chance he was given one. But it didn’t look like the one he had wanted. He was now forced to feed and take care of this less-than-desirable horse. For some reason, the horse loved the man. So it trotted around trying to get the man’s attention. Day after day this horse, tried to run as fast as it could to please the man.

Once in a while, the man stood at the fence watching the horse run with all its heart, but when the horse came over to where the man stood, the man criticized the horse. You need to bend your knees higher. You're not stretching your legs out far enough. Over and over the man only told the horse what it wasn’t doing right. No matter how much the horse tried, it was never enough. Years went by and after a while, the horse finally lost all desire to please the man and ran away; never to see the man again.

But the man had damaged the horse's ability to believe in himself so much that all through the rest of the horse's life he felt that any time he tried to run fast, he’d fail.

One day, as the horse was plodding along in life, another man saw him and stopped to look at the horse. This man knew that the horse was meant to be a racehorse. So this man bought the horse and took it home to care for it.

Every day, he encouraged the horse to do his best. He gave the horse short distances to run at first until the horse could begin to see that it still could run. Finally, the horse began to run longer and faster. The horse made enough progress to once again see himself as a beautiful racehorse. But there was still something in the horse that it never could quite get over; being made to feel like a failure by the first man.

The thing that’s hard to understand is this, why would this man do everything he could to discourage his own racehorse? You’d think that he would have done the opposite. But no, instead of encouraging the horse, praising the horse’s efforts, and showing the horse that he was loved regardless if he ran fast; the man heaped discouragement upon his horse.

This story isn’t about a horse; it's about children.

Why for the love of God would any parent constantly criticize everything their child does? To what advantage does that help? If anything, it destroys any hope that child has. And the worst yet is that child lives their life feeling that no matter what they do it will never be enough. It’s an uphill climb for any person who has been made to feel that everything they do isn’t good enough but it’s especially damaging for a child.

I believe that children come into this world with childlike hope. Most parents clap and cheer when their child takes its first steps as though their child just invented walking.

It’s supposed to be natural for parents to cheer on the accomplishments of their children. Especially, a child who isn’t as bright, strong, or as talented as other children. But to purposely break the spirit in a child who is trying their best is cruel.

I know that there are no perfect parents. I dare to say that even the best of parents would admit to not doing everything right.

I always had to ask myself how different I would have been had I had a nurturing encouraging father instead of like the first man in this story.

But I was bought by another Man; Jesus Christ. And HE loved me back to wholeness. I’m not that damaged child who tried her best every day to please an earthly father who said over and over, “What you do isn’t good enough.”

So maybe you’ve read this far wondering why I’d be writing this. Yes, I thank my Heavenly Father for all the love and changes he has made in me. So many times he has reminded me that He knit me in my mother’s womb and saw me before any eyes saw me. He also knew who my father would be and how he would damage my life.

These are some of the questions I’ve asked God and still don’t know the answers. But I do know this, no matter where God sends us into this world, or how he sends us, He never loses sight of us. He has his reasons.

I quit trying to spend my life trying to understand why I was given to such a destructive father. Instead, I realized that I was doing the same thing to God that my father did to me. Was I telling God that HE wasn’t enough? That He couldn’t fix the damage in me? That no matter what Jesus did on Calvary I would never be emotionally healed?

Dear reader, if you are still reading and there has been something going off inside of you that you feel that you will never be able to overcome; let me encourage you that you can.

It might not happen overnight. You might have days when it will take everything inside of you to fight that voice in your head or the pain in your heart. But when we have the Holy Spirit living within us that was sent to comfort, encourage, teach, and abide with us forever, hope can and will be restored.

The Word says that children are a gift from God. Not every person who becomes a parent sees it that way. I pray that you or someone you know isn’t doing everything they can to destroy a child’s hope.

The Word also says in Matthew 18:6 But if any of you causes one of these little ones who trusts in me to lose his faith, (hope) it would be better for you to have a rock tied to your neck and be thrown into the sea.

I’m an adult but I’m still one of God’s little ones.

I pray that if you don’t know the Lord you will ask for forgiveness, believe in the Name of Jesus, and ask Him into your life today. Your life will begin to change in ways that you could never imagine and if you have little ones depending on you to shape their lives you should thank God for entrusting them to you and lean on God to show you have to show them how to see the racehorse in themselves.

May God forgive anyone harming their own child today or anyone’s child.

I bless you.

 

 

 

 

 

No Ghost here…

Maybe I should have a ghost do my writing. I struggle with being consistent here on this lonely little page of mine. It calls to me to come post something, but I tend to ignore the pleading that an inanimate object can create. (a page is an inanimate object. Isn’t it?)

When the struggle isn’t getting the best of me I come here to see if perchance some internet surfer lost their way and landed on the shore of my page. Often as not, there are no traceable footprints in the sand. Sigh*

But today my motivation was seeing Oprah's book club choice. I don’t really follow her choices. In fact, I’ll admit that I’ve never read one of her choices. So it’s lost on me. But what did get my attention was the term—ghost writer.

My inner bedraggled writer who spends hours at her keyboard while her first cup of coffee goes stone cold, and her back aches wants to protest. So I will. It’s my prerogative.

I’ll admit first that I can be very believing of people. I think too naive if the truth is told. And that’s another point in my rant - Honesty in the book writing world. Sure, I guess I could have a better chance at a #1 Best Seller if I had an English major with credentials a mile long helping me write with a creative literary mind for which I would take the credit. But alas, it’s only me.

But as it’s said by anyone who really stands behind their efforts, if I win—I did it. If I lose—I did it. I’m a one woman writer. I start the book; I spend waking hours and sometimes have to get up at night to peck out a thought so as not to lose it. I format, edit, and edit and edit… and even then I don’t get it all right. But the book is solely mine.

They become like my children. I almost don’t want to fledge them into the world where they are rejected or not even picked to have a page or two of them read. If they even became like the last kid to be picked in a gym class would be something. It doesn’t hurt my ego; it hurts my dedicated writer’s heart.

It takes a lot out of a person to sit and write books. You get lost in the character’s lives. People that you created for whatever reason end up one day saying goodbye when the book is finished. I actually have felt lonely for some of the characters I spent hours with.

I might as well go ahead and get this rant over with. In today’s messed up society I think my stories are a breath of fresh air. They are GOOD stories. They have good outcomes. I play fair with my potential readers. I try to create books that people can relate to and come away with being entertained  by a memorable character or at least didn’t spend their time and money on trashy verbiage.

Okay, I’m done. I’ve had my say. I’m going to go back and work on my next book just because I can’t NOT write. How’s that for good English!

Just in case, if by Divine guidance you stumbled upon this page and found an honest one woman self-published, self-written dedicated author of great unread books, here are a few titles you might want to go investigate.

Tangled Lives

The Others

The Making of Dexter Bridgestoke’s Bequeath

A Stone’s throw away from Christmas

God declares, Tell them I AM: Too deep a Gethsemane

Guilty Innocence

Whales in the Pond

A Clap of Thunder

Eternity’s Portal

January Sky

These are two of my personal stories about my life.

Bullied from the Womb

Walking through the Valley of Mud

If you should read any of my books and leave a review—good or bad—I’ll be extremely grateful.

I’m done with my ranting now.

God Bless

 

 https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B0082D161E

 

 

 

 

 

   Books Books Books!

Here is the link to all my books on Amazon. 

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B0082D161E

I hope that you will take a shopping trip there. My books are good reading. They are faith-based and have believable characters. There's a variety of stories. Bullied from the Womb is my life story.

A Stone's throw away from Christmas is a delightful story of colorful female characters who end up having to learn a great deal about themselves and others. It was around Christmas which opened their hearts, even more, to see what gifts they had to give one another. 

God Declares, "Tell them I AM." this came out of one single question I asked the Lord one day. I wanted to know what He was thinking as he walked through His time here on earth.

Guilty Innocence was written for my dear mother who loved a good mystery.

January Sky was my very first book. It came from a picture of two polar bears on a calendar. 

Tangled Lives is a love story about two people that found each other twice. Their love never died for one another and the unexpected reunion will keep you wanting to read more. 

The Others finds a woman sitting in a late-night diner about to walk into a lifestyle she never could have imagined. And yet that is exactly what she ends up doing. She imagines a life for herself that comes to pass. 

Whales in the Pond will take you on a journey back from regret and unforgiveness. 

A Clap of Thunder starts with a woman wandering around a store one night unable to find her way in life until another shopper takes her home and begins to help put the pieces of her life back together. 

Eternity's Portal will take you to a place where you will have to decide if it's real or not. 

I should have been addicted…

I never used drugs or drank. I often think about what kept me from going down that path that so many take to stop their pain. I certainly had all the emotional qualifications to become an addict. I don’t believe that anyone wakes up one day and says, “You know what I think I’ll do with my life? I think I’ll get addicted to drugs, lose all my friends and family, break hearts—including my own—lose my health, break laws, get arrested and possibly one day be found in an ally dying from an overdose.”

Where does it start? Usually, something triggers the need to soothe a hurt. An emotional pain or even physical pain needs to STOP. The problem with dealing with any pain or hurt in that way brings on a deadly probem that soon wraps its tentacles around a person’s life and they end up with a hurt that owns them—helpless to the point of death.

Like me, you might say but I never went that far but I still reached for something to stop the pain.

Sometimes a person is bored and just looking for a ‘fun time’ the night or day, it begins. It’s like going to a carnival that promises a rush beyond normal life, excitement full of lights and cotton candy. Nothing destructive or painful sends them off on this path. They would say that it wasn’t some deep emotional scar they wanted to get free of that brought them down to the place they find themselves. Whether triggered by a curious or sad longing that sends us seeking the quick fix both can take us to a place we wish we'd never gone.

If we live long enough we all have something come into our lives that could open us up to one or the other reason to look for something outside of ourselves for momentary comfort. So many different things drive us.

Is there any other choice? Is there anything that can stop the hurt, help me with things I can’t do and even offer me more contentment than I’m experiencing?

YES

But you probably don’t want to hear what it is. Neither did I. I’m glad, though, that the Lord kept me long enough to listen to what He had to say in the beginning of my walk with Him. If you will allow me a little of your time I have something I think you might find interesting and hopefully, useful.

I knew nothing. All I knew was that there was a GOD. I knew nothing of Jesus or the Holy Spirit. In a way, I was fortunate because I had no religious doctrine that the Lord had to undo. I started with a blank page.

Oh, my, there were so many things I didn’t know back then. I had so much to learn. I started reading a Living Bible that one of my customers gave me as a gift. She had no reason to do this. She just brought it to me one day and said that she thought I would like it seeing that I had just become a Christian. That moment was one of the most valuable pieces of knowing God I’d ever have handed to me. Not just that Bible itself, but how He would begin giving me exactly what’s needed through so many sources that I would never dream possible. She was the first of many the Lord would use in my life.

You want to know what hit me in an even greater way that day? God was talking to someone about ME! He spoke MY name to this woman and impressed on her to buy me that Bible.

Amazing….

I devoured that book! I still have it and it’s tattered and torn. I read it as if my life depended on it and—it did. I read the Word like a starving person. Soon I’d read so much that I was stuffed!

I’d read how the Lord taught in parables and I guess even back then with my creative writing mind I could see, taste and feel in those parables what the people were going through.

Then something happened.

The first time I realized that I had come into the world with something that was all mine and no one had told me about for the first 22 years of being alive was when the Lord told me about my—God Given Square.

This is how I started to learn, by the Lord giving me my very own personal parable. Let me share some of my early walk with you.

My God-Given Square, parable

A man knocks on my door one day and he says that he has the deed to a piece of property that belongs to me. I’ve never known about this property or who would have given it to me. But he’s persistent so I agree to go look at it. We pull up to this property and get out to take a look. While he fumbles in his briefcase for the deed, I’m left staring at this large piece of property—puzzled.

It's covered with piles of black garbage bags, rusting discarded items, littered trash, piles of fallen limbs, and some things I can’t recognize for the flies buzzing around them.

Finding the deed, he smiles, hands it to me, wishes me good luck and disappears. I’m now left alone standing by this property, my mouth hanging open and at a total loss. Who gave me this property and who did all this? Furthermore, what in the world am I going to do with it now?

I spent a few days seeing this plot of land in my mind and wondering why.

Quietly, one day the Lord stood beside me surveying this property with his hands clasped behind his back—smiling.

I thought, “What is he smiling about?”

I certainly didn’t see anything to smile about—so of course, I had to ask.

“Lord, what is all this? I thought I’d been given something good. This is a mess.”

“It's beautiful.”

My second piece of learning was that the Lord always backed up what He said to me with the Word. Unbeknownst to me, while I was devouring the Bible that I’d been given, all that Word was being laid up for me so the Holy Spirit could bring it back to my remembrance as needed. Some I didn’t even remember reading but it had been deposited IN me while I read.

Isaiah 61:3

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

I was dumbstruck. Hearing the Word with so much promise while staring at a mess that somehow represented my life was incomprehensible. There was no way those Words were being spoken about THIS property.

Little did I know right then that it would become true.

Within all those bags were Beauty, Joy, Praise, and

Righteousness prepared for me so that MY life might give God Glory!

To be continued.