Are you amazed by God?

For the first time in six and a half years I finally have "free time".  No more evenings and weekends consisting of homework, papers, projects, or studying for tests.  Finally, I have time to rest................."But wait, there's work to be done" said God.  Wait, what?  Was He talking me to?  I'm not sure I heard that correctly.  "There's work to be done."  Shoot, He said it again.  I guess I better turn on my listening ears and listen to what He is telling me to do..........

A few years ago, ok - four years ago, a dear friend signed me up for a single mom event out of the blue.  She heard an advertisement for it on the radio and signed me up right away and told me afterwards.  The deal was I would go and she would babysit my son.  I hadn't heard of anything like it but thought hey, why not go and spend a few hours kid free with some other ladies walking the same walk.  So, I went.  The event was held at a church.  It was a morning of much needed relaxation!  From breakfast, to massages, hair cuts, pedicures, car wash and car care, and a free "garage sale" area.  To top it off we got to take box lunches home for ourselves AND our kids.  How amazing was that!  I left that day thinking how amazing it felt to be taken care of for a change and how doing something like this at my own church would be such a blessing to single moms in the community.  God started tugging at my heart then about this mission but my life was consumed already with a full time job, full time mommy, and part time school.  I didn't have room for a social life, let along planning an event!

Last spring I went to the same event again.  This time, I sought it out myself.  I remembered how great it was and thought I should do it again and this time, I even registered my son to go as they provided free childcare for the moms during the event.  I had a great morning of getting pampered and he had a great morning of fun.  He got to play, make crafts, play in bounce houses.  Needless to say, he didn't want to go home at the end as he was having way to much fun.  We picked up our box lunches as we were leaving and drove to a near by park and had a picnic lunch.  It was a perfect day.  We both were loved on individually, but we were both loved on together as well with our picnic lunch.  And once again after this event, God started tugging at my heart.  Maybe again isn't the right word because he had been tugging at my heart ever since that first time I went but now, since He knew I was going to be finishing up with school at the end of the year, the tugging got much stronger.  He was telling me it was time.

I began planning an event back in late summer/early fall last year.  Talking with various people, getting things into place, and spinning all kinds of ideas around in my head as to how I wanted my single mom event to go.  I am so excited that this event is on the calendar at church and the staff and Elders are very supportive of this vision and mission.  The concept is nearly the same as the one I attended: breakfast, massages, haircuts, facials and hand care, car wash, free "garage sale", free childcare, and lunch, but lunch is going to look a little different.  I'm really excited that we'll be offering a buffet style lunch to the moms, giving them a chance to eat a kid-free meal with other adults.........other single moms.  How cool is that?  They'll be able to make connections with other women who know what they are going through.  I'm excited to see God move in that particular area that day!

Are you ready for this?  God has blessed this event in so many ways already.  Writing about it now I'm getting teary eyed and I feel goosebumps on my arms thinking about what's happened and what I'm about to share.  In one day.............ok, not even a day.  In a 10-hour period God provided, and provided BIG!  In that 10-hour period I managed to secure all the massage therapists needed for the event, I managed to secure a Mary Kay director who was very enthusiastic about providing facials and hand care to the moms and who committed to bringing some other Mary Kay consultants with her to help bless the moms, and finally......the BIGGEST blessing of all........within that 10-hour period (it actually happened in 6.5 hours) God provided the finances needed for the event.  The entire amount I had asked for.  God made that happen, in 6.5 hours.  Are you amazed yet?  I know I am.

This particular picture showed up in my First 5 app (from Proverbs 31) the very next morning.  The devotional that day was exactly what I needed and exactly when I needed it.  God knew what he was doing long before I did!

2015 Was My Year!

I seem to recall stating at the beginning of 2015 that it was going to be my year.  There was an end in sight to a journey I had been on for quite some time and nothing was going to get in my way of completing that journey, and what a journey it was!

In November of 2008 I started a new job in an higher education administration office.  My new boss had been in her position for what seemed like an eternity.  She was well known, highly respected, and full of so much knowledge.  I felt so honored to be working for her, even if I was just a low man on the totem pole secretary.  Not long after working for her she brought up the subject of education.  I had went to a community college after high school but after a year I was burnt out and decided to take some time off and well, never went back.  When my boss discovered I had never completed my degree she encouraged me to look into going back to school.  I hadn't thought about education for a very long time and really had no idea what I even wanted to do with the rest of my life, but I figured if she thought enough about me to encourage me to do it then the least I could do was try.  And so, my college career began.

I started taking classes in the summer of 2009 at a local community college.  Boy was it hard adjusting to being a student again after 13 years of not being one.  I found this time around though I was more focused and taking school more seriously than I did before.  I think because I had already been living life and working full-time that I knew exactly what a college degree could do for me in the future.  One nice thing about going back to school when I did was the technology had come so far and I was able to take classes online without having to step foot on campus.  After working all day at a full time job, it sure was nice to go home and do school work instead of going and sitting in a classroom all evening.  Throughout my schooling there were a few classes I took on campus because it was required but the majority was taken online.  What a blessing that was!

During my third semester of school, which was the spring of 2010, I found out I was pregnant.  In fact, it was six years ago today that I took a pregnancy test and it came up positive.  Boy, was I scared!  Excited, but scared.  How was I going to do it?  How was I going to work full time, go to school part time, and raise a child?  I didn't have answers to any of those questions.  All I knew to do was to just keep at it, and so I did.  My son was born in October of 2010 and I remember talking to my professors ahead of time in order to get assignments completed ahead of time in preparation for his birth so I could take at last a few days off without having to worry about homework.  At the time I was taking an accounting class and it was an on campus class and I returned to class less than a week after giving birth and my professor was so surprised.  Heck, I didn't want to miss anything or fall behind!

God blessed me with an amazing kid, he really did.  He fit right into my crazy world with work and such and really, he made it easy to work and go to school.  Of course there were moments where I wasn't sure I'd make it, but those moments were few and far between.  But then it happened.  I became a single mom just before the fall 2011 semester.  For a few months leading up to the fall things were tense at home and I was trying to figure out a plan as to what I was going to do.  It was a stressful time and there was even a semester in there when I had to withdraw from classes.  I couldn't keep up with the homework and work full time and deal with everything at home.  That was a moment in my journey that I thought I would never make it to the end, I wouldn't see myself completing my degree.  But, I pressed on.

Fast forward to December 14, 2015.  I'll never forget that feeling and I may never forget my post on FB that night either.

I was BEYOND excited.  Did I cry?  You bet!  A journey that started six and a half years earlier had finally come to an end.  I FINALLY saw the light at the end of the tunnel that I never thought I would see.  From starting school, getting pregnant and having a baby, becoming a single mom, fighting my hardest to protect my son, dealing with court cases, health issues, and so many other things, all while working full time, I didn't think it would happen.  But it did.  It really did!  2015 WAS my year!  GOD IS GOOD!

P.S. - My diploma arrived in the mail on February 5.  I wasn't expecting it yet as we were told they wouldn't be sent until March.  Did I cry?  Nope.  But I sure as heck screamed with excitement when I open it up.  

Faith over fear................which do you choose?

A couple days ago I was looking through my memories on my Facebook page when one particular memory stopped me in my tracks.  It was a simple post with just a few words.  Seven words to be exact.  I posted that on a Wednesday night after bible study.  The date was February 6, 2013.  "Faith over fear.............which do you choose?"  I was living in fear.  I had been living in fear for a few years.  Here was part of my problem........okay, maybe a BIG part of my problem..........I was a people pleaser.  I wanted to make people happy.  I didn't like upsetting people or dealing with confrontation, so I did what was necessary to keep the peace.  What was happening when I was people pleasing?  I was pleasing everyone but myself.  I was miserable, stressed out, and sometimes just plain cranky from trying to do all this pleasing.  So, I asked God to help me.  I needed to make a change.  I needed to start pleasing Him which would ultimately please myself.   I started making changes with my pleasing ways and I slowly started to see things change.  What I didn't expect in all of this was to discover the root of my pleasing ways was fear.

Fear is a natural emotion.  Sometimes fear is there for a good reason but then there are times when fear is there for no logical reason other than a person fearing the unknown and the "what ifs" in life.  The fear I was experiencing was wrapped in the "what ifs" that could come my way as a result of me standing up for myself and my son.  My fear was wrapped up in people.  You see, I had these people in my life that I spent so much time trying to please and keep happy, that I was making myself miserable.  I feared that if I didn't keep them happy, they would make my life miserable. I had seen their wrath unfold with other people in their lives and I didn't want any part of that.  Looking back at it now, I was already miserable with trying to please them but I didn't realize it until I stepped out of the bubble I was living in and was finally looking inside the bubble from the outside.  Wow.  That was the game changer for me.  Once I finally stopped living in fear, and started living in God's love and truth, everything changed.  Yes, there were consequences to my choice to stop people pleasing these people.  Do I regret it?  No way.  My life is much fuller now and I'm able to be the person that God has intended me to be.  I'm not perfect, far from it actually, but I'm walking alongside Jesus on this journey and I can't imagine doing so any other way.

This past week in bible study we talked about fear and how you can turn fear into joy.  Yes, it's possible!  We got the privilege to hear one of the women in our women's bible study give an awesome testimony about the high school dance team that she coaches and their story of fear.  A group of determined young ladies and a coach that believed in them lead to the most amazing routine taking place.  So my question to you is this:  What room does fear have?

New Year's Resolution No More

I don't know about you, but I'm horrible at New Year's resolutions.  I have great intentions starting out the new year with new things but always end up failing.  I just do.  I started back to work that first full week of January and a colleague and I were discussing her vision board and what types of things she was challenging herself to do this year.  I mentioned that I am horrible at drinking water and that I really needed to work harder at getting more into my body.  She said she also needed to drink more water and so, our water challenge was born!  Together we decided that we would challenge ourselves, and encourage each other, to drink at least 60 ounces of water while we were at work every day with the hopes of also maintaining that on the weekends as well.  Sounds like a great plan, right?!  Drinking that much water at work seemed to go easier than I had thought, however the challenging part came when my bathroom breaks increased and well, there isn't a restroom on the floor where I work, it's either up a floor or down a floor.  But all in all the challenge went well, at least during the week, and at the end of January I was down 6.6 pounds.  That's right, 6.6 pounds just by adding water!  Of course, I got a little more exercise from going up and down the stairs to the restroom as well, but you get the idea.

February comes with a new challenge.  While I am maintaining the water intake challenge from January, I am challenging myself this month to walk more.  I used to walk to and from work every day when I lived close by and my son's daycare was in our neighborhood but can no longer do that and haven't been able to for quite some time now.  I miss it so much!  That was my quiet, thinking time that I had to myself every day and the good Lord knows I could use that again!  My challenge for myself this month is to walk a minimum of three times per week and the intention is to do it on my lunch hour.  I'm looking forward to it getting lighter and lighter out in the evenings so that once it is warmer out my son and I can take a walk together as well.  He loves to be outdoors and explore and fresh air does us both some good!

I've decided this year will be a year of changes, but those changes will come every month with a new challenge.  I figured this way, it will be easier for me to stick with it and embrace the change over a period of time instead of placing demands and expectations on myself to make all of these changes all at once and then ultimately failing.  2015 was a great year for me for personal goals and accomplishments (more on that later) but 2016 is going to be an even better year with healthy lifestyle changes.  I can't wait to see what's in store!