Greetings from the Mid-South!

As I write this post, I am reminded of a Propel Women study I took part in at a previous church.  I believe the topic was time or timing or how to manage your time wisely… well, it was something along those lines.  The main thought I remember centered on the fact that you can have it all, just not all at the same time!  The conversation continued along the lines of seasons in life correlating to the accomplishments in one’s life.  Many people want to accomplish so many things like parenthood, career, service works, entrepreneurial endeavors, creative projects, ministry involvement and personal bucket list items.  The truth is that we can accomplish everything our hearts desire, however, the likelihood of accomplishing all of it at the same time is very slim.  For one thing, our lives would be an absolute mess, as would any of our relationships and friendships. We are not meant to do everything at the same time... But we are each meant to accomplish many great things.
 
I don’t know what it is about Memphis, but whenever I find myself here I find a current of creative energy.  I have only been here a couple of months and I already have several creative projects percolating.  I also have this sense of urgency to get things going, to start creating, to make something happen before it is too late; however, when I consult my God about my plans – He pulls back the reigns as if to say ‘slow up woman… It’s not time for that yet’. 
 
Knowing what season you are in makes all the difference in the world when it comes to being successful.  We all know that timing is everything and so it makes sense that knowing the calling on your life in this particular moment or season will make all the difference in your success right now and your success in any future endeavors.
 
As much as I want to plow ahead with some of the ideas I have percolating, I know that my current season is a time of preparation.  I am noting all that comes to mind for each project, but I am not working on those projects right now. I have no doubt that I will begin work on some of these projects in the new year, but for right now I am in an active preparation mode that includes writing exercises, scripture classes, small group leadership preparation and some research regarding how to move forward with projects that are yet to be named.
 
I feel an amazing momentum in my life even though the reality speaks volumes in the opposite direction… But like Martin Luther King Jr. said, “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, you just have to take the first step” and the rest of the steps will magically appear as you and God walk hand in hand to accomplish great things together.
 
Knowledge is everything.  If you know what your objective is in this moment, this season; then you can navigate your way to the next moment, the next season, the next project, the next accomplishment.
 
Happy Navigating!

As September rolls in here in the mid-south, I am reminded of some wisdom I once heard:  "The best way to find God’s will is to get moving.  If you try to plant yourself where He doesn’t want you – He will move you.”  I am taking this wisdom to heart.  I find it easy to become so overwhelmed with choice that I become paralyzed.  The fact that many of us have so many choices in life can create a temporary paralyses on our part in that we don’t know which way to go so we just decide not to decide and we stay stuck in our mess.  We do this with the small things and the big things in our life from what diet to follow to what career field to enter.  At least, I know I can have this problem.  I have a lot of different interests and talents and I sometimes find it hard to choose or when I do make a choice I find brick walls everywhere I turn.  Does this mean to turn back or plow through?  All I know is that I cannot continue to sit still.  I have to make a move and trust that if I make the wrong one – God will let me know or better yet, move me.
 
I have experienced this with churches I have tried to become a part of and cities I have tried to make a home base.  In both cases, I never quite fit.  In one of the churches for instance, I could not find a community.  I searched high and low and was involved in multiple groups, teams and service opportunities.  I was putting out all of this effort to belong and I was getting nothing in return.  I eventually realized I didn’t belong there and I moved on to a different church where my effort was minimal and the return was substantial.  I found my church and community and I did little to make it happen.  The same can be said with a recent city I inhabited.  It was on the coast and absolutely beautiful.  Prices were cheaper so I could actually afford a place with some sort of water view and the weather was around 80 degrees most of the year.  Problem was I could not find a life sustaining career or a good group of friends.  I tried very hard and became involved in countless groups, Meetups and churches only to have an almost zero return on my investment.  Nothing seemed to work in this beautiful place – It just wasn’t meant to be.
 
These last couple of months in Memphis have had me thinking that I should take that advice I heard all those years ago and just start making a home and see what God does in return.  I have become involved in a church, some Meetup groups and am job hunting like crazy inside and outside of Memphis.  I have a budget worked out and I know what I can accept to move and what I have to reject no matter how cool the job may be.  I am not wasting time.  I am enjoying where I am regardless of how long I might be here.  Besides, if I get moved I will have had some enjoyable experiences to carry me to the next place I land and if I get planted then I already have a head start on finding and making a home base here in Memphis.

The drive back home was riddled with blinding rainstorms and interstate standstills so I had plenty of time to think back to life in Los Angeles and life in Jacksonville… The people I met, the things I learned, the growth that took place.  As I look back over the last five years there are definitely some people who stand out in my mind.  Some of these people are like Kirsten, Liz, and Tracy who became my close friends and made life fun.  Liz was my adventure pal.  We scaled a waterfall, paddle boarded and kayaked our way through various marinas and hiked our way through various mountain ranges during my time in Los Angeles.  I hope to start an annual girls adventure vacay with some of my LA friends and some of my Jacksonville friends soon.  I have so much more to see and experience and I want to make travel a top priority once I have the debt paid off and am back in my own place.  Kirsten, Larissa, Nora & Lauren were my Mosaic friends.  I met them all in a life group.  On my first visit I knew I’d found friends and we became just that close friends doing life together.  I miss having that in my life, but I am hopeful I will have some ladies to do life with again soon.
 
Someone I probably have not mentioned at all on this blog is a man named Joel.  He was a producer at a church I went to for a while prior to making Mosaic my home church.  I was freshly sober and scared of everything and somehow got put on the production team of this church to basically run the services.  By that, I mean I ran the ever so important Macbook that ran the pre and post house music, the pre and post screen loops, the worship lyrics, the teaching screens, the videos… the only thing I did not run was the lights and sound, but I learned how to do that too… well, the lights at least.  When I say I was scared of everything, I mean I really was scared of everything and everyone.  I had no idea how to do anything without alcohol and I walked around looking like a deer in headlights to everyone I encountered.  People were always asking me if I was okay and I always gave a very unsure “yeah”.   Joel had the task of taking this deer in headlights girl and making her into someone who could run church services like a pro and that is exactly what he did.  I remember the first time I was up to run point and he, being very smart, did not tell me.  Instead, he let me figure it out when I heard him praying for me in our pre-service prayer.  I had no time to freak out or get upset or think anything really.  The only thing I could do was quickly go over what I needed to do and just do it and I did.
 
This experience came in handy shortly thereafter when I was working with a filmmaker on a live non-profit show that featured celebrity guests.  One day I showed up a tad late at our downtown show location and the first words out of her mouth were “good you’re wearing something nice.  The host cancelled.  You’re it.”  And just as before, I did not have time to freak out and I relied on my previous experience to ask the questions I needed to ask and memorized what I needed to memorize and about 45 minutes later, after introducing myself to the celebrity guest and getting some information from him – I took the stage and played host for the evening.  It was so much fun!  I got to welcome the audience, introduce the guest and occasionally remind everyone why we were all there – for a charity called Kids Need to Read.  It was a great evening and we had a great time and more importantly I had a great time doing something I never thought I would ever do!  I’m an introvert after all, but I have realized that doing what I never thought I would do has been the name of the game for this deer in headlights girl.
 
After leaving Los Angeles, I got involved in Celebrate Recovery and soon found myself back on a stage.  This time I was giving my alcohol testimony and I did it for a few CR’s in the Jacksonville area.  The more I get on stage, the more comfortable I become.  I have learned the hard way that the only way to get over something that scares you is to do that very thing you fear.  Now, I give other people advice on how to overcome their fears and I routinely put those with public speaking fear on the spot because it is the only way anyone can ever over come that fear.  My next move is to get my teaching/preaching feet wet either in CR or in a Women’s Ministry, but I guess I need a CR or a church home for that. 
 
Actually, my CR leaders Jay and Karen in Florida also had a big impact on my growth over the last couple of years.  Looking back I now know the reason I was led to Celebrate Recovery – I needed a lot of healing.  I needed to learn to love myself.  I needed to learn how to make healthy choices and healthy decisions and healthy boundaries.  I needed to raise my self-respect and my self worth and that is exactly what I did.  I also was able to get my ministry feet wet by learning to become the women’s share group leader.  Jay and Karen are also the ones who got me onto the testimony circuit and provided feedback so I could get better at speaking in public.  I also needed to learn to love others, but I think that comes with being comfortable with yourself and understanding who and what you are.
 
This leads to the people that made the most impact on me. The Liz’s, Tonia’s and Tracy’s – the people who like me for me.  They think I am funny and intelligent and pretty and a whole lot of fun.  I didn’t know anyone could like me without alcohol.  I lived most of my life under the oppression of extreme social anxiety and it was not until I got sober, learned to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations and started making sober friends that I found true friendships that showed me things I never knew about my self.  I do belong and I do have a place in this world and there are people who cherish me for me.  I guess this is the biggest lesson I have learned because it is the lesson that freed me from trying to be anyone except me. 
I do not know what lies ahead for me, but I do know that I can handle whatever is coming my way.  Right now I am focusing on job hunting and once I land a job I can start making a place for myself while I get back on my financial feet.  I always wanted to leave Memphis and never come back, but maybe I wanted to leave because of what I needed to learn.

I don’t know who turned my timetable on its side, but whoever it was – Please sit it right side up!  Chaotic is the only word that comes to mind to describe my life right now.  Dead End is another good description for my life right now as that is all I seem to be encountering at the moment. 
 
I had to leave my rental situation of the last two years at the end of March.  I have never had any issues finding a room to rent, however, I have not been able to find a place this time around and so I am typing this blog from my friend’s dining room table.  I am staying with her and her fiancé for a few weeks which doesn’t sound too bad, but the house is tiny and they are getting married and about to have a dozen people staying here and so as I said timing is just horrible right now.  I also lost my roommate and my neighbor who have been a great help to me when it comes to my car of never-ending problems.  I helped her pack up some last minute things and drove her up to her new town and while doing so that wonderful Low Coolant Light started flashing.  The entire coolant system in my car is brand new including the thermostat and sensor so I really have to ask, What now, Chevy?  Maybe your new cars are award winning, but your old cars are far from it.  Problem is that I no longer have anyone to help me with my car.  It goes down, so do I. 

And of course, I had to say goodbye to the world’s greatest dog, Lilly.  As soon as I would open my door in the morning I would hear the thump, thump of her tail wagging on the floor.  At first sight, she would jump up and run to greet me and flop over onto her back for a morning belly rub.  She also helped me with my exercise by taking me on very brisk walks through the neighborhood.  She is a sweet girl and I will miss her and my roommate very much as they were both very good to me.
 

While I was going through all of this cleaning stuff out and packing stuff up and trying to find a place to live, my work asked me start working overtime.  Again, timing is just not working in my favor these days.  My work is asking the impossible of me, completely disrespecting me on a daily basis and they pay me quite close to nothing for all of my trouble.  I guess I should have never taken this job as it certainly has put me in a tight corner, but I didn’t know the financial issues surrounding this university until after I started work.  I have been trying to find a new job, but that too has been one dead end after another.  What do you do when all the doors are closed and your typically vocal gut is completely silent?  Well, I have been grappling with the idea of going back home to Memphis for a while, but I have been reluctant to quit my job, which would mean loosing my income and my health insurance.  I can only have coverage through a group plan or Obama Care since I have that ugly “C” word in my medical records.  Memphis is also a place where a lot of bad things happened.  While I do have family there, it is just a hard place to go back to due to all of the things that went so wrong there.
 
Unfortunately, my decision might be made for me shortly because if my car is going to start acting up again, I will have no choice but to abandon ship and go home.  It already has a starting problem and if I have to start putting coolant in it again and start taking it back up to the shop again I will have no one to help me out.  I will have to fork out money for a rental car every time as well as the money to fix whatever is wrong.  It would be far better for me to take it up to my brother in Tennessee and have him look at it and if needed have him help me find a tide-me-over car for a couple grand and unload this car of a million problems. 
 
Back when all of this upheaval started, I asked God what in the world was going on and what I needed to do about it.  Thus far, He has only stated, “ You need to learn to ride the wave.”  I am literally flying blind and just taking each day as it comes and trying to understand that any control I thought I had now seems to be gone.  Circumstances are taking over and ushering in a new reality.  I have known that I was racing against a ticking time bomb with my car, my job and my finances and it appears the bomb is starting to detonate, it appears I have lost the race, it appears that I am watching myself crash in slow motion… But I have to continue to ride this wave to its destination leaning not on my own understanding and trusting that the wave will take me to where I need to be regardless of how uncomfortable I am while in transit.  
 
God may call it riding the wave, but I think I am learning how to trust.  My trust meter is really low for myself and for others.  Erwin had this to say recently, “…many of you are wondering where your opportunities are, but they have been there all along, you just treated them like giants and ran from them in fear…” This is especially true regarding some opportunities that have come across my path.  They were awesome opportunities that any sane person would jump at, but I would find a list of reasons why I might not be a good fit.  As I said in my previous post, I have burned a lot of lies I have believed about myself – the easy part.  Now, I have the hard part – the part where I have to start acting as if the lies really are lies which, means stepping out of fear and into faith and facing these so called giants head on and trusting that I am fully capable.

It’s been a year since I penned Corralling Part 1 and I never wrote a part two, but then again, this special one is still in her holding pen.  I was driving the other day and reflecting on life in Florida and life in Los Angeles and the vast difference between those two lives.  I was also reflecting on my financial situation, which as we all know was just re-torn to smithereens. I was thinking, ‘how can I be in this situation again! How is it that I keep winding up here.  Why can’t I get anything going for myself!’  And just before I would come to a place of movement, I would think I guess I am just in a burning season.  I have thought this many times before, but this time God had something to say about it.  Abruptly and with force He interjected the following:  You are not in a burning season.  You chose this.  And you keep choosing it.
 
I knew exactly what He meant.  You see, I have a history of talking myself out of amazing opportunities and shrinking back into my little shell.  I also have a great talent when it comes to pulling out all the stops for a job that I won’t like and won’t pay me near what I am worth or need. 
 
I have been going through a CR Step Study so that in the future, I can lead a CR Step Study and we just had our burning party.  In this particular CR, after Step 4 and 5 are complete, we burn our inventories.  Since my focus for this step study was to rip out all of the lies I have believed about myself, I wrote all of those lies down on a couple sheets of paper and threw them into the fire and watched them turn into ashes.  It was only a few days after this that God told me that my so called burning season is due to my own choices and those choices have been rooted in fear due to the lies I have believed about myself for so long that I don’t even know where I first heard them.  Or perhaps I do know where they come from – experiences and events that scarred me and made me think less of myself.
 
This brings me back to that sermon from Erwin McManus that I seem to recount over and over again on this blog and in my life.  That sermon where he asked,  “whose voice are you listening to?”  Whose voice is getting the last word in your life?  Is it God’s voice or someone else’s? 

Well, if you want to know if you are listening to God’s voice then you have to know what God says about you.  While I am not the best at knowing scripture, I do know that according to scripture God delights in me.  He knit me together and considers me a masterpiece.  He loves me more than I will ever understand and while He is not always proud of my actions, He is always proud of the lady I am becoming while I venture through life with Him.  I also know that the Bible says we can do anything He has called us to do.  Maybe that is my hiccup.  Maybe I don’t know what I have been called to do.  I do know that we all have a calling to love God and to love others, but I believe we each have personal callings that match a passion burning within us.  And I am a lady of a million passions so maybe as Kim McManus said the other day, I am overwhelmed by choice so I keep not choosing.  I fear I don’t know how to choose correctly, or I fear I am biting off more than I can chew or maybe my fear in choosing allows the voices that aren’t God’s to flood me with lies and so I choose wrong again.
 
My life is about to get turned upside down all over again.  My roommate situation is ending at the end of March and I am desperately trying to get out of my latest job choice mistake by the end of May.  I am unsure if I will be renting another room in Florida for a few more months or if I will go back to Memphis, but I do know one thing – If a good opportunity that excites me ever crosses my path again, especially in the next few weeks, I am going for it.  100%.  Let the Lion Roar.  I am done with talking myself out of amazing opportunities.  I am done believing the lies.  I know the difference between my gut telling me something’s not right and plain old fear so from now on, - I am going with my gut.  It’s what brought me to Los Angeles and it is what brought me to Florida and one of these days my gut will lead me out of this holding pen. After all, my life verse is Joel 2:25 and I do believe that God will restore the years the lies ate away.
 

They say if March comes in like a lion that it will go out like a lamb.  Is the same true for years?  Let’s just say 2017 roared in and all but brought me to a complete standstill.  For starters I had to say goodbye to the sweetest and fiercest cuddlebug I’ve ever known.  Rosie, the toy stealing Boston, became very ill very quickly and had to be put down given her age.  She needed a very invasive surgery that brought no guarantees so my roommate did the right thing by escorting her to the big park in the sky.  The day she left us I contracted what I am calling a stress response.  I have a neck and back trauma from flying off an overpass about a decade ago.  I believe my stress reactivated this whiplash so to speak and I found myself in constant pulsating sharp pain in the lower back part of my neck on the left side of my body.  I also had limited mobility and I stayed this way for about a week to ten days.  As soon as I was back to normal physically and mentally, my car overheated while I was driving home from seeing a friend.  The red light started flashing and an alarm started going off which I am told was meant to make me pull over, which I did not.  I saw no steam so I figured I would continue driving.  It turns out my radiator was blown and I had to spend a pretty chunk of money on a new one, however, my coolant light was still flashing.  Going on my neighbor and roommates advice I put coolant in with the motor running and found that the small leak I was eventually going to get fixed had turned into a shower under my car.  No Wonder.   I had put about three bottles of coolant in the radiator and people kept asking me if there was a spot under my car and there wasn’t and there never would have been since it only showered coolant while the engine was running. And back to the mechanic I went only to find out that I had two leaks and needed to replace the rest of the components of my coolant system.  My main hope now is that the transmission will last long enough for me to get my debt paid off so I can buy a new car and I know what I want when that time comes… if that time comes, God willing.
 
So as I said in my previous post, my two main resolutions were financial based and fitness based.  Both have been blown out of the water.  I had one credit card paid off and was making head way on the other, but those are both back up at the top of their limits thanks to Christmas and my lovely car.  Then there’s the fact that I have restarted workouts, but am having issues with my upper body.  I am finding it very easy to reactivate my injury and weights are just not in the cards right now.  Though, I am finding it possible to slowly ramp up yoga practice.  So you know there’s some light.
 
This past week I became very angry regarding a co-worker who is now my boss.  I don’t have any hate for this individual and I do wish her the best in life – I just wish her life didn’t have to intersect with mine.  We share an office and she literally goes out of her way every day to remind me that she loves everyone in the office except me.  I have no idea what I did to her but she has been hateful toward me from day one.  This hate drama and the fact that I really need to get out of this job and the fact that I am very unhappy doing this job are starting to take a toll on me.  I just can’t seem to shrug it off and enjoy my day to the best of my ability anymore.  I am beginning to get stuck in an I hate my life mode at work.  It seems that this holding pen I am in just keeps getting smaller.  Every time I think I understand the act of corralling I somehow find myself in a smaller space with even less to breathe.  Being someone who has been touched my cancer and being someone who has stiff armed cancer for going on ten years now, I know that we are not guaranteed tomorrow and that we should each make the most of the time we have on Earth.  And I actually think that it is this “life is too short to not enjoy it” mentality that is getting the best of me right now.  I haven’t been happy in Florida.  I don’t have a community here. My job doesn’t provide what I need on a social, mental, emotional or financial level.  Yes, there are some good things to point out like my living situation, my involvement in Celebrate Recovery and getting to love on Rosie and now Lilly. But, I am at a boiling point. I say all of this to share that this past week in a moment of extreme anger (sitting at my desk and going off on everyone inside my head) my entire upper back and left side of my neck re-clinched and back to pain and immobility I went.  This would be the moment that I realized that my neck and upper back pain and stiffness are in fact a response to stress. 
 
I have shared previously that I am trying to follow the adrenal body type plan in an effort to curb the effect of stress on my mind, body and soul.  It speaks volumes that I can now literally stress myself into immobility and pain.  I have to find a way to deal with the daily stress of life before I literally stop my own heart.  Yes, I am a yogi.  Yes, I know I should know how to calm and center myself.  Yes, I am a Christian and I should have the peace of Jesus.  But I was also an alcoholic for like 16 years so I never really learned how to deal with life, in fact, my way of dealing with life whether good or bad was to drink.  It’s like putting a band-aid on a wound that requires stitches.  Yes, you are covering it up, but it is never going to heal properly.  That’s what my drinking did for me.  Yes, I could get through some really traumatic events like losing my dad and facing my own cancer, but I never learned how to handle life on life’s terms and so while I appear to function appropriately and wisely, I am for all intensive purposes, a raging toddler on the inside.
 
So maybe my new New Year’s Resolution for 2017 should be to learn how to ride the wave of life without letting it steal my inner joy.  Well, you know how it goes… We tell God our plans and He smiles and nods and then He finds a way to tell us His plans… His plans tend to prevail.  I know that much.

In Memory of Rosie, the toy stealing Boston who was as fierce as she was sweet.  Her humans miss her very much.

New Everything seems to be on my docket for 2017.  It’s an everything must go sort of season in my life.  For starters, the house where I have been room renting, is going on the market this month and it is being listed at base price to sell quick!  Second, my car appears to be on its final leg.  I own an Impala and anyone with an Impala from 2000 to 2005 probably knows what I am going through.  Actually, most of you have probably already gotten rid of your Impalas.  According to the Chevy forums, there is nothing that can be done, unless of course, God reaches down from Heaven and puts a stop to all this crazy coolant system nonsense.  Third, after having spent a semester in my new job, I can tell you that I must leave this place!  There is no money at this institution and moreover, people in my department haven’t seen a raise in five years!  That’s just plain crazy.  I do love the holiday shut down and time off structure, but that can be found in other institutions that actually pay their people so ya know… I will be leaving.
 
Change is everywhere right now and I do not know if I will land on my feet or crash on my butt.  The only person I can blame is myself.  I left Los Angeles for some financial stability, but the decisions I have made regarding employment have not exactly helped me attain much of anything close to stable.  So now I find myself at a dangerous cross roads.  I have a decent amount of debt to pay off and am in need of a new car and a new place to live and a new place to work.  My brother has been pushing for me to come back home for a year and while he does make sense numerically, I don’t want to move without a job, which would put me in the realm of blowing my savings.
 
So with all that said, let’s talk New Year resolutions.  You do have them right?  Mine are simple this year and fall into two categories: Finances and Fitness.
 
Financially, I need to get the rest of this debt paid off so I can buy a new car!  And of course, a house would be nice too! The main way to do this would be through a new and better paying place of employment.  I am geographically open, though I would like to move closer to my mom and brother.  I would also like to be in an area with a lot of hiking.  One doesn’t really hike in Florida.  There are tons of trails here, but it is more nature walking so to speak.  Plus I haven’t really been able to find a good hiking group or find any outdoors buddies to go exploring with so I have been at a loss in terms of one of my favorite past times.  I am a professional when it comes to living on nothing, so the challenge will be to keep living on nothing until the debt is gone.  AKA, not buying new things, which is very hard to do once those credit cards start lighting up with zero balances.  Self Restraint is needed indeed.
 
The second category is fitness.  I am not necessarily trying to loose weight, but I do want to be healthy!  I need to get back to eating mostly fruits and vegetables and zero sweets.  I am trying to follow the adrenal body plan which means I need to add in protein.  I have toyed with the idea of bringing seafood back into my diet, but I just don’t feel right about it.  I mean if I can talk to it, I shouldn’t eat it. Right?  I also need to up my morning and evening workouts.  I do yoga every morning, but I need to start getting up earlier so I can get more time in on the mat and I need to be doing an hour of cardio and/or strength in evening when at home.  Once my debt is paid off, I would like to join a gym or program where I can be taken through a series of exercises.  I just do better with someone telling me what to do and making me do it when it comes to workouts.  I am good at doing the workout, but I am also good at making every excuse as to why I don’t need to give 110% or why I need to do the beginner version or the low impact version or ya know whatever.  I have decided to take a picture of myself on the first and last day of 2017 to further motivate me to eat healthy and keep up with the workouts.  Perhaps I’ll share my results with you this time next year. 
 
I guess I do have a third category in terms of New Year resolutions, but I feel that it is going to have to take a back seat until I am in a new job.  The third category would, of course, be my creative endeavors.  I have a few ideas that involve a second blog that is topic focused for 12 steppers and a YouTube channel and I do want to get back into my writing.  Since this is more dependent on the first two resolutions getting off the ground, I will dub this a bonus resolution, which in turn gives me more motivation to make the first two resolutions happen.
 
I wish all of you a Happy, Prosperous and Adventurous New Year!

I thought I came to Jacksonville to get my feet wet in ministry.  I thought I came to Jacksonville to learn how to be a nicer, kinder and gentler me.  I thought I came to Jacksonville to root out some evidences of past abuse.  It turns out I came to Jacksonville to stop believing a lie that I can’t even tell you how I ever came to believe. 
 
God: Jacksonville is preparation and nothing more.
Some time later….
Me: I can’t find a community to belong to here. 
God: Why are you trying to make a home here? This isn’t your home.
Me: Do you understand that You are killing me!  I can’t take the loneliness anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
God: I’m in charge of when you breathe and when you don’t. I am not killing you.
Me:  What is it that You are trying to teach me?  I can’t figure it out! You’ve taken away all of my distractions and I still can’t figure it out!  I will never get out of this desert!
God: Yes, you will. 
Some time Later….
Me: I don’t know if this is it, but I think maybe perhaps You want me to silence the undercurrent that says I am not good enough and never will be for anyone or anything.  I don’t even know where it comes from, but every sermon, song, lesson, talk, etc – whenever something relating to Your truth about me versus my truth about me comes up – I start crying.
God:  And you thought you’d never get out of the desert!
Me:  How do I silence this undercurrent?  I mean really silence it?  I mean I don’t even know its there half the time, where it came from or what to do about it – so how do I silence it?
God: You listen to me.  You listen to what I say about you.  You accept it as truth just like you accepted the 12 steps as a way to stop drinking.  You didn’t fully understand the steps or believe in them – you just accepted them.  You need to accept my words about you as truth.  You can ask me to silence it too, but I’d rather you proclaim it is silenced in my name.  You say you don’t know where it comes from, but you do.  He’s been lying to women since the first one I made.  Perhaps this will make it easier for you – You can choose to listen to my voice or you can choose to listen to his.  Listening to both hasn’t been working, wouldn’t you agree?

Ugh.  I am definitely one of those people who are way more afraid to succeed than to fail.  I have previously recounted a sermon I heard from Erwin McManus on the topic of the two voices in the Garden.  In this talk, Erwin makes it clear that while God’s voice may convict us, His voice never condemns and only calls us to be more, to do more.  God’s voice always call us up and calls us to want better and to do better.  The other voice in the Garden not only condemns us, but oppresses us too.  The other voice wants us to feel bad and it wants us to hide or escape into whatever horrible situations we can create in our lives.  Two voices that want very different things for us and Erwin asked us this question:  Who’s voice are you listening to? 
 
Obviously, somewhere deep down in my being, I am listening to the wrong voice.  Another wise pastor from my past, Craig Strickland, once said “You cannot feel your way into an action, but you can act your way into a feeling.”  I know that for me to move forward I have to start taking God at His word, especially when it comes to me.  And since I am taking it as truth, I also need to start acting on it as truth.  This is the key for me to get myself out of the situation I am in and the key to opening that big scary door I am for some reason afraid to walk through. 

Sometimes life takes you way, way, way up in the air and just leaves you there, hanging.  After a while you can’t help but wonder if you are headed for a touchdown or a crash landing. 
 
While my financial situation hasn’t changed, my stress level has skyrocketed.  The company that I have been trying to run from is crumbling before my eyes.  There is good news though!  After feeling uneasy and unsafe for so long I had started to question if my past was causing issues in my present, but it would turn out that my gut, my discernment, my instinct – whatever you want to call it – it was telling me something is off and so are all these people.  I couldn’t understand it.  It was unfounded and I found it crazy that I felt safer in gang-ridden Los Angeles than in Jacksonville, FL, but as I now know those feelings weren’t so unfounded after all.  This is the good news.  It wasn’t me.  It was and is the company and people I call my day home.  While I cannot share any of it here at this time, it does feel good to know that I can and should trust my instincts. 
 
I have been questioning many of my past decisions that were made based on my gut instinct and while they look like they might have been wrong – current happenings say otherwise. Following your gut instinct can lead you into a deep valley, but that doesn’t mean you were lead astray.   In my case, I know that the valley I am in is a back-to-the-basics, re-grounding and re-focusing list of lessons that will make all the difference when the gate opens to the pasture in my future.
 
One of those lessons is the simple truth that I can ask Jesus for a hug whenever I feel overwhelmed and over stressed.  I learned this one evening while in shavasana after a hearty detox flow.  I saw myself as a little girl in a white dress balled up crying my eyes out.  Jesus came to me and picked me up and I watched myself disappear into His light.  I did catch a glimpse of myself in His arms and I was smiling from ear to ear and happy as a child could be. I then saw present day me get up off the yoga mat and walk into Jesus’ arms disappearing into His light.  While I was watching all of this I felt an overwhelming sense of peace, calm and tranquility.  I was immediately elevated somewhere above my current human status and experienced a calm I had never known before.  I guess what I felt was love and my tear stained face proved it.   And I have felt this same tranquility again and again as I have taken Jesus on His word when He told me at the end of that vision “Don’t forget I AM always here.”  I no longer deal with anxious or unwanted thoughts in bed and I no longer worry about what to do with myself when I am alone.  Some people have alcohol or weed or a host of other things, but I have Jesus and I find Him to be the most effective calming presence with zero negative side effects.
 
I am also finding out what is important to me and what deserves my focus and what does not.  I am sad to say that like many people who grew up like I did – I have quite a fascination with materialistic things and the finer quality things at that. Take it from one who always wants the most expensive of everything… It turns out that I look just as good if not better in what I can easily afford!  I do have to admit that my pride took a hit and I might have had to be forced into one of the stores after exhausting myself in 100-degree heat trying to replace a pair of everyday sandals that broke, but once I was in the store I had a hard time leaving.
 
And then there’s that whole living with intention and learning to make the best of every situation and becoming a living example of what I want to see more of instead of what I want to see less of…. Yes, I do agree… trusting your gut can lead you into a deep valley, but it does not mean you misunderstood or made a mistake.  It does mean that you went where you needed to go to learn what you needed to learn for when you get plucked out of the valley and into the pasture that is your future.  I mean what’s the purpose in getting everything you want if you have no idea what to do with it?  I am now realizing this could have happened to me and it would have been a complete disaster!    Oh and another something – I am finding that when I spend the day in Jesus’ arms – all those personality traits that I have been trying to get rid of somehow disappear and I didn’t do anything but ask Jesus to let me sit in His arms all day long.  They say Jesus is sufficient and after spending the last couple of weeks in His arms I can say with complete certainty that He really is more than enough.