I am almost embarrassed to be blogging…… I mean it has been forever since I sat down and was rested enough to write. I hope and pray God will keep me in His rest and that I will be able to write more often. Please pray that my “want to” flourishes!
Man what a year!! A whirlwind!! Lots of tears shed, lots of good times, and lots and lots and lots of work!! I didn’t realize how tired I was until this week when I closed the bakery for Christmas and New Year’s. (I actually stayed awake in church!!)
Well, I am ending 2014 knowing that I am Egypt bound. Or at least I thought I wanted to be……
okay…. get ready for a long drawn out read….. I mean it has been almost a year since I have blogged about how God is in control……
Well, after opening the bakery…… God let me feel the high of success. The bakery flourished and I enjoyed every moment of it…… then something happened. Perhaps, it was just a natural course in business, or perhaps, I needed to be taught a lesson in trust. I don’t know which or if it is both but in May the success halted. And I was left scrambling to figure out what to do….. sigh….. to no avail……. struggling began and has continued ever since.
Was the honeymoon over? What can I do to change it? Do I throw in the towel and walk away?
Then, this fall…… my world spun out of control. My best friend diagnosed with lung cancer….. then losing her. I watched her put on a brave face and trust God completely. I prayed so hard that she would not die of cancer. Then, God found a loop hole. (yes, that is how I viewed it…. a loop hole) He found another way of taking her. I quickly realized that all the anger I thought I had gotten over with my mother’s death wasn’t entirely gone. I literally yelled at God. Ashamed to admit it but He took her just like mom….. without warning….. without asking me (whew talk about raw honesty)….. I was angry.
Of course, it didn’t take long for my heart to soften and face the tomorrows without her….. if anything I learned from her to put my faith in God’s tomorrow, not my own.
But then our finances began to unravel…… scary. I didn’t like that feeling…… We poured everything into keeping the bakery afloat. And no matter what I did we were slipping fast. God provided enough for us to make it day by day but it is still a struggle……. never had a creditor call me before. Talk about crying. I bawled while on the phone. Poor guy on the other end…… I am sure he had heard it all before…….but not from me!! Defeat was creeping in and I was breaking down. I kept crying out to God but I felt like my prayers were not being heard.
funny how when you are so focused on life and the bumps in the road that you think God has walked away. Yet all along…. He was listening….. I wasn’t.
Then, I am sitting in Bible study and we are discussing the wilderness, the Israelites complaints, and God wanting to teach trust…… Ugh. There I was…… I am in the wilderness struggling and I am pitching a fit of “it was so much easier back at the library job” (my Egypt). And it was true…. things were easier financially but I was quickly reminded of how my heart yearned the artistic freedom in my cakes. Recently, all I did was pout and complain….. talk about childlike…….
Trust God school was open. And here I go with the raw honesty….. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want it. I just wanted security. I wanted to feel like a winner. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too…… I wanted to prove to everyone I wasn’t a failure….. the failure that Satan likes to remind me of……
I sat there in class barely holding it together. I was seeing it now. God was taking me through some suffering so that I would appreciate what blessings He was giving me. God just doesn’t hand things out on a silver platter or put a silver spoon in our mouths…… but He does hand out grace and blessings…… strength and love…… I have to give the wilderness time to shape me into what God wants. (easier said than patiently waiting)
So what does 2015 hold? God only knows. All I have to do is trust that the wilderness will lead to the land of milk and honey. Not just with the bakery but with everything in life. I can’t go back. I can only go forward.
And God has me by the hand…… the thorns of this life may scratch me up along the wilderness trail but as long as I hang on to His hand, He will pull me through.
Man do I miss this!! Pray God will give me strength, patience, and perseverance.
May God bless you and yours……
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