He'll Give You Peace!

When times get rough and it seems like we can't find a way through our pains, when it looks like desperate times call for desperate measures, when we feel all hope is gone and no one cares, we began to long and look for something or someone that will relieve us of those feelings. I have come to realize that I won't find relief in people, places, or things. I can only find my peace in God.
Life has caused a lot of pain, worry and frustrations. There has literally been times where I lost my mind. I had no sense of who I was or what I was really here for. Covered by emotional pain and despair, I have no joy, hope and couldn't find peace. Through my healing process, I had to somehow take hold of some peace. I had to pray and ask God to show me how to obtain peace.
I began to reach in the word of God and look for guidance on peace. In Matt 6: 25-34, it tells us that God says not to worry. It talks about how God provides for the birds and the lilies so we can expect him to do the same for us. The scriptures also talk about how worrying shows signs of little faith. God knows, and He cares!  Scripture also tells us to seek His kingdom and righteousness and all these things will be given to us.
Even more of the Word, tells us that David was at peace right before his battle with Goliath. He was at peace because he was able to look back on all the other times God had been there for him. We have to remember God's faithfulness to us in prior situations when things began to cloud our minds. Even writing this now, I hear someone saying, " Evangelist, how am I suppose to do that when everything happens so fast and I'm just not there yet?" Perseverance through the situation, tired of the weight and pain will lead you to develop a relationship with God that, believe me, will keep Him at the for front of your thoughts everyday.
 Knowing that after everything that I have been through, I have peace today keeps me pressing. Like David, I remember. I remember when God kept me through every dangerous encounter with rapist, gang shootings, drug activity, homeless situations, and even suicide attempts. He kept my mind. Therefore, today I can't help but have those "thank you Jesus" flashbacks. As I look back over my life and I think things over, I can truly say that God has kept me all the way and today I have peace.
Do you ever wonder where God is when you are in the midst of it all? Well, I'll tell you. God is right there. He will give you peace, just like He gave Gideon when he was in the winepass hiding from the Midianites. When the angel appeared to Gideon and he was complaining, he actually thought it was an angle of the Lord, instead it was God, himself. When Gideon realized that God had shown enough concern to speak himself, Gideon made and alter right there and then called God, Jehovah-shalom, the Lord of peace. Goes to show, God is there, watching over us when we don't even stop to realize it. * Read Judges Chapter 6 to see how that came about .( Get in the Word, it will keep you as well).
Get real honest with yourself and find that true intimate relationship with God. We can not measure our peace based on what we have experienced in life. We can't center our peace around things or people. In life, we have to know that God is Jehovah-shalom. Ephesians 2:14 says,"For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility," Once we realize this, understand this and worship God for who He is we can have peace no matter what may come our way.
Last thing, Jesus even gave a promise of peace before He went to the Cross...
                John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." 
                                                                        and
               John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
God Bless!!

I GOT THIS....NOT!!!

Life is very frustrating and it is full of temptations. I have dealt with and healed from some very disturbing things in my life. My healing process does not exclude me from continuous fighting the demons that once haunted me on a regular bases. I still come across days when I feel that it was much easier to handle death in my family, finding out about a serious illness, being depressed, or even missing my son with the use of some kind of drugs. I still have nightmares about being molested. I still wake up in tears from seeing my rapist face in my sleep.
So from those things, I am tempted to turn around a lot of times, but I am often reminded that I serve a God that takes care of me. In Galatians 5:16, I am reminded to live in the Holy Spirit. That means that I have a God to lean on and as long as I live in the Holy Spirit, there are things that I don't have to deal with and go through alone. I have come to believe that if I am not living in the Holy Spirit and I live in my own will, I get frustrated really quick.
 When that happens it shows that I am not relying on God to handle the situation or to carry me through that trial and test. My frustration tells God that I think, for some reason, that I am able to handle it on my own. The arrogant statement, " I got this" comes to mind. Frustration and falling into temptation tells God that I run this not you. I am sorry to bust a lot of bubbles today, but we are not God! We can't do the things that only the Holy Spirit can do. If that was the case, a lot of us would not have gone through the process to get where we are today. We would have taken the easy way out.
Living in the Holy Spirit is very essential to the healing and deliverance process for everyone. It is the Holy Spirit that will lead and guide us on the righteous path. It is the Holy Spirit that will keep your mind when the enemy tries to tell you that because someone violated your body, or your mind , your not worth anything. It is the Holy Spirit that will carry you through when you think that sex will make you feel wanted. The Holy Spirit will build you up.
The best thing that I have found out since I have been saved is that when I did turn my will and my life over to God, that wasn't it for me. I didn't go to God, get saved and God walked away from me. He didn't tell me to take the lead from there but He told me that He will NEVER leave me. The verse in Galatians didn't tell me to take complete control of my life but it told me to live. It told me to live in the Holy Spirit and with the help of the Holy Spirit, I don't have to indulge in the things of the flesh. That says that the Holy Spirit will help me fight against my flesh.
Today, I speak to everyone regardless of what you have been through, you don't have to continue to go through anything else alone. There is a God that sits high and looks low. He will save you and will be with you until the end of time. Trust Him and He will see you through. Everyday will not be a easy day, but it is easier to be connected with a source that lightens your load and carry you through. Lean not to your own understanding because what the enemy means for evil, God will turn it around for your good. I am a witness of that. I never thought that I would ever move past the pain of all that I have seen, experienced and even done my self. BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD! I encourage you today to seek the Lord, not only acknowledge Him as your Savior but allow Him to save you! God Bless!

Does it really take all of that......

Does it really take all of that.....

---

I often wondered why did it toke people crying and screaming in church to leave feeling some kind of way. I didn't understand why it took all of that. It wasn't until I lived a little and went through various things in life and came to the "tired" point that I began to see why it took all of that.

Some people wonder around this earth searching, going from pillow to post, person to person trying to find a place or a person that will forgive them and love them regardless, in spit of and in addition to. I did this for many years. I was lacking a true meaning and sense of what love is and what it truly meant to forgive and be forgiven. Because of this, I became restless.
After years of hurting myself with drug usage, promiscuous sex, total neglect of my health among other things, I got feed up. I was hungry and thirsty for something that the world just wouldn't be able to give me. Sometimes, I even felt that I needed answers from those that hurt me. Besides, they owed me that much right? Wrong, because nine out of ten, they didn't even know the reasoning behind their actions. They may have had an idea, but at that time they didn't know that hurt was part of my purpose.
Going through life being rebellious because of my experiences, I reached my end. I became tired of the vicious cycle that wasn't leading me no where. It was like I would repeatedly do drugs, looking for a different result. Even when I was violating my body, I was looking for a man to pop up one day and treat me differently than I had presented myself to him.
My day for being ready to try something different had finally come, and boy was I happy. I cried out to the Lord, and he heard me, delivered me, and revealed to me my purpose. At last, my soul had found what it was looking for. God wrapped His unfailing love and kindness around me.
Today, many people that have experienced things such as child molestation, rape, drug addiction, teen pregnancy, neglect and many other things, are prisoners of their own sins. We hold ourselves hostage to the things that have been done to us. We some how blame ourselves and hold an unforgiving heart towards ourselves when it wasn't our fault but just our purpose. We are chained to addictions, fears, and generational curses. Some are oppressed and depressed with no hope.
I chose not to live that way anymore. I know that God loves me and God is love so I find my hope in Him. No longer will I allow myself to be bound by the things that tried to kill me. I would rather expose those demonic spirits for what they are, bound up every generational curse and spirit of depression and loose hope, forgiveness, liberty, and happiness. Not only in my life, but most importantly into the lives of God's people everywhere that don't think that a life without pain is possible. IT IS!
So today, I ask you to begin to cry out to the Lord. Allow Him to deliver you and begin the healing process in you. He hears you and yes, He knows but He is waiting on your willingness. Willingness to a. SUBMIT and b. BE A VESSEL.
As stated in Psalms 107:14 "Oh! Give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love; Love that brings us out of darkness and deepest gloom and breaks away our chains." Began to bless the Lord for how He carried you through these storms and built you to be of a service to others like you.
God loves you and is there waiting with open arms. It is not in His plan for you to be bound by the very things that haunt your dreams. It is in His plan to loose you so that you will be free and witness to others that just what God did for me, He'll do the same thing for you! God Bless

What's in your your heart?

True forgiveness has to come from somewhere at some point in time. I believe that true forgiveness will not come until we have truly cleansed our hearts. When we harbor feelings for our wrong doers in our hearts, we allow feelings of hatred to truly over take our lives. We allow feelings of our past to control our present enabling us to move on with our lives. We hold grudges against people for the things that they have done to us, when in fact these people have moved on to live their lives  They may have never given a second thought to the harm they caused, but we have allowed what ever took place to control the out come of our lives. Some may even ask, "why should I forgive them after what they did to me"? I say because forgiveness will set you free. On top of that, we serve a God that is forgiving. We make mistakes on a daily bases and some of those mistakes are ones that will send us straight to hell. BUT GOD!! He forgives us without stipulations. So I would like for us to take the time to think...

   Is unforgiveness keeping you from living? Are you holding things in your heart that is controlling how you live?

I want to hear from you.....

There are many reasons, or should I say excuses that I came up with for reasons not to tell about my abuse. I didn't tell that my uncle was molesting me because he said he would hurt me even more. I did't tell on my cousin because he said no one would believe me. I didn't turn in my rapist because I was scared. Even in my marriage, I grew up watching my step mother get abused so naturally I thought it was nothing wrong with letting a man beat on me. It was just physically painful. So I have a question for you. 

What a some of the reasons abuse don't get reported by many children in our communities? Does abuse that happen to children in their young age have an affect on how they perceive life or how they turn out as adults?

Please leave your comments below. God Bless!

I never said a mumbling word.....

  I kept those secrets for years. I never told a soul. I just acted out. I just became promiscuous. I became addicted to drugs and alcohol to cover of the pain that I felt and dealt with everyday. The nightmares that haunted me at night when I closed my eyes were unbearable. 

   It wasn't until I was 25 years old that I told my father that I had been molested and it wasn't until I wrote "Broken and Rebuilt for the Kingdom" that anyone found out that I had been raped,addicted to drugs  and beaten by my ex-husband as much as I was. I never said a mumbling word.

    I carried this pain with me all that time. I don't even know if I ever showed signs of something being wrong with me. I mean you would think someone would know that my issues had to go beyond being depressed.

   I had always dealt with my pain by inflicting more pain on myself. Using drugs was a big infliction. Smoking marijuana would ease the pain for so long, but then I experienced a different kind of rape. It was violent and painful. It stripped me of any attempt that I ever  would make of getting my life together. Even being beating by my husband sent me even deeper into doing drugs.

   Marijuana would no longer be able to cover up my pain. I needed something to numb me. That's when I began to use cocaine. It didn't take away the nightmares though. So, I became an insomniac. 

   Some would even ask me now why I never said anything. I mean with everything that I had already experienced in my life, do you think I felt that someone would care. I didn't even think that the police would care; therefore, I didn't even tell them. I just carried this evil demon with me throughout my life. 

   It had a major affect on my life. My body was a rag to some man, so I let it be a rag to any other man that came along. Who cares? By this time I really saw life as a waste. I often told God that He could have taken that time and invested it in someone or something more important than me. I didn't care about nothing and no one. 

   I came to a point where I had to make a choice. Either I was going to keep looking at life as waste of time and go through it just barely existing or I was going to take time to get to the root of what was really going on in my life. I began then to use the tools that I did have. 

   I knew who God was because that is the one foundation that my mother did lay in my life. I knew that God would have the answers to any question that I had for my life. So it was time to have a talk with Jesus. It was time to get real with myself and get real with God. So, I asked the question, "Why me Lord?"  

   Honestly, that wasn't a question that I was really ready to be answered. In my life, I had gotten caught up in self seeking, self absorbing behaviors. I was no where prepared for God to give it to me raw like He did.

   I remember laying in my bed one night after a horrible dream and just crying out to the Lord. First, I began to plead with Him to ease the pain that had taken over me. I asked Him to really forgive me and to take over my whole life. I told God that I was tired of the way I was living and that I want to try things His way. With all my might, I asked, "God, why me?"

   Never ask God a question like that you are not truly ready to know the real answer to. That is just what He gave me. I began to hear the Lord say to me..." I sent my son to die for people. Not so that He could be praised for His acts, not that He could get some kind of reward for even coming. My Son walked the earth and was treated in ways that where shameful. They talked about Him. They lies on Him and not once did He stop proclaiming the Gospel Do you think it was easy for Him to show people who I am." 

   God told me that sometimes people have to experience certain things so that other people will see that Heaven, hell, deliverance, faith, restoration, perseverance, and  pure love aren't just things that is wonderfully written in a book. He said people need to see that there are others that have been through some storms and some life threatening situation YET, I PULLED THEM THROUGH. " You had to be my example. You had to be the proof of my existence.  It was never about you personally but it was about your PURPOSE." 

   That night I realized that it was never about me. I had to take the selfish covering off my eyes and look at the multitude of little girls, young girls and women that stood out in the world with no hope, no faith, no idea of their purpose, no vision, and no idea of how to come out. My eyes were open to the number of people that doubt God's very existence because they have went through some of the very same things and feel that there is no way that there would be a God and He would allow such things to happen.

   I began to look at a bigger picture. I realized that magnifying God was the only reason I was created and I had to began to lift Him up even for bring me out of such things like child molestation, rape, a pregnancy as a result to statutory rape, losing custody of my baby, drug and alcohol addiction, and domestic violence. I even realized that if God didn't exist these things could have been the very death of me. 

   I never said a mumbling word, but today I speak to everyone everywhere that don't believe that God is real. I say to you that I am a living witness that God is real and He cares for you. Even though we have seen some terrible things and a lot of those things were done to us, our bodies, and our minds somewhere along the way God kept us and He brought us out. Even to those that don't think there is a way out, BELIEVE me, God is there waiting to provide the escape. What He did for me, He will do the same things for you! 

God Bless!

Do we really understand love?

    Love. What is the true meaning of the word love. At one point in my life, I thought by definition the word love came according to the measure of pain a person could inflict on me. I had this picture in my mind that made love equal to negative actions. Any kind of negative attention would take on the meaning of love. 

   I never had someone to sit me down and explain to me the true definition of what love really meant or what it stood for. Growing up around violent men that showed their loved based on how many time they can bat a woman or how hard of a punch they could throw towards the face of a woman became my way of thinking when it came to being in a "loving relationship". 

   To take it even further, at a young age, if I wanted attention from a boy, sex would be the way that I would get him to "love" me. Why? Because when I was three and four years old, my uncle said he love me and that followed the action of him molesting me. My cousin would say the same thing right before he involved the space between my legs. From those incidents, I assumed that is how all men expressed and wanted "love". It was through sex. 

   I was taught a song when I was little. The lyrics were," Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world." I use to ask myself did those children included me because I didn't feel like Jesus loved me. I felt and experienced too much that went against an action or emotion that showed care and concern. So what did I take from those experiences? 

   I took on a strong hatred for myself. I didn't care how I was treated by people or even how I treated myself. Growing up, I didn't worry about taking care of me the way a woman should. I neglected to take the time to love myself and invest into myself. It was more important for me to have sex and get high then to get my education.

   I allowed men to use me for the split second pleasure of having sex. I even allowed men to use me as their personal punching bags if that made them feel good about themselves. Whatever I had to do to feel "loved", I did. If a man would've told me to leap, hop on one leg and pat my head, I would do just because I thought he was telling me to do these things because he loved me. 

  See, these are the misconceptions that most people have when they aren't really taught what true love is. When a daughter is not taught by her father how a man is really suppose to treat her, she allows the unspeakable things to happen. Not only should a father teach his daughter, but he should also lead by example. Show his daughter these things by treating the woman that he is with accordingly.

   It is the same thing when a man shows his son how a woman is suppose to be treated. By no means am I leaving the responsibility just to the father, but the mother as well. A mother should teach her daughter how to take care of herself as a lady. Teach her hygiene and whats acceptable and whats not acceptable when it comes to what a man should be allowed to do to her body. Most importantly, when it is acceptable.

   Today, I stop to give the message to as many young girls that I can that your body is very precious. God made you special. It took me a long time to realize this. Now, I know that I possess an ability to love the right way. I don't have to open my legs to display love. I also know that if a man truly loves me, he will do it according to the word of God and wait until a reunion is formed in marriage. 

   We as young women should cherish ourselves and our bodies to want a man to respect us enough to wait and live right. That is how we know that love between the two really exist. 

   There is no need to compromise either ladies. You don't have to believe that sex is the only way to get or keep a man. After years of reading the Bible, I have never seen the word girlfriend in the bible. There is nothing wrong with dating to build a relationship and getting to know your potential mate, but know that the you were made to be a wife. For the word says, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing". I put emphases on "finds" because we should allow the man to find us. Allow a man to stand back and notice you, notice your labor, and your strong will just as Boaz did Ruth.

   Allow someone to notice why it is that you are precious in the eye sight of God. You will be appreciated more and you will appreciate a man that takes the time to see your worth and treat you accordingly. Then and only then will the true definition of love be revealed in your life. 

  God Bless!