Blessings

I said in an earlier post that I want to spend more time on positive writing this year. I will continue to write and speak about domestic violence awareness. But, this year I am going to concentrate on God’s blessings. It’s been more than twenty years since my divorce. My children are grown and married and have wonderful lives. My parents have passed away and I officially have an empty nest. I am in the midst of a reinvention of my life. I am working on getting published on a regular basis and I’m finally settling into my church, The Potter’s House in Columbus Ohio. Pastor Oldfield teaches the Word of God no matter what and the people I’ve come to know are caring and spiritually supportive.

God is opening up new opportunities for my writing and I am very excited about this year. I am working a long-term contract job with work related to my editorial talents so I’ll be applying for regular full-time work there whenever possible. The company is stable with good benefits and the people are good. It’s been a very positive experience and I thank God for it. I am teaching a class at my church based on my book, Home Should Be Safe-Hope and Help for Domestic Violence Victims. It is going very well and I am honored to be able to minister to hurting people and let them know that God still saves, heals, delivers and restores.

When people have been through a traumatic time they want God’s healing, they want saved from the situation and delivered from any after effects. But, I find restoration is talked about less. We tend to think a situation is hopeless and we can only limp along after that. But, God’s word says different. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God doesn’t expect us to have a spiritual limp for the rest of our lives.

I remember a song our choir sang many years ago that talked about God putting the pieces of our puzzle back together.  I cried out to God saying, “How can you put my puzzle back together when all the pieces are not here. My marriage is done and over and I’m an emotional wreck.” God spoke to me and told me, “But, I can build you a brand new puzzle if you’ll let me.”

God has done that. My children have grown up wonderfully. I have a terrific daughter-in-law and son-in-law and three beautiful grandchildren. They have made good lives for themselves and serve God faithfully. God has blessed me with new talents and new friends.

I am going to concentrate on God’s blessings this year more than ever. I remember people use to tell me that I needed to put the past behind me and to let upsetting things roll off my back like water off a duck.  When I shared some of my hurts with a friend last year this friend told me that it sounded like when things rolled off my back they had built up into a mountain at my back. I discovered that some people wanted you to put the past behind you but they didn’t want you to move forward, thus the mountain at your back. I learned that when that happens you have to step away from the mountain and move forward. Your goal must be God himself, not a place, a person or an event. Just God.

So, this page of my blog will be about blessings. I plan to look for them this year because I know God has given me blessings that I didn’t even recognize in the past. He has protected me and provided for me when I was so caught up in the fog of life’s miseries that I couldn’t see him. I encourage each of you to do the same.

You see, I have found that depression doesn’t come in like a hurricane or a tornado; it comes in like a mist or a fog and overtakes you. Before you realize what has happened you have sunk into fear and sorrow or if not that, then you have your nose so determinedly fastened to the grindstone you can’t see up anymore. You are just working to get through the day like the old TV commercial, The McDonald’s Grind: “Get up, go to work, come home, go to bed; get up, go to work, come home, go to bed…….

That is not the abundant life God promised us. God promised us abundance in Him and through Him and I refuse to settle for anything less than God in my life. May God richly bless each and every one of you this year as you follow him.