It get's better

I found myself weeping uncontrollably yesterday from watching a woman's impromptu performance with a street performer. I could not figure out what the waterworks were about until I spoke with my best friend later that evening. I was trying to listen to the woman's voice because the title said, a random woman with a good voice joins the reggae busker singing three little birds. It wasn't until I spoke with my bff, that I realized it was the words that I wasn't even paying attention to. "Every little thing is gonna be alright". Then I turned around and watched Jessica Reedy sing Better at The Potter's House. My daughter introduced me to the song as she played it all the time and it became one of my favorites. So, I click on the pic in YouTube and she began to moan out the most heartfelt, gut wrenching, sincere version of this song. It's easy to hear a song on the radio or Pandora, but it's an entirely different thing to see the person sing it live. That song blessed me so! At some point, I will tell what my storm looked like over the past 3 years, but just know that that woman and that song had my bawling and wailing, giving thanks to God on my front porch.

You know Paul says, I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound in Phillipians 4:12.

I had never been abased as an adult, I had for the most part been blessed to abound. I thought it was because I had endured the torture of my childhood, that I was finally being rewarded for holding on. Little did I know that even more calamity was about to strike. For three years, I went through. From being homeless to suffering from the generational curse of depression. The Lord took me through, but He also brought me out. That song spoke volumes to me and when she started sharing her testimony through the song, I couldn't not relate. I couldn't not respond in praise. It does get better..it really does. Am I where I want to be? Of course not, but I'm not where I was and I'm not going to stay here either. The Lord said, "Be still and know that I am God". He needed that time from me. He needed those three long years from me, because I could no longer run. I had every excuse in the book why I couldn't sit still and listen to Him, to ignore my calling and the things that I knew He had planted in me.

My abound, was equivalent to "hood rich". I had a decent vehicle, a decent house, a good job, but in my tiny human brain I thought that was enough. I knew I wasn't able to travel or do the things I wanted to do with the kids, but my life as it was was all I could imagine it could be. I didn't know that in my Father it could have been so much more. Now unto Him that is able to exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. ephesians 3:20. I had no power because I wouldn't let him in. I was powerless because I was leaning unto my own understanding. He needed me to see the fault in my thinking, to prove to me that He is who He says he is, and to set me on the path to my purpose.

I struggled so long with finding my purpose. After all that I had been through, I could not find the beauty in it at all. I could not figure out why the Lord would want to use me after all I'd done and had been through. It's amazing how you can run from a thing that you're actually looking for, but God in all His mercy waited patiently for me. In my Jonah-like excursion, however, I was still asking pertinent questions. Questions that lead me to His word even if I didn't visit His house. questions that some He answered and some He did not. Some He answered in the form of a deep revelation. Some He answered in a word from a friend. None the less, He was with me the entire time. It's only been in recent months that He revealed to me the purpose of my storm when He had finally brought me out from amongst the distractions and the nay sayers. Of course, He revealed things in the midst  of the valley, but it was on the mountainside that He began to put it all together.

I had been asking the right questions, I just didn't sit still long enough to see the answer. I have to say see because, He wasn't speaking to me per se. When I sat at the bottom of the mountain that seemed impossible to climb and I felt like I couldn't hear his voice, He was still instructing me. I was still writing and creating. There is something about being able to look up at the sky when you're at your lowest because once you start to soar things don't look quite the same. He showed me how I was climbing the mountain and didn't even realize it. He showed me that once I stopped focusing on the mountain, I automatically started to move. It wasn't until a couple of months ago that He allowed me to stop and look down at where I had started. I'm not at the top by any means, not even halfway there, but I'm definitely no longer at the bottom. He showed me the stitches in my wounds that were healing nicely, He showed me a picture of a heart no longer broken. I still need x-rays daily, to show me the things that still need work. Though my heart is not broken, it is still needs filtering, a spiritual dialysis is you will to continuously cleanse what passes through it. It's a painful and tedious task, it makes you want to just give up sometimes, but it's necessary for growth. He wants to get the best out of us, so He purges those things and people that hinder growth. He removes those character flaws that don't reflect Him

So I am looking to the hills from which commeth my help. Always looking up because I know with every new level I reach there is going to be something great waiting for me. Even if there is some bad there as well, I am well equipped to handle it with my Father having gone before me and walking by my side as I go through.