“Hopeless and Broken, Alone and abandoned, can’t see my way through my tears…no sign of light, in the darkest of night can’t find my faith for my fears”
Those are not just lyrics to the first verse of my song “I Shall Live and Not Die” but it was my reality at a point in my life that I was so desperate for God to show up in my life. I used to be so depressed that I wished I could sleep through the days I was facing. I remember asking God if it was possible for me to stay asleep for a week without actually dying or being in a coma. I remember my family being evicted and the little that we had was being thrown in the street. I was coming from the grocery store that day with bags in my hand and I watched about 5 men empty my apartment…throwing my sons crib out the door, tossing my couch in the dirt, and breaking my lamp into pieces…My kids were in school at the time it happened, my youngest was in his stroller as we walked up…I remember both of my cars being repossessed…and I remember me not having a CLUE how I would get to work or if I’d lose my job because I simply could not get there.
I remember ALL of my utilities being turned off and being afraid to tell anyone because I was afraid that if someone found out they would take my kids.. I remember asking God to “teach me how to shield my children from the detriment of this season so that they wont even know we are going through hell” I remember OPERATING with a bank account that was negative $463…I remember boiling water to bathe my kids because I had no gas to heat it….I remember buying electric hot plates to cook with. I remember my ex husband and I being soooo tired of being in the position we were in that we wouldn’t even talk about solutions anymore…we just stopped talking period about anything, we just prayed and we kept saying “this is not the end, God’s gonna show up”…I remember “beating checks to the bank” Those days I WILL NEVER FORGET…I wont ever forget how it feels to not know what will happen next and to suspect that whatever was gonna happen could be worse than what’s already happening at the same time trying to brace myself mentally in case what happens next IS worst than what is happening now… I WON’T forget that when I could not find solutions, I WOULD not stop praising the God OF the solutions.
I’m a VERY private chick, and people around me could NEVER detect that this bright and bubbly chick was going through HELL and HIGH WATER in her life. I NEVER lost my faith in the GOD that continued to show up with favor, finances, love, and solutions. I was NEVER left without Him. I learned that if He did it before He’ll do it again because he HAD to do it over and over and over again for my family. He is the ultimate bail out plan…From those days to these days, I have to say that I SYMPATHIZE with people who are going through it because I am familiar with the cry. I’m familiar with the tone of NEED. I am familiar with desperate measures. I was prompted to write this blog because of the story here in Atlanta of the man who held 5 firefighters hostage and all he asked was for his power to be turned back on. Looking at the neighborhood he was in, it’s obvious that he is not used to falling on hard times like this. The end of this story is that he was killed and 4 firefighters were rushed to the hospital because the SWAT team threw hand grenades in the house. I just wished that we knew more about the story and I pray that more comes out that would bring awareness to a people who are in desperation.
People are LOSING their MINDS because they are in desperate situations and they don’t know what to do or how to survive. When they are well qualified for positions that aren’t available, some people are sick and can no longer work and have no financial plan set up for themselves to take care of themselves. It’s ROUGH out here. I look back over my life and the intense lifestyle of struggle I’d adapted to and I THANK God because on the other side HOPE has been engraved in my soul. I SING hope, I SPEAK hope, I live with HOPE and in EVERY way that I can possibly share HOPE with someone who is hopeless, I will. It’s my HONOR to declare that nothing is too hard for God, He will never leave you, He is ALL you will EVER need, and you FAITH can and WILL make you whole and bring you through. God has given me a heart of compassion and a charge on my life to BE a Christian for REAL because I am surrounded daily by people that need to know that Christ hasn’t forgotten about them, and that He is closer to them than they think. I hated going through it but I’m so glad I did and survived it because it makes me sensitive enough to encourage the discouraged.
I’ve always been jaded by church cliché’s. I admit to having a sort of cynical piece to my personality but when I say that God WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU, HE WILL! I am FOREVER grateful for every chance I can get to share HIM with people in whatever way HE decides to show Himself through me and use me, in song, in writing, on the radio, in a blog, in laughter, WHATEVER., I am just PRIVILEGED to be His child.
Finishing STRONG!!
