Go now, a child of God. Choose well the road you take,
And the decisions you make. Keep in mind always that The God you serve continues to call to you, making you more and more every day into the faithful one God wants you to be.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Extraordinary Life

Extraordinary Life

Before I was born God had decided I would have an extraordinary life. He selected my mother from the Philippines and my father from Oregon. Then he had my birth in the deep South in Alabama. I looked different and I talked different. I really did not feel like I fit in my surrounding or with people around me. My first memory of church was the Catholic Church. My mother is Catholic and she had me baptized in the Catholic Church when I was 4 or 5. When my parents divorced when I was six, it was during a time when divorce was a bad word and single parent families were looked down upon. It was hard for me to have friends. Divorce was not a word that people said out loud during that time it was a word that they whispered and hoped no one heard when they gossiped about you. My next experience at church was when our neighbor took me to a primitive Baptist Church. My dad did not know what to do with a girl and I didn’t know any better about how I should dress so when our neighbor would come to pick me up on Sunday morning, I was in my blue jeans and a t-shirt. That only happened one Sunday, the next Sunday she took me to her house and had a dress for me to change into. I really didn’t care if I wore jeans to church, or that dress, I just knew I liked going. When I was about thirteen, my dad joined a singles group at the First United Methodist Church. The singles met during Sunday school and I went to Sunday school too. The Methodist are big about having someone baptized before they joined the church, I remember they wanted us to be aware of other religions before we got baptized so for several Sundays we visited different denominational churches and one Saturday we even went to Temple at the Jewish Synagogue. I didn’t feel compelled to join the Episcopal Church or Temple or Church of Christ, Methodist was alright with me so I agreed to be baptized. Several years later I met my life long best friend, Stacie. Stacie’s grandfather had been a pastor, and so her mother was a God fearing woman and kept her kids in church each and every time the doors were open. If I wanted to be friends with Stacie, it required me to come along to the church each time the doors were open, too. I got to know Jesus and I accepted him as my personal savior at Mt. Enon Baptist Church and I was baptized for the third and last time.
Extraordinary.
I always did things just a little different, Stacie grew up doing bible drills and during that time I didn’t know my bible well enough to find a verse in the bible on the quick draw like the other youth, so instead of participating in bible drills, I was told I could share my testimony and compete as a speaker. So I worked hard and I had my testimony. At fifteen I was very aware of God in my life. Not many youth volunteered to give their testimonies, but I had already been living an extraordinary life and God was at work in it.
I was a sinner and I am still a sinner. During my teen-age years and into my twenties, I lived in the world. I met a 19 year old the other day that had a tattoo of three “X’s” on his chest. He said it meant that he was a straight edge. I’m twenty years older than him and I didn’t know what that meant, he told me a straight edge is a lifestyle choice to refrain from drinking alcohol, using tobacco and no premarital sex.
I’ll confess to you when I was in my teens; I was not a straight edge. I lived in the world and I wanted to fit in. I wasn’t as near to God during that time. I got married at 18 yrs old. I still had my faith, God was still near to me and I knew it. There had been times in my life I should have been someplace else, or doing something else or with someone else because I have been in some dangerous situations and I was delivered from the worst.

God has a way of drawing you near to him if you belong to him. For me he made me asthmatic. I am thankful to God for each breath I take. I have had attacks so bad I would pray for my last breath, but God would say not yet, it is not your time, and he would deliver me and make my lungs normal again.

In my present life I am reconciling with God. Over the past few years He went about removing things from my life, some of these things were people, my parents both live in Florida, it takes 8-10 hours to drive to see either of them, my brother is in jail, my daughter lives with her father, and me and my husband live in separate homes. When you are separated from the most important people in your life you grieve. I spent a long time in grief, several years. I went through a deep depression. It showed in my life. I gained a lot of weight, I hardly ever left the house except for work, and I alienated myself from my friends and even my husband. I could give a whole other testimony about grief, but I’m not going to do that today.

A turning point for me was when I got serious about God and prayer. This turning point was this past February. I got serious about loosing weight. My father gave me a treadmill and I spent some weeks fasting for God to remove from me my desires for food. I prayed when I was hungry, I prayed when I hurt from being on the treadmill, I prayed thankful for each meal when I ended the fasting, and I still do. God gets all the Glory for my 40 lbs. of weight loss in the past six months.

I find myself in prayer numerous times of the day. God put a noisy neighbor in the apartment above me that stays up all night long and sleeps at 5 am. I wake up almost every other hour during the night and when I am awake my first thought is to ask God why am I up? Then I pray. I share my confusion, my feelings and my hope with God. I cry a lot. I have my head bowed down but it is during that time that I hear God. I spend a lot of alone time with God. I asked my husband to pray for me last week and he asked what should he pray for, and I simply said for God to draw me closer to Him. The HIM is God. Since asking for that prayer, I have heard God tell me three times this week what my purpose is, it is to live an extraordinary life.
To achieve my purpose He has asked only two things from me- ministry and mission.
1 Corinthians 1: 4-9 Paul said:
“I always thank God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in Him you have been enriched in every way- in all your speaking and in all your knowledge- because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.”

Ministry of reconciliation. – My Testimony
Mission in the world- To tell the good news of Jesus Christ, the way to eternal life.
Every believer has a ministry and a mission.
God put me on Earth to live an extraordinary life to have a ministry and a mission.
God desires every one to be saved and come to know the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
God wants you to live an extraordinary life, too. All it takes is knowing Jesus as your personal savior. There is no salvation from eternal hell except for personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. So today take the time to ask Jesus into your heart it's very simple, just honestly say, "Jesus is Lord" and if you believe with all your heart that God raised him being (Jesus) from the dead. God will accept you and save you today. Following God's way and heeding his wisdom we are promised an extraordinary life on Earth and Eternal life in Heaven.

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