Getting What You Ask For: An Exuberant Declaration of Faith

A tad over a month ago, I posted on Facebook that I was in search of a vehicle under $4k and that I wasn't really picky about make and model and honestly what was important to me was sunroof, leather seats and a stereo system good enough to drown out everything mechanically wrong.

I got what I wanted. Isn't she a beauty? Sunroof. Leather Seats. Stereo with cassette AND six-disc CD player. Bonus, nothing mechanically wrong. Yes. Yes. It is a Lexus. It's irrelevant. Just more icing.

I am grateful that I got everything I asked for in this vehicle. I am astounded at how it all happened.

There are some very specific challenges in my life that I have been leaving off the blog because I really don't want to give them anymore life than they already have taken on. So that being said, the night that I met with the bankruptcy attorney rather than get down about the long and the short of things outside of my control, I decided to kind of poke around and see what vehicles would be under the exemption limit. This popped up on a search on the high end of the criteria. A few other things that caught my attention as well but then I just sort of filed it all in the back of my head. I had a number of things to do before I got to that point.

About three weeks went by before I sold the vehicle I needed to sell. The check hold gave me a few days to really do some legwork on what was next. At the time, I still had another vehicle but not one that was going to last long-term. This car was still coming up in searches. Being on the high end, I dismissed it. Well, at least I tried too. A strange chain of events caused me to be on the phone with my insurance agent. So, I figured I would ask for a quote and that would end the fantasy of this vehicle. My jaw dropped. About the same as I had been paying.

Hmm, okay. Then, my thought was this Lexus RX300 has to be a teaser car. Emailed the dealer. Nope. So I scheduled a test drive that night. She's not perfect but she's better than a lot of what was out there in my range.

I need to back up. Around the same time that I met the bankruptcy attorney, Psalm 27 started popping up all over the place for me. In whole and in part. For those of you not familiar, Psalm 27 is titled in the New King James Version as "An Exuberant Declaration of Faith" and goes as follows:

An Exuberant Declaration of Faith

A Psalm of David.

27 The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?
² When the wicked came against me
To eat up my flesh,
My enemies and foes,
They stumbled and fell.
³ Though an army may encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me,
In this I will be confident.

⁴ One thing I have desired of the Lord,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.
⁵ For in the time of trouble
He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle
He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.

⁶ And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me;
Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.

⁷ Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
⁸ When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”
⁹ Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.
¹⁰ When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the Lord will take care of me.

¹¹ Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.
¹² Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries;
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.
¹³ I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.

¹⁴ Wait on the Lord;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!

Back to the story at hand. After my test drive, I made an offer and while I waiting I noticed the number on the dealer plate that they had slapped on for my drive. 2710. So, in an effort to not worry about what was being done with my offer I pulled it up. The second verse jumped out at me...then the Lord will take care of me.

I am by no means a prosperity theology person. I don't believe that obedience brings material wealth or some other ways Biblical truth has been twisted to justify less than Biblical gains. But I do believed that God provides. And on April 7, He provided me with exactly what I asked for: leather seats, sunroof and a kick-ass stereo. I am grateful, so grateful for the way it all worked out.

As for the fact that it's a Lexus. I am pretty sure that can be filed under the way He uses the foolish to confound the wise. Or maybe it really is that He contends with those who contend with me and a little something about living well being the best revenge or something like that. I don't know. I am not bragging. I just want to encourage you to not settle. Don't let your circumstances dictate your choices or your critics get in the way of you receiving your blessings. Playas gonna play and haters gonna hate but a little faith and the right intentions who knows you could be driving a Mercedes Benz and get that color TV and your night on the town.

Don't think, just believe.

And be careful what you ask for you might just get it!!

I Don't Care About Making Money, I Just Love Writing Blogs...

There was a Paula White post on Facebook tonight that prompted me to repost with my own commentary and commenting that I want to do something as much as Buddy loves selling carpet. 

I am or rather I have let myself get separated from my purpose. I have let circumstances and a whole mess of bad ideas, bad behavior and negative bullshit from others distract me from what is important. 

A friend once commented that she felt that if I could do nothing but draw and write and entertain people all day that I would be a happier person. It's true to some degree. Writing and drawing have always been strange pressure release valves for me. Once upon a time I was good at both, I don't know so much anymore but I do enjoy them both still. Actually, to be honest she said the she felt that writing and drawing were the same as breathing to me and that she was fairly certain I was suffocating from lack of output. That was a long time ago but still some truth there. 

I blog for me and the ten people who read it. I let one very negative critic hinder me. I let fear render me silent. I should have been sharing the story of my life as it has unfolded because well, I should have. I have in the past written about things very much from my heart and received some very grateful thank yous from ladies who thought they were alone in that particular thought pattern, that particular frustration, that particular despair. There is too much quiet desperation in the world.

There are things I need to say. 

For me.

For you.

Just because. 

Are you in? 

Circle yes or no.

Be well friends, the best is yet to come.

Happy Mother's Day!

This one goes out to all the mamas and all the baby's mamas and the baby's mamas mamas and to mothers and all other mentoring souls this Mother's Day. May your blessings be neverending...like your laundry!

Celadon Road Earth Day Enrollment Special ends April 30,2015

Join today at www.myceladonroad.com/mygreenheaven

Celadon Road, the direct sales company with a focus on promoting greener, healthier, more socially responsible living is offering a low-cost enrollment in honor of Earth Day.

Celadon Road offers a wide array of products for men, women, children and even pets. From skincare regimens to reusable straws to dog beds the product line allows consultants to offer quality sustainable products for every member of the family.

During this Earth Day promotion, new consultants can get started for $59.00 (plus tax). This Earth Day Essentials kit includes:

• Laundry Detergent
• 2 oz Stain Remover
• 2oz Odor Eliminator
• Body Lotion 
• Deodorant
• Eye MakeUp Remover
• Green Aligator Bar Soap
• Lip Tint
• Insect Repellent
• 10 catalogs
• 50 order forms
• 1st Full Month of Website FREE ($10/month after as of 4/9/15).
• Celadon Road T-Shirt

Plus, at sign up there are option to order additional specialty kits starting as low as $62.00. Celadon Road offers weekly company wide training as well as ongoing support and networking with other consultants. The ongoing eligibility requirements make it easy for some who is looking for a hobby/personal-type opportunity to stay active but also provide incentive for those who aspire to making Celadon Road a career journey.

As a founding consultant, I invite you to start on your road to success by reading more about this April Enrollment Special here and then clicking the "Join My Team" link. Interested in the products but not ready to join? Then take a minute to subscribe to the Celadon Road Purely Speaking newsletter.

First Day of the Rest of...

March. Yep, that's true but I was gonna say life. 

First day of the rest of my life.

First day of the rest of your life. 

I had something more profound rumbling around in my head but the laziness of snow has brought about some amnesia. 

I like the stillness that snow brings. 

How suddenly our busyness becomes unimportant. The millions of things I might have done today gave way to a quiet(ish) day at home with my son and daughter. 

All and all, I'd say I am off to a great start. 

What about you? How did you spend the first day of the rest of your life? And if it were the last day would you regret the way you spent it? 

Be well friends, until we meet again.

Don't click like, just send money...

This has been rolling around me head a while. I keep holding off on writing it because well, it's a tricky post to write. How do I say what I gotta say without offending and alienating folks? Those who know me would know that there is an element of blowing off steam and frustration in this post but those who don't might just think I am crazy. Plus, I am not all about airing the unmentionables so that all the neighbors can talk about the holes in my UnderRoos.

I am really grateful for the way that God has provided for me and my family...especially this year. I am grateful that He has used my husband, my friends, my family, my church, and several random strangers to bless me this year. I have everything I need today. I have a roof over my head, food in the cupboard, clothes on my back, transportation and a lil bit o extra cash to splurge on a Chic Fil A lunch today. What I am about to say is not at all about lack per se or any perceptions thereof. It is about fully recognizing that you gotta do what you can so that God can do what you can't. Well, at least, that is how I feel about it.

It has been a very interesting year for me personally, professionally, spiritually and in just about every other -ly you can think of. All the pieces of my life are splayed out like some sort of insanely complicated connect the dot puzzle. Some things feel like the end of the world but I know in my core that the stock market always goes up, the sun always rises, kitty cats always land on their feet and God is always on time.
As I have been on this leg of my journey, my disdain for systems has been reinforced. Legal system, welfare system, two-party system, System of a Down...disappointments at best. Ten thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean is a good start! I have now found a group of people who listen less to me and disrespect me more than my own children. I try not to be snarky or jaded or confrontational. I really do. BUT. Um. Yeah. I digress.

Like MC Hammer, I realize that we got to pray just to make it today, so I do. It's not a magic genie or a cash machine. So, I have prayed and I continue to pray and I will pray about this whole situation that some days makes me want to randomly text those who stand by me with "Jane! Get me off this crazy thing!"

I started the year makin' magic at Macy's. I pounded the pavement. I started a Master's degree program. I let go of a lot of things. I seriously considered panhandling. My health prohibited me from plasma. I sold just about every CD and DVD that belonged to me. Yes, even most of my beloved Tom Waits collection. I kept on keeping on. I kept on swimming. I am not at Macy's anymore. I have a new job with real potential. As quickly as my graduate career started, it ended due to a family emergency and in it's wake an administrative issue put a roadblock in re-enrollment. Oh, and that whole lawyer issue, ugh. Good year. Bad year. I don't know.

So, the culmination of all this stuff is that I find myself as if I am in a place where I need to go zero to sixty and I need to do it yesterday. It's part of what got me back into writing this again. When I don't write, it all stays in my brain and manifest in strange ways like thinking that maybe the Backstreet Boys are a good band. There is potential in my job but it's a sales job on a big ticket item that is not an impulse purchase so there is a whole pipeline to build up and patience to hone. There's little sides too like Celadon Road and Thrive and one more am contemplating. I like the Celadon products and heaven knows I need to keep busy so I took a leap there and opened shop at http://www.myceladonroad.com/MYGREENHEAVEN/ knowing that every little bit helps and that at the very least the discount on my personal purchases will help me out. I am not "Thrive"ing right now but I do recommend it the products and can vouch for the energy so if you are looking for something like that go explore at http://findyournew.le-vel.com/.

Then there is that whole sending money thing. I have at points in the last year considered writing compelling copy for a crowdfunding campaign. Ah, but there's my whole not wanting to give credence to some people, places and things in my life and a bit about privacy and yeah, to some degree if I told you everything you wouldn't believe me any way. It's been a Big Fish kinda year but The Great One says that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take so... if you want to just sent money follow this link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=47QQ2N97YGG48 
People, a lot lot lot of people, keep asking what they can do to help me. Pray is always my first answer but may be I don't have what I need because I have been too ashamed, too embarrassed, too prideful to ask. That being said, small bills, non-sequential, just slip them under the crack in the garage door or leave them in the mailbox.

...or does it explode...

I am not sure what has me thinking of the Langston Hughes poem "Harlem" this morning. Well, not entirely. I mean here we are December 16, 2014, the year is winding down and we are all like kittens ready to pounce on a new ball of yarn and hopeful that 2015 will bring less tangles and more unabashed fun and fortune. I am no different.

I'd like to put the last roughly 390 days of my life through a sifter and shake out all the ickiness, keeping the loveliness and working toward being a better version of me going forward. Not that the ickiness is entirely bad per se. I have grown this year in ways that I never thought imaginable and regret that God had to get my attention that way that He did.

I still believe. I believe that God has great things in store for me and my family. I believe that he has ever so much more than we could ask for or imagine right around the corner. I believe that he does in fact wish to prosper Ryan, Jordan, Wesley and myself and not to harm us. I believe that the best, the absolute best, is yet to come.

I heard a sermon recently about transition and I really liked what was said about the pain of transition. It's like you are a caterpillar. You know you can't crawl anymore but you are not quite ready to fly. That's a lot how I feel right now. Believing that breakthrough is right around the corner BUT not everything is in alignment so I wait, dragging myself along on my little caterpillar feet dreaming about the wings I am going to have when I finally bust out of this God-tight cocoon. And for anyone who just read that and said to themselves, Um, Jen, if you are in a cocoon, you can't be crawling around if you're in a cocoon...I am going to throw an extra prayer up for you. Stop getting in the way of your own blessing with limited thinking.

I have experienced shades of black in the last 390 days of my life that I didn't know existed...and I have taken college level art classes! But by the grace of God, I woke up this morning in my beautiful house with my two beautiful kids with breakfast to serve and coffee to drink and car to drive the boy to school in and ever so much more than other people have and I am blessed to have been so well provided for by God these past 390 days. Some day, I am going to write it all out to share. All the ways that God has taken these shades of black and filled them with vibrant, living color. Blessed and favored...but not without struggle, not without worry, not without some days of completely spastic angst and a steady stream of F-bombs in my internal (and sometimes external) monologue. I have chosen to believe that God can and will restore everything in my life that needs to be restored. I have chosen to believe that God will fight for me and that he will deliver me and my family. I have chosen to believe that there is nothing that is impossible with Him.

I don't know about you but I intend to spend the next 14 days getting myself into a super spring-loaded position so that I can explode out of the starting block into 2015 that makes every tear, every sorrow, every confusion, all the grief, all the loss, all the stupidity, all the anger, all the everything that seems like every imaginable plague has befallen me all at once, suddenly seem insignificant in the glow of what it all unfolded into.

Explosions are messy but it beats imploding and sinking and living in despair.