Love......?

Love.......

It's been playing a huge part in my life since Sunday......I was thinking about it last night and maybe it is a word that should be used more often. Sometimes we know that we love people and we don't say it. I know I have held back from telling people that I love them because it is too soon or we are just friends and that’s just weird. Maybe it is a word that we can throw around a little bit more freely.

In 1 Cor 13: 1-8 it talks so much about love and it is something that we have in our hearts. Love teaches us many things and through love more things are possible. That's what I see anyway.

I was running yesterday and all I could think about was this message from Joyce and wondering why the heck it struck me so much. I think it did because LOVE is what is happening in my life right now. It's in the love of friends and family.

I have a son with my ex-husband who now lives with him and his new wife. At first this was hard for me, not because he has moved on but because my son was going to be influenced by a woman whom I had NO idea who she was. Then, I got the heartbreaking news that he started to call her Mom......that stung really bad and I held resentment towards her because of it and it only increased my anger at my ex for allowing this! I was appalled and disgusted and super super angry. I was also at a point in my life where everything made me angry and I had not accepted God into my heart yet, I was this torn, ugly, rude, ridiculous person that I don't even recognize today.

So, needless to say that over time I got over it and we met one day (can we say awkward!) but I cried like a big fat baby and told her that I was once upset about it but I thanked her for loving my son and appreciated all the she has done for him. This is where things started......she was building a relationship with my parents and my sister and now we are building one ourselves. Things are changing in my life.

Where I once thought that the families should be divided because my ex and I were. Now I realize that it doesn't need to be that way and we can all be nice and loving toward one another. That doesn't mean that we are all going to be best friends but we all respect each other enough to know our places and can all come together because we ALL LOVE my son. Through him we will all learn to love each other and that makes me smile.  To know that we are not "normal" and that we are happy and we can come together for the love that we all share for this child is amazing and I am proud to say that they are all my family too. Love is a powerful thing SO powerful if you just learn to let go and use it more freely, I now have a bigger bunch of people to call family which I accept with open arms. The road that was traveled to get here was not easy (I can only speak for myself). It was hard to accept and not at all easy to forgive and forget the past to start over. I did it with the help of my God, the one who is leading the way in my life that I am slowly letting go of and giving to Him.

Love has the power to conquer anything and through God there is love. So much you seriously won't know what to do with it. Positivity comes from it and you will exude a light that only God can give you. He is LOVE!

Thank you Jesus for the life that you have blessed me with and seeing me through it and silently affirming that it will all be okay. I knew through you that this day would come and I am so thankful for it! Praises to my God!

Fear - Do it afraid

I was reading my daily devotional this morning and it rang like bells in my ears! I couldn't believe it. It's like me week long devotionals have been speaking to me but this one was seriously yelling at me!

So I will give you a little overview of what I read this morning.
"Just because ordinary people take steps to accomplish extraordinary things does not mean that they do not feel fear."

"Fear does not mean that you are a coward. It only means that you need to be willing to feel the fear and do what you need to do anyway. It's one of my favorite phrases: 'Do it afraid!'"

Then Joyce Meyer goes on to ask questions if you are living a life that is full of fear and if you are fulfilled and if not find a way to be fulfilled. Her last quote that touched me was;

"Don't spend one more day living a narrow life that has room not only for you and your fears. Make a decision right now that you will learn to live boldly, aggressively, and confidently."

I mean this is some amazing stuff and it has done nothing but speak to me all day. I want to be a business owner, and I want to step away from the military life but I am so scared but I feel as if my calling is outside the 4 walls that I am living in now. 

I too also fear that I am going to gain the weight back that I have lost. I also fear so many things. At times I feel as if I am being safe.....so you feel that way? Do ever feel like you want to do certain things with your life, but are frozen by fear. All of my successes with the exception of weight loss and my marriage have been mapped out for me. Go to school, do the work, get the degree. Study and behave yourself and you will get promoted at work. Owning a business on the other hand....well not so much! It's scary but I have some tips that maybe you and I could take with us to succeed. 

I learned today about reverse engineering my goals. So what that means is take my goals and write down what I need to do to achieve them and research exactly what I need to do to get to where I want to be. If you feel like you can tackle everything on that list in some time than go for it! I am going to do the same! I am so excited but still scared! 

Forgiveness

Well today I didn't go to church I decided to stay home because the traffic at the Cape was going to be crazy long and I didn't want to spend a few hours commuting back and forth to church so church at home it was. I was listening to Joyce Meyer this morning. I am doing one of her devotionals on my Bible App on my iPad and I was flipping through channels before that and I caught her Battlefield of the Mind Series. I recorded it but later watched it on my ipad as well to get an hour of His Word and teaching this morning. 

 My past isn't something of glamor for a period of my life. I was married to someone and he hurt me physically, emotionally, and verbally. Don't you feel bad for me because I was no saint in that marriage either. Back to the point, I walked away from that marriage defeated, exhausted, and ANGRY. Oh man was I am angry ugly ugly human being. I got into counseling and that helped me to a degree but I needed more so long story short to a few months ago when I was talking to my Senior Chief about how I was doing. We got into the topic of B and I broke down and started crying and the angry ugly Jeannette came out (I was trying to walk in my walk with God so I was a "baby" again). I came out and my Senior Chief told me that I needed to forgive him. HA NO FREAKING WAY HE HURT ME, HE TOOK B AWAY FROM ME, HE ABUUUUUSED ME! ME ME ME ME ME! Here I am married to another man with another child and still living through those dark years of my life. I didn't know how to forgive I didn't know what spiritually that MEANT. Ok I can say I forgive him Jesus can we be done yet? (NOPE) 

 This is the part that I was missing......it wasn't about him the bad one, the mean one. It was about me being able to move on and that is what I learned today. I remember driving home from work a few days after I talked to my Senior Chief....God please help me understand what this forgiveness thing is all about because I have no clue. I am so MAD, it was so UGLY. How do I forgive someone that tormented my brain for so many years? Does it mean that I have to talk to him again? WHAT on Earth does that mean? He didn't even say SORRY! I was the bad guy, I was the one who was a bad Mom etc. etc. Low and behold guess what? I got a phone call a few months later right before I moved and it was HIM the evil one, the one that was so mean to ME. He told me that he did things that were not right in our marriage and that he will always care for me because I am B's Mother, and that he was sorry and it was tormenting him too and he was happy but couldn't move on. 

Here we are miles and miles away from each other probably going through the same things in our mind.......it's amazing how he works and how he gave me everything that I wanted and how today I am able to close the chapter and how the anger is just GONE I swear it's disappeared......Life is truly a blessing and it is better to be happy in your walk on this Earth along side God but also to forgive!