Out of Egypt

These past few years have been a spiritual struggle for me.  I have gone back and forth between being angry at God, ignoring God, and trying but failing to rekindle a love I feel I once had for my creator. I have felt that God isn't listening to me. That I have been forgotten.

About a month ago I received an email regarding the single life and patience.  I vaguely remember it. The only part that stuck out was that it talked about how God delivered his people from Egypt and something or other about how they longed to go back. The only reason I remember this (for those of you who know me well the answer is obvious) is because the word Egypt was involved. This moment at the time was greatly insignificant. Just more justification in my heart that God just doesn't get me and doesn't really care.  That same day, I was out at the beach, throwing sticks for my puppy crying... and asking God... to please please speak to me. I think I remember begging and yelling.. maybe even bribing. But at the time all I felt was alone and unheard.
About a week ago,  I opened up my Bible and the page I so happened to open to had to do with how God delivered his people from Egypt.
Well.. it should have struck me then... to pay attention.. but... as with all things, GOD must strike me over the head quite hard before I stop and listen.  But at this point all that occurred to me was well theres Egypt again, why does everyone hate on Egypt.    GOD in all the infinite Wisdom that a supreme being could possess... knows how I love intrigue and knows that is how I must be "reeled" in. So the following day I was listening to the radio in the morning. I have been doing my best to mix up my love for horrid techno rock music with a bit of praise mixed in.. about 1 song a day... I feel covers my worship singing abilities. So as I switched the station I caught the tail ed of the radio host saying something or other about Egypt.

That is when it occurred to me.  There is something about the story of Moses and the delivery of Gods people from Egypt that God wants me to look at.  Chance would be hearing or seeing the word once or twice... but I figure its not chance and I should investigate what messages I am missing.

So I dutifully googled the delivery of Gods people from Egypt. Yes I know. EPIC fail. Shoulda coulda woulda pulled out the bible.. but.. Google seemed to be the easiest way to solve my curiosity.  In reading I couldn't really relate to the story. Its a story I have heard at least a dozen times. And as it is my favorite story in the Bible.. I know it quite well.. so what is it that I am missing.

God was using my favorite story from the bible, and calling by attention to the particular aspect of deliverance from Egypt.

That  is when it occurred to me... what does Egypt symbolize. Egypt is what enslaved Gods people. Egypt is where God freed his people from. IT is what they longed to return to when they were afraid of the future.

God has rescued me from many poor choices. Poor choices in which I often enslave myself to committing over and over and over again.  When it comes to men and relationships in particular, I prefer to go back, rather than be alone.  It doesn't matter how awful the men or relationship truly was. Its familiar comforts are seemingly more secure than  the unknown of my future.  Just like the people of Egypt.. they wanted to turn around, to go back to the safety and comfort of what they were enslaved too... I want the same.

This notion and idea that occurred to me was confirmed tonight.

I do not usually leave my radio on christain stations. Today I did. When I got in my car after school and turned it on the bible study or discussion that I normally ignore and turn off immediately was on.  The speaker was.. can you guess... talking about how God delivered his people out of Egypt. The speaker shared that the people had such a struggle on the way to the promised land, they argued, failed to trust, and longed to go back to Egypt.

Sounds familiar. I believe God has told me that in my future their is a promised land. One with a  fulfilling and healthy relationship. One in which my life is much more stable than it is right now. Just like the Isrealites, my days are filled with uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, and unbelief.

Several times over the past 6 years of my dark journey I have tried to go back to something awful.  God apparently wants more for me. God puts up every obstacle possible so that I have difficulty returning. God continuously removes people from my life, whom, I begged at the time to have remain. God pushes me forward and onward. I am urged to be patient. As I feel I can not possibly go on, that this journey is so unbearable, I am beckoned away from where I long to return.  I do not know how long my journey is. I do not know when or if I will reach the promised land.

But I do know that tonight I feel loved. I feel like God did listen to me. He did speak to me. And most importantly I listened.

Six and counting

The love of my life is 6. A full six years and still by my side. My baby my boo boo my vaeh.  Lil miss Nevaeh Abrianna is the star and the passion in my life.

Over the last two years her and I have gone through huge transitions together. The bigest transition has come ths last year.  With me getting a full time job and being back in school, I see her less than I would like.I know less than she would like. I struggle at feeling like a "good mother". She goes to school for a good part of the day, but I don't take her, and I can only get her 1 time a week. This year is the first time we have spent so much time apart. Before this, her first 5 years, she was able to go to work with me (thanks ma and pa) and school was not quite as intensive.

I struggle with this. I want to be with her more. To feel like a mom who is more involved. I get to be involved in the early moning when she is still grumpy and doesn't want to get ready for school and at nihgt when dinner, reading, and the fighting bed time occurs. I try to fill our weekends with adventures and "dates" so she knows how important she is to me. But if I am feeling it, the lack of time together, I worry endlessly over whether or not she is as well. 
Even though I feel like a poor mother. I know the truth is she is an amazing little person. She reads stories to me at night now, which took me by suprise. One day she is struggling to read, the next, she is mastering it.  She gossips with me about things that are important to her. Her gossip is the best. She talks about how much she loves her grandparents. How special her "sissy" is and how funny her cousins are and how much she "missing" them. She asks me about her birthdays. Suggesting that when she is 7 she "will be old enough for her own cell phone.. maybe". When I tell her she is a bit young to have a cell phone and that may not happen until shes a teen, she argues in her own silly way and says "I'm 6 and counting mom, I know how to use a phone."
On our dates weekly morning dates we go to starbucks and we chit chat over hot chocolate. She shares what her monster high barbies have been doing and fills me in on their lives.  She asks me questions about my vegetarianism and has shared that she "likes chicken and real milk" and "not your food mom". But she is so aware of the fact I eat differently. She makes sure the food I have been given "is ok for mommy to eat" and she has told me her favorite monster high barbie, Frankie, "eats weird like you mom. She doesn't like to eat animals". 
In her own way she too has learned to be compassionate for animals. She loves "her jersie" and "her kitties". She is very affectionate to them all when she comes home. She takes a moment right when she walks in the door to find each of them and pets them, kisses the, and tells them how much she loves them. It makes my heart soar to see how loving she is.
She not only shows awareness of my needs and things I feel are important, but she seems to have grown a huge heart for the homeless. When we get in the car she grabs gronola bars and puts them next to her seat "in case we see any homeless people mom, they might need something to eat".  I love it.
Again I am just a mother desperately in love with her amazing daughter. I am in awe of who she is and excited to watch her grow and evolve as a person.

Twilight Experience

For those of you who do not know, I became a serious fanatic of the Twilight series over the last year. I read all the books, saw the movie more than once and even dreamt of being bitten. However this blog isn't a critique on my favorite set of novels, or new favorite movie. Its about how easy it is to hope, to believe in something as non existant as Edward Cullen.

Edward Cullen is a fictional character. Nothing about him is real, yet people around the world, have become facisnated with him as though he was real. Now I am not saying people truely beleive in him. But what I am getting at is the fact that it is so easy to beleive in something as make beleive as a vampire, yet the belief in God is often criticized. God has become the stuff of fiction. Science seems to try to exist with out faith. With out hope.

Hope isn't always easy. Neither is faith. To beleive in something you can not see and something you do not understand takes courage. I would have to say that reading a ficitonal book and becoming an avid fan gave me hope that people, perhaps, weren't lost at all. I believe God has just become harder for us HUMANs to see. His love, goodness, patience, mercy, joy, faithfullness, has been drowned out by our media, by our own negative thoughts.

Humans are programed to remember pain... it keeps us alive. iT keeps us from repeating deadly mistakes. So its easy to sit in front of the TV, or read the news paper and take in all the bad. For every 10 negative stories we hear about there might only be one positive one. We feed on the fear, on the negativity. We dont see the miracles. We see people loosing their homes, going hungry, terrorism in hotels, wars brewing... so we ask.. HOW could God allow all of this. God isn't good. He can't possibly exist in a world this bad, and if he does, he must not love us.! Right?

I feel bad for God sometimes. He gets a bad rap. He gets lumped in with us Humans. Just because we are bad. If we do something terrible, God gets blamed. The opposite doesn't tend to happen. Someone gets a great job with benefits an great pay and buys a beautiful house, they say I am so glad I got that education and that I worked so hard. God isn't part of why those things happened, yet when that same someone looses their home and job.. they say why God... WHY!

I believe now that you have to give people hope, feed them miracles, and then God would become easier to see. Our world drowns out hope. The one we have accepted any way. The majority of us have accpeted that miracles just dont happen anymore. Some of us have fought. Some of us keep fighting. We used to have shows like fact or fiction, unexplained mysteries, Real life miracles, but those shows have disappeared. I believe small shows like that, will keep people curious. Keep people hopeful.
I believe hearing about miracles, something unexplained will light a fire in a person. Keep them alive in the soul. I would call this the Twilight experience. Just reading about it would make you want it to happen to you.! So as member of our society, we should keep trying to find a way to feed other people hope. I want to do the same, I will do the same. I will work hard to focus on the good.. and faith wont seem so hard. Hope will become easy, and miracles they would happen daily.


My friend Heather told me last night that it snowed in Texas.! It took a lot of faith to just believe her text, but then I saw the pictures, and then I beleived. My point being it takes faith to believe. Sometimes we wont always be allowed to see the snow.. but faith.. makes believing.. and believing creates hope.

If we can believe it snowed in Texas, and that Edward Cullen truely is the perfect boyfriend, I think we can believe that God is Good and that he loves us. Its time for all of us to have a Twilight experience.