If only you will ask, I will help you

Can I walk on water if I run fast enough?

The title of this post are words God put in my mind so many years ago as I came awake from a very bad dream to bring me back to him. In my younger years I suffered much. I was a walking example of Murphy's Law for many years of my young life. I remember one really bad day in particular that I had stopped by to see my Brother, Larry, on my way home from work. He knew what I had been going through and he made this comment to me, "Look at it this way. You are already at the bottom. So things can't get any worse."

I went home that day to find HRS (now called the department of children and families) on my doorstep. Now this was allowed by God and I now know this. How do I know... well check this out. That morning I had left for work before the kids got on the bus as was usual. The bus came to the front of the house a short time after I left each morning and the kids simply walked out the front door and onto the bus. So it was to be a typical day. We had a dog then named Buster and the kids let Buster out the back door each morning before getting on the bus. But this particular day they didn't. They left him in the house. We didn't leave Buster in the house during the day as he literally would pull the house apart. I mean laundry would get pulled out of the laundry closet, cushions would get pulled off the couch, the trash would get knocked over and garbage drug to his favorite resting spots around the house, and with no one to take him out he would leave little stinky and wet gifts every where. Also on this particular day the school some how missed that my son was in school and that afternoon sent a truant officer to my house. When no one answered the door the truant officer, believing my son was inside hiding from him and not answering, went to the condo offices and had the lady there let him in to our condo. Well... you know what they found. Not just my normal sink full of breakfast dishes... no... they found that and all of Buster's mess. Of course, thinking (and you know God has his hand in this because who would have a house that looked and smelled like that) that this was the way we lived, they called HRS. So when I got home there they on my door step.

I knew the worker pretty well from my days as a Deputy Sheriff and she was truly upset because I seemed to be taking it all so lightly, as if I didn't realize the seriousness of it. But I didn't. I didn't think anyone would think that anyone would live in a house like that. I thought she would know that what I was telling her about the kids leaving the dog inside was pretty evident. But she got upset and told me she could take my kids from me and take me to jail and I needed to take this seriously. Whoa!! I suddenly got this big knot in my throat realizing that she didn't see the truth of it and really believed that we could live this way. (I don't know how to this day) So I agreed to have someone come out to the house twice a week to see that it and the kids were all OK for a few months. Hey... no biggie, especially since this was the final straw with the dog.

By the time they left the kids began arriving home and I loaded them in the car with the dog and went and chewed my brother out for jinxing me!! Then I gave him the dog. Things continued to be bad in my life. One day a close friend suggested I send the kids out to live with their Dad for a year or two while I got on my feet. The same day that happened my kids were left in a classroom because Mom didn't have the money for their field trip so they stayed at the school and waived good-bye to their friends and greeted them back later when they returned. In the interim they colored and did busy work at a table in the library. It was the push that made me give serious thought to what had been suggested. I contacted the kids Dad and asked what he thought. He was fine with it but said I would have to sign over custody while they were there because he was going to be moving to Germany as was his military assignment. Instead of seeing that as a bad thing, I trusted him and thought what a neat experience it would be for the kids. After all my twins were born in Germany so it would give them the chance to learn more about the country they were born in. So off they went and no sooner had the ink been put to paper their Daddy informed them that I didn't love them and had dumped them in his lap because I didn't want them anymore. Remember the whole Murphy's Law thing. And it didn't stop there. But I will spare you as that isn't where this is supposed to be going. I could right a book on unhappy things. But I'd rather stick with the point of this post.

So needless to say, I was at an all time low in my life with my kids gone. I wouldn't say I was depressed but I was unhappy. I turned my back on God. I told anyone who asked that I'd rather believe that there was no God than believe there was a God that would let me go through all I had been through. I looked into other belief choices. Wicca, Earth worship and the like. I found that all they did was replace one God with another. The earth, the moon, directional God's, you name it. I had been disappointed by THE one and only God. Why on earth was I going to start believing that if I burned some incense or dropped some water or special oil in this direction or that or inscribed stones with symbols and wrote what I wanted or burned specific candles that it would ever make anything different. So I decided that I was just going to believe in me amd what did and didn't happen in my life was a direct result of what I did or didn't do. No outside forces. No God's or anything else. Just me. And that is just what I did.

It was about 3 or 4 years of this and I was doing OK. I didn't feel the deep happiness in my life that I wanted. After all I couldn't get my kids back due to the use of the stupid Soldiers and Sailors act that protected their Dad and left them in misery with people who continually worked against me. But I was busy. I was working. I had met what would be my future husband and eventually married him. And finally I managed to get my children back home. And then it happened...

I was dreaming. I was being chased by evil. I was in a place with lots of stairs and outside upper level walkways that led from building to building. I would run one way and there it would be. I would turn and run another. Every time I thought I had found the right path there was evil and I had to turn and run to find another. I finally ended up on a path that led to one of the buildings and I knew, as I looked at the big double doors, that it was locked up. I was out on the walkway. It was high up and there was no where to go and evil had blocked the path and was slowly closing in on me. Suddenly I heard what I knew was God's voice or what I guess my mind would imagine his voice to be and he said, "If only you will ask, I will help you." It was so strong and clear that I startled awake as I heard it. I knew it was God beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I spent the day thinking about it. Trying not to let it get clouded over like so many dreams will if you don't talk about them or write them down. I didn't want to tell any one as I knew it would sound like I was some religious nut rather than a baby that had just been awakened by her loving Father. I relate people who say they hear God actually physically speaking to them as nuts who go commit awful crimes, murders and so on saying God spoke to them and told them to do it. So telling anyone that I had physically heard God's voice was not an option. OK, so I admit it, I did finally confide in my husband who I knew loved me unconditionally... even if I was suddenly becoming some religious nut who claims to have heard God's voice. Of course I assured him that the voice was out of a dream so my mind had created it, but the message was from God and that I knew was true beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And it changed me. It opened the door back to God, whom I always knew was there but denied. And eventually God blessed me with the insight to see why he had allowed those awful things in my life and I knew that he had to do them just the way he had to lead me to where I was. And I was given an insight that no preacher yet has agreed with. God does not test us. He does not test us to find out what he already knows. He doesn't just say... "Hey. Let's test your faith so I can show you how faithless you are or how faithful you are." God is not that cruel. But God does allow thing to happen in our lives to lead us to where we need to be. To keep us on the path he has designed for us. The path that is his will for us and our lives. I will argue this to the day I die that God does not just randomly say "Hey! Let's kill off both your parents unexpectedly because I want to test you." That's garbage. He doesn't allow children to become ill so he can test your faith. He knows you are human and are going to hurt and sometimes find yourself in doubt. He knows exactly what it will do to you and where it will lead you and who it will affect and change and lead to where they need to be to be in line with God's will for their lives.

I actually started to write a book I was going to title "God, if this is a test, I fail!" All about the subject of God not testing us but leading us with the things he allows in our life. I mean... think about it... you walk in and get fired from your job, go home to find your wife has left you and your dog is dead. What would you rather it be... a test so God can see what he already knows or God leading you down his path that will eventually lead to the job you should have had that you would have never have taken the chance to even get because the wife you had really was not the partner you were meant to be with and had you under her thumb and the dog was going to suffer terribly and God took him home early to avoid that and to give you the freedom to move into that apartment that was close to the building that you ended up finding that job at because it was just around the corner? (I think that was the longest run on sentence I have ever written. LOL)

OK, off my soap box. The point of this was to talk about asking God for help. And how God brought me back to him by saying that to me in the midst of a very bad, but realistic, dream. I still try not to ask God for too much. I believe he is in control of every aspect of my life, so I still catch myself asking him for silly things like to please let the line at the post office be short so I can get in and out of there. Yet, I still add, "Only if it be your will." Because as much as I want to breeze in and out of there, if it isn't God's will... then he knows I will accept that long line or that lady with three packages who wants to know all about all the different shipping options for each one.

God is there for us. Listening and being an awesome God. He knows what we want and he gives us what he knows we need to lead us where we need to be to find the happiness that he wants us to have. And when we fight it we suffer the consequences. Like trying to make things happen in our time rather than trusting in God's timing. Boy has God taught me lesson after lesson about that... but that's a whole different post. God wants us to ask for his help. He wants to carry us through the rough times. He wants to soothe our hearts when they are breaking. He want to cool our brow when we are sick. He wants to wrap us in the warmth of his love and keep us happy and whole forever more. All we have to do is ask. :o)*