Since I was diagnosed with cancer I’ve believed that God was
telling me having cancer is an opportunity.
It is an opportunity to do things I did not have time for when I was
working. I thought He wanted me to be
the artist I never had time to be. Yes, I am supposed to do art, but more than
art, He wanted me to write. I’ve felt -
over and over again - He wanted me to write some of my life experiences
especially the ones where I’ve known, without a doubt, that He spoke to
me.
I know some of you are skeptical because a lot of people don’t
believe God speaks to us today. That is
not true. I know some people are very
busy and desire control of their lives - to the point - they are actually
afraid to really hear from God. Maybe they
are like I was when I was younger. I was
afraid to hear from Him because I thought - for sure - He would want me to go
to Africa. The funny thing is – now - I
think that would have been really awesome!
Anyway here is a link about being able to know how and if
you are hearing from God:
The first story isn’t the first time I heard from God but it
was the first time I heard Him audibly.
We were renting a nice house in a nice area and I was really
happy where we were living. We had moved
there from a manufactured home, that we owned, but it was small and we needed
more room. Where we lived previously was
also next door to Chuck’s parents. I
love Chuck’s parents but I really think living that close to your in-laws can
cause problems. I don’t remember why we
decided to sell and move but it was a good thing for us and I was very happy
when we did. We moved from the UCF/Christmas
area to the Lake Mary area.
About a year after we moved, Chuck’s parents also decided to
move and bought a house in Oviedo. They
purchased the house before selling their manufactured home. If I remember correctly, they had problems
trying to sell and offered to let us take over payments or they offered some
sort of financial arrangement that would have been very good for us. Chuck thought it would be a great idea but I
had set in my mind that I would never live in a manufactured home (trailer)
again. At the time, the mobile home was in
a nice area and right across the street from the community pool, which would
have been nice, but I said no. I was
adamant. I thought living in a trailer
was going backward. I just did not want
to live there again and I would not budge.
I really don’t remember a lot of the details but I do know Chuck didn’t
agree with me but he wasn’t going to force me either. I felt pretty smug and that I’d won.
Until….
I was sleeping one night and woke up startled to the sound
of a door slamming. I heard very
clearly, “Who are you? Who are you that
you think you are too good to live in a trailer. You
will say yes. You will move. And you will do it now.”
I honestly do not remember how long after that we moved -
but it all happened very quickly.
Moving to the manufactured home ended up being a good place
for us for the time we were there. It
was financially affordable. We had a lot
of older neighbors who were very sweet. We
had access to the pool across the street.
We started going to a church that was fairly close but not the church I
thought we would go to which is another story all on it’s own, for later. It was the right move for us and I was very
humbled by it. Many stories could come
from that but I think this next one is the one I’m supposed to share for now.
Story #2:
About 5 years later we were still living in the same
place.
Chuck’s grandmother was getting older and decided to move to
Florida and live with his parents. After
a while Chuck's parents decided they needed a larger home if Granny was going to continue
living with them. His parents found a
home, bought it, and moved in but again did not sell their current house
first. They were having difficulty
selling the house so they offered to let us rent it.
We were excited about it because it was larger and I had
been praying that if we ever moved that we would have a larger, eat in, family
kitchen. Our kitchen where we were
living, if you were to stand and turn in a circle, you could touch the stove,
sink, dishwasher, counters and cabinets – without stretching - it was extremely
small. When Chuck’s parents offered
their house to us I got very excited but did not want to go against God’s will
after the last experience.
The condition to moving - we had to sell our place
first. We tried a lot of different
things to sell it. We tried listing it in
the paper, we tried sell by owner, we hired a realtor, and I don’t remember
what else. When the contract with the
realtor was over, we felt like giving up.
We thought maybe it just wasn’t God’s will for us to move at that time.
One morning a few days after our contract ran out, I don’t
remember what I was doing, but very clearly - in my mind - I heard, “List the
house in the paper and it will be done in 7 days.” I thought, “We already tried that. I must be imagining things. I don’t think it will work. It will be a waste of time and money.” But, again, I heard, “place an ad in the
paper and within 7 days it will be done.”
I remember calling Chuck at work and telling him what
happened. He said to go ahead and list
it. He didn’t think it would hurt. The first time we’d put an ad in the paper,
we didn’t receive a single call so I really didn’t think anything would happen.
Thursday was the cut off date for placing an ad in the paper
for the weekend. I called and gave the information to the clerk
Thursday morning.
Saturday we got the paper to check our ad. We started getting calls that afternoon. Sunday, we had people come and look at our
home and they made a cash offer with the stipulation of us being out by the following
weekend.
Long story short, we were moved into our new home by the
next Saturday, exactly 7 days later.
God is amazing. God
loves us and is interested in everything we do.
God wants us to trust Him and He wants us to be open to listening to
Him. He does communicate with us either
by the Holy Spirit, feeling convicted, through other people, through
scripture, mentally, sometimes even audibly, and frankly any way He wants
to. Unfortunately we try to limit Him to
our understanding and hearing Him whatever way we think is best. Sometimes we
become so in tune with the world that God’s voice is blocked. I think I allowed myself to get to that point
and maybe that’s why he slowed me down.
I have never spent so much time on a blog post. I wrote this two weeks ago and kept editing
it but I believe it’s time to post it ready or not.
