why blog this?

 

As my first entry to my Blog, the question came to my mind.. why?  Why write down my experiences and my journey into a blog for the world to see?  I guess the answer to this is simply, I felt Gods prompting to do exactly that.  You see, I was actually working on a different web site, a business one ( I am also an Interior Decorator /Renovation Consultant) and I was putting together my notes on listing articles that I thought I should blog.  I put that aside to spend some much needed time with God, so I opened my Bible and soaked in His word.

I’ve always loved to write and a couple of years ago, right around the same time our life was unravelling at the seams ( more about that later…) I started writing a prayer journal, simply stated;  I would open Gods word, sometimes with a plan & direction of where I wanted to read, other times wherever I happened to land.  

As I read I would pray that God would show me what He had for me to learn and I would underline it.  After I would go back to the underlined verses or portions and prayerfully read them again , once more asking God to show me what He would have me learn from it.  And amazingly, ever single time, He would show me things I had never thought about or put into context in my own life.  

This became my jumping off point on how I would pray and I simply wrote…every word that came into my heart and mind, and I wrote my prayer to Jesus in my prayer journal ( that very prayer journal you see in the photo above).

I actually planned to have this blog go live a year ago, but every time I seemed to be at that point, another unforeseen storm seemed to prevent me.  I’ve had two deaths in the family in the course of one year and as I spent time healing I had to wait for the Spirit of God to tell me to move.

 Now here we are April 2020, living in an unknown world of Covid 19, the worldwide pandemic that has shaken our world as we know it.  It is in this time that God cleared my schedule and touched my heart with His gentle prompting… “the time is now”, so in obedience to Him, here we go.

The earliest posts of this blog are pre-covid 19, but they still talk about life in the midst of storms and I trust that God still has plans to speak through those entries to you today…  so I trust and obey!  

Now lets jump back to that whole part of my life unravelling and I think it will all start to make sense…

Where we’ve been…

Hopefully, you’ve all met my husband Mike ( there is a photo of him with me on the About page).  As I said there, He is the Love of my life and I thank God for him every day.  But it hasn’t always been that way, you see we met under less than Godly circumstances which created a melt down of lives and fall out, that far exceeded anything I could have imagined in my mind or heart.  ( one day I will write more on that, but not today…) suffice it to say, we had a difficult journey on our hands.  A journey that would lead us to the incredible Grace of God... to Forgiveness and Redemption.  It has not been an easy journey , there have been many obstacles and potholes along the road, but God promised that He would never leave us or forsake us ( Deut.31:8), and we clung onto those words with everything we had.

Fast forward a few years and life was finding a “new normal”.  We were Loving God and Loving Life , serving in the Church and even opened our own Business.  Everything was tracking perfectly… or so we thought.  You see, we made the assumption that if everything was going well God must be blessing it …right?  

Problem was, we rarely asked Him if He was in it.  We rarely asked for His direction or His plans and when we saw the first signs of economic troubles, we didn’t seek Gods wisdom first… we did what we do best, tried to fix things ourselves.  Now, you might ask me; How can you say you Loved God and Loved Life, yet never went to Him for advice or direction?

 That is a GREAT question, and I have come to learn that for me at least ( I can’t speak for anyone else) I think there are many levels of Loving Jesus.  I Loved Him for what He did for me.  I Loved him for grace, forgiveness and an eternity prepared with Him… but I had never learned to Love him in ALL areas of my life.  And honestly… that is still a work in progress!!  

Anyways, as we watched things unravel in our business, things we simply had no control over, we did everything we humanly could to prevent collapse.  We always seemed to get that one job that would  tie us over so we could pay off the last job, at just the last minute (obviously God was in this, right??)

 Problem was, we just weren’t very quick learners… we spent over 4 years on that hamster wheel of ‘stealing from Peter to pay Paul’ as the saying goes.  All the while the debt was mounting until we opened our eyes one day as saw it for the Mount Everest it was… everything seemed pretty bleak and hopeless.  

So once again, we dove in and tried to fix it ourselves ( yeah I know…our eyes were opened but I guess our hearts were still pretty hard & stubborn).  With the mounting debt, we looked at the propeties we owned and decided we needed to sell something.  We moved Mikes mom into the house with us, renovated her condo and put it up for sale.  

Unfortunately, the condo market was flat and we were unable to sell.  At this point, we were hitting our knees… we always do when the troubles are bigger than our ability to fix.  We realized that we had to sell our house and move into the condo, ( yup all 3 of us… 900 sq.ft condo).  Our house sold fast, but to our horror it barely made a dent in the mountain of debt.  

Now, prior to this decision to sell, we had booked a vacation, fully aware it could be our last, to mexico.  We made the move into the Condo November 1st, and Dec.31st flew to Mexico for our seemingly untimely holiday.  Yet it was here on the beach in Mexico that God got real with us and more importantly we got real with God.

 It was on that beach that I learned to Love the Word of God.  It was there I saw that everything I needed for life was written in His Word, and it was there that He opened my heart to its meaning for my life.  

So was Jesus on this journey with us… without a doubt.  He often lets us make the mistakes we are going to make and use those to draw us to himself.   And on that beach He changed me… He changed the desires of my heart ; off of me and onto Him.

Where we are…

The journey these last couple of years has been difficult; we have lost our home, our condo and our business, we watched it all fall apart and fall away.  Our mountain of debt has led to my husbands personal & business bankruptcy, and now at 57 and 61 years old we are starting over.  

As I write this, I have no idea what the future holds , but I can tell you that I am at peace with Gods plan.  I continue to lean in on the promises from His word, I know that ‘He is for us and not against us’, and I know that “whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster” Proverbs 1:33 ESV.  These have become life verse for me, as have so many in the writings that I will share in my blog.

Now back to the beginning where this post started… I was preparing for this new website and online business… this time prayerfully planning what God would have me do, and in this very prayer time as I was writing in my prayer journal, I very clearly sensed Him say “ I want you to Blog this!”.  

I actually stopped my writing and asked him again… This Lord?… my prayer journal?… my prayers to you?? And again, as clearly as if He was sitting with me I sensed His confirmation… YES, I was to Blog my journey and this is how Journey 4 Jesus began….

Hope you’ll join me on the journey…

If you’ve gotten this far, I’m hoping that that is good news, that in some way my journey thus far has spoken to you in some way… In that, I praise Jesus and give Him all the glory.  It is my hopes and my Prayer that God will use my journey for others who are sojourning on this thing called life….

Welcome, and join me on My Journey 4 Jesus

Blessings, Janet