Being Part of the 1%

As spring and summer approaches and everyone including myself cant wait to spend more time outdoors in the warm sunshine,  I'm reminded (as I see my hand while reaching for my toothbrush and I exhale all the oxygen in my lungs through my nostrils)...I am part of the 1% of the worlds population that has the disease called vitiligo.  It is an auto immune disease that causes ones immune system to attack the melanocytes cells (these are the cells that produce pigment in the skin) and destroy them.   So in short, my body attacks and destroys its self. Way to go body!!!! There is no cure and due to the fact there is no "significant" health risks there has not been much research done compared to other diseases. I have dealt with "my spots" since I was about 12, that was around the time a spot got large enough to notice and cause alarm. Now don't get me wrong I am very lucky that my skin tone is light, so in the winter months my exposed spots are not too noticeable.  Most of my condition can be covered with clothing. I have spots on my hands and feet but just this week I discovered there is a new spot that has appeared on my right knee, its still small but as I know it is just the beginning of a larger spot in the future.  I am lucky that on my face only around my eyes have depigmented so far, it is common for the depigmentation to occur around the nose, mouth and ears also. But unless you are one of the few to see me without any of my makeup on you would never know.  I have learned over the years ways to hold my hands so my spots are not noticed and it is also why I love shirts with pockets, hoodies are my friend!!!  I have been asked whats wrong with my hands, if I've been burnt, I've encountered a couple mean kids through the years and I've also been teased by loved ones.  This disease may not have any "significant" health risk or be physically pain causing but it has very SIGNIFICANT emotional and psychological effects on the person living with it.  As if growing up in a world consumed by body image isn't hard enough for every teenage girl add a disease you can do nothing about and affects your SKIN to the mix. As I said before I'm lucky the severity of my condition can be covered with clothes and now that I'm in my mid 30s that isn't a big deal at all, but as a teenage girl being invited to pool parties, the beach, and the lake, having vitiligo added another degree of hyperventilation. Along with the normal stress any girl goes through preparing to attend a function, a bathing suit for me was a nightmare! Like Freddy Kruger, Friday the 13th, Poltergeist kind of nightmare, it totally terrifies me!!  Not once in my life have I had a bathing suit I was comfortable in (heck I'm not even comfortable in my own skin), one that I actually liked, nor have I been able to get the one I really wanted because my spots may show! I don't like bathing suits, and as I have found out most women don't, but my concern wasn't ever how my body looked in a bathing suit so much as it was dealing with someone seeing my spots. But wait.....Hold on...wait right there for a moment..... there is more.....there is one more thing EVERY woman can not stand to see in the mirror... every girls horror...GRAY HAIR!!!!!!!! Oh yes, no pigmentation in the skin means......yep you guessed it....none in the hair that grows from said skin!!! As a result I have had gray patches around my ears since I was 20.  Lucky again my light hair color has concealed it but I know its there, just like I know the spots are. I remember being in a fast food restaurant when I was in my teens, a young lady with a darker skin tone then mine was working behind the counter she also had vitiligo, there was a group of people who said some really hurtful things about her condition and were poking a whole lot of fun. I knew these people but they did not know I shared her condition.  My skin tone was lighter so it wasn't as noticeable and unlike this young woman at this point in my life the spots on any of my exposed areas were minimal.  Because of this experience I have never shared this part of me out of fear of rejection. I have even said yes to the question "Have you been burned?" because at the time being burned carried less shame than having a disease no one understood. I know my embarrassment and constant attempts to conceal my condition have scarred not only me but one of my most intimate relationships.  As I've grown in my relationship with God I have learned that God created me this way for a reason. One of the diagnoses states that my body mistakenly attacks and destroys its own cells.  I know God makes no mistakes, He formed me on purpose, He made me unique (part of the 1%) on purpose, so why do I hide the one thing that sets me apart from so many. Because I've listened to the world that told me being different is ugly, its weird,  disgusting, unwanted, undesirable, that I should be ashamed and hide, that I'm unattractive because I have spots on my skin. You see though what the world and the flesh like and desire changes almost daily. Whats in today is out tomorrow, this worlds image of beauty fades with time, with age, it changes.  But what will never change is that I have vitiligo and most importantly my God never changes.  I have fell in love with my skin as I have fell deeper in love with God, and as I know with each passing year I will lose more and more color from my skin until its gone, I know I will never lose the color in my heart because it is Gods home and I am His!!!! My Body is not mistakenly attacking its self its doing what God created it to do, for a purpose only He knows! 

Psalm 139:13-16  

For you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mothers womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and WONDERFULLY MADE; YOUR WORKS ARE WONDERFUL, I know that full well. MY frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

For His Glory Not Mine


After an incident with someone I care deeply about sent me into a whirlwind of emotion and tears I called out to God, I'm sure you to have had these events in your life.   The ones where someone you love or look up to does something so hurtful and self destructive, not only to themselves but to everyone in their wake that you just want answers.   You want to know why people and God stand and watch it happen.   Im talking about those moments when your enraged that good people are doing horrible things that go against everything they say they believe in.   Those situations that happen to all of us, at sometime, where we go to God and throw our hands up and say WHY?  Why did you let this happen?  Why do I have to suffer, while they get a free pass?  Why aren't you doing something?  Why Me?   Why does everybody just sit back and watch someone self destruct?   The list of whys may be different for each of us but still uniquely the same for everything we think that is unfair in our lives.    In my incident, the emotions and confusion swirled like a tornado inside of me and as I'm on my knees before God my question, my plea is....Why?  Why are you calling me to this purpose, why have you pointed me in a direction that continues to break me, to test every fabric of my being....again?  Why are you taking me through the wilderness, while they are dancing in the streets?  As I cry out and sit in that place where my flesh, that's full of anger, bitterness and brokenness fights to over power my spirit that is full of faith, hope and love; a calmness comes over me.   Even at a time when my flesh is throwing questions at God, even when I am allowing my flesh power over my faith, the Lord is there.  As this calmness covered me I was reminded of Exodus 14:14 "I will fight for you, you need only be still." God is fighting for us all that love and follow him, the battle may not look the way we think it should, but He IS fighting for us.    "you need only be still" I struggled with what this really meant for a few days and while studying in the verses that are before and after 14:14 and, God revealed the meaning of His words and more insight to the big picture.   I'm sure I'm not the only one the Father has shook His head at and said my silly child its not about you, no really child I'm serious its not.   In my situation "you need only be still" means this ..... it isn't my fight, its a spiritual matter, one I have no business sticking my nose in nor do I have a single weapon to bring to this fight. Its not instructions to lay down and be bulldozed but it is a call to be more like Christ.   To show Gods love, forgiveness, and grace when it is not deserved, when its hard, when its pushed away and pushed out, when it is totally and completely rejected. This is a very hard thing to do, especially when someone is blatantly hurting you and yet calling themselves a believer.   We tend to think that we can change someones heart, that we have the power to turn their life around but there is only one that knows what each of us need, individually, and that's God.   There comes a time when we have to realize what we are here to do.... to KNOW HIM and MAKE HIM KNOWN!    We play a role in the battle but we are not the commander or front runner.   God always goes before us.   We don't know the true state of someones heart, where they really are with God, all we know is what they let us see.   So there is no way we can go to battle for someone else soul, we are not equipped with the weapons to fight that battle.   We are equipped though with an arsenal of weapons to fight for our own soul, the Bible...the Word of God and by fighting for our own soul and living by Gods every word we will make Christ known.   Every word of the Bible is clear and indisputable, its a clear set of commands and instructions on how to know Him and to make Him known.  In every word you will find that our call in knowing him is a call to be different, a call not to conform to the ways of this world.  Those who know Him are to be DIFFERENT, they speak different, they look different, they live different, they RESPOND different.  When the world says "you deserve better.. you deserve more than what you've been handed", those who know him say I deserve hell, I deserve nothing more BUT because my God loves me he sent his son to die for me and in Christ I have all I need.  (John 6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life: whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.")    When the world says "Life is short do what makes you happy!"  Those who know him say I have but a short time here on earth to serve my Lord, to follow his commands, to live by his word and to live in a manner that glorifies God and in that alone I find a Joy that surpasses all that is found here on earth.  (Matthew 16:24-26 "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?)   When the world says put up you arms and take those down that hurt you, belittle you, and spew evil into your life, those who know him......they Respond with love and forgiveness....they wipe the mud they have been drug through off, smile, shake that persons hand, and thank them for the ride because they know the battle is not with them but that the situation at hand is about a spiritual battle going on within the other person. (Luke 6:27-36, Matt 5:21-26 and many many more).

As my time in Gods word over this matter lead me to the books of Matthew, Romans , Ester, Philippians, Exodus and so on, I saw a central message.... quit trying to do it your dang self!!!!!! Trust Me!!!!!!! I've got this!!!!    Although God had to take me to book after book to show me the message he wants wrote on my heart, all because I'm hard headed, then I finally got it...it clicked.  After this I was able to see more of big picture and get some peace with some of the whys.  By backing up into Exodus 13 after it clicked, Ex. 13:17-18 to be exacted, I found it intriguing that God didn't take his people out of Egypt by the common, well known/traveled path, the familiar way; He took them by way of wilderness-"Ex. 13:17 Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt". God knew their flesh would conquer their faith and at the first sign of things not looking like they thought they should they would run, right back into what he had brought them out of.  So he took them down a path where they had no where to go, no way to survive without running to him.  I sit here and ponder how many times God has had to force us down an unknown path because if there was anywhere to go expect to him we would go there.  I myself sit here and think of all the times I have blamed and harbored hurt because of people walking out on me, when in reality it was God sending me into the wilderness because if I had anything to satisfy my fleshly needs I would go there instead of going to God!  By doing this, by going somewhere other than to God, I would never make it to the Red Sea of my life, so I could be still and let the Lord fight for me so he would get the GLORY HE DESERVES!  Nor would he be able to display his power over the Pharaohs in my life so all those who would see would know that HE IS LORD!!!!

All in All....quit fighting so hard to get out of the wilderness, quit thinking it is so unfair, that you have been abandon.  Have faith in God and know he is fighting for you, if you follow him, if you give your life to him.  Its not about you or what your going through but how God is and will use you (most times without you even knowing) to show his power, His love but also to receive the Glory that is only His!!

I'M GROWN!!!!

We all have had the moment in our lives when we were asked: What we wanted to be when we grew up.  As we grew the answers changed from princess, super hero to doctor, teacher and so forth. As we grew the whole world was always at our fingertips. Me, I dreamed of playing college basketball, my over the top dream was to then go on to play in the WNBA. The more realistic plan was to one day coach in women's college basketball.  Where I have let go of ever playing college basketball or playing in the WNBA there has always been a part of me that has held on to the idea that I could still maybe one day fulfill my dream to coach at least at the high school level. My high school dreams all changed when I fell in love with an beautiful young man.  He captivated me, the way he loved me, protected me, was nothing I had ever experienced in my life. He had a rough and tough exterior and the biggest, greatest heart I had ever experienced.  I had grew up in a very unstable, abusive home and my dreams of all I wanted to be, were to lead me out, away.....far far far far away....out of state gone.....never look back kind of dreams. It was the movie kind of dreams..."I gotta get out of this town and never look back".  But in walked a boy, just like in the movies.  So instead of college and all MY plans, (remember I said..MY PLANS) I was married and having a beautiful baby boy with the most beautiful young man (inside and out) that I had ever seen by my 20th birthday, I had a new dream now a better one, a family, a forever, I was HOME.  There is a roller coaster ride story that spans from 1997-2014 that will be told as the Lord leads me, but for the record I loved the ride, and would have rode that coaster till my last breath. Oh and the town I wanted to get out of I still live in!!! :)

I said all this to set the stage for what God has revealed to me about MY plans and my life.  Especially since the divorce, because at times the enemy has convinced me that it all was just a waste, that all the tears, hopes, trials were all for nothing; because all my dreams, my family, my forever, HOME was pulled out from under me. Honestly, there are days I believe his words and I have learned that when I begin believing the enemies words, I turn and run as fast as I can towards God, I pray, I usually cry at some point, and I engulf my self in His word and the Lord always...ALWAYS calms me and speaks into my heart.  Im not going to sugar coat it at all, its a daily battle and some days I know the only reason I make it is because God carried me the whole way. Here lately as I watch life unfold before my eyes and the days pass far to quickly. I see all the plans I made for my life, all the thing I've done and could have done, the things I've learned and still have to discover.  As I look back on my teenage self and all her dreams with the world before me, I never would have guessed the greatest days of my life, the best of every season, the most profound thing I could do with my life was be a mother. I would like to say be a wife and mother but again those were my plans, how I saw it playing out. My best days, the ones I love the most where spent with two little boys, cleaning up vomit, poo, dirty cardboard socks, finding ranch not only hid through out my car but also my house, sitting for hours at ballparks and gyms, cuddled on the the couch watching movies and most times watching and praying over them as they slept. Every second with them has brought me pure JOY!!!

Im at a point in my life where being a mother is who I am and it is who I will always be. (It was His Plan! that I never seen coming) My youngest, my baby is knocking on the door to being a teenager, and my oldest is almost a man. Life is changing, what has always been is no longer. It truly saddens me that my boys are growing up but what grieved me more is that I finally realized that I grew up without even realizing. I'M GROWN........GROWN, yes I know I'm 35 so of course I'm grown, but my point is; there is so much I HAD PLANNED that I haven't done!!!!! This is where God steps in and I realize how much has been missed because of my plans, routine, To Do List and all the stuff I just couldn't wait to do with my life. I am reminded by God of Luke 9:23-25 "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?" I look back now to see that none of that Stuff was as important as Gods call on my life or benefit who I really was, who God created me to be. Look, seasons change way to quickly, days get shorter, and some things that are lost are gone forever, things that seem permanent fade away, change and GROW! I look at my sons and I am thankful for everyday, every moment, every season I have got to spend with them. The moments in the car, on the couch, at the ball park, these are all treasures deep within my heart. I guess as the time approaches that they will be venturing off into this world on their own, the emotions are almost overwhelming. Those of Grief and of Joy!!! I miss the days of sippy cups, cartoons, dirty diapers, shoes on the wrong feet, I miss their dependance on me. I am also filled with great tears of JOY to look at the young men they are becoming ( even after all the mistakes I have made as a mother). I look forward to seeing them become Men, Husbands, Fathers and all the days and seasons that are to come.  As I look back on all the plans I have made nothing comes close to the plans God made for me. In realizing this now that I'm grown I know what I want to be...... I want to be a woman that will follow God WHEREVER He takes my life, I want to be a woman that will deny myself and lay down my life at the feet of my Lord and Savior, I want to be a mother who when her children look at her they see not only my love for them but more abundantly they see Gods love for them through me, I want to be a woman that looks to God to make the Plans instead of making my own.

To My Boys

Being your mother made my life complete. I missed out on nothing, and wouldn't change a single day, tear, broken heart, laugh nothing. Being your mom was my greatest blessing from God and was more than I could have ever hoped or dreamed for my life. I hope you can always see the love I have for both of you and the blessing you are the every single day of my life. I am so proud of both of you. 

Ya'll are my heart, I Love You Forever!!!

MOM

Well...... Here We Go

Please be patient as this is all new to me but I will get the hang of it!  I have wanted to do this for a while and have consistently put it off.  After a lot of prayer and a lot of running from it I am stepping out on faith.  I am big on journaling and always have been, just so you know there is some good reading waiting for someone once I leave this world; until then those journals are hidden away in a very safe place.  As we all know every blessing, every trial, and every lesson learned cant be kept private; there are things we are meant to share. There are lessons we learn in this life that are solely meant for no other reason but to futher Gods kingdom, to bless someone elses life, or to offer the opportunity for a family member, friend or complete stranger to hear how awesome Gods mercy, grace, forgiveness and love is. Experiencing His mercy, grace and love IS life changing.  I'm a firm believer that there are some trials and lessons that are private meant only for our own personal growth and to strengthen our personal relationship with God.  With that said we all have a story to tell and with each chapter we have a choice to draw closer to God and have faith in His plan or we can take it in our own hands and enter the world.  Since my gift is not (at all) public speaking (the words in my head never quite make it to my mouth correctly), writing is my best way of communicating what is in my head and heart.  For years I have trapped my trails and blessings, the ways God has touched me and my life in journal after journal tucked away from the world.  My hope is that someone will be encouraged by my story, that they know they are not alone. This will be my attempt at telling my story and my testimony.

A little about Me

I am 35, and a single mother of 2 awesome boys who are 16 and 11. We are a baseball family both my boys love baseball although they both also play other sports as well.  I love being at the ball park and thats where we have spent our time since my oldest was 4. We have the sweetest pit bull known to man named Peaches and a fat cat that we have had for 13 years and adore.  I have recently went through a divorce, that I never seen coming, after 16 years of marriage.  This shook me to my core and has and still is testing my faith in ways I could have never imagined. My goal is to raise these 2 young men that God has entrusted me with to seek God, to live by His every word, to fear the Lord, to know there is no gray area in scripture and to LOVE the LORD with ALL their HEARTS.

The Title

The Greatest of These... is LOVE. 1Corinthians 13:13  I believe this with all my heart, without love there is nothing. Love is so misunderstood. What love really is and means has been twisted by this world. The word love is in the bible more than 500 times yet true depth of what this word means is barely known to most. The impact of studying the magnitude and power this one little word holds is life changing. To even catch a glimpse of what this word means you not only have to study the scriptures in which it is in, but pull part that scripture looking at the Hebrew and Greek translations to truly see what is being said by our Father.  There are words in Hebrew and Greek that there are no English words for. There are several different Hebrew words that translate to love, where each have the central meaning of love, each also has elements that set it apart from the others and give one little 4 letter word more meaning and insight to a Fathers heart than you could ever imagine. I could go on but that is another post and another day.  The greatest of these is LOVE!!!

The Address

Although it wasn't my first choice or at least I didn't come into this with it in mind....it is perfect. I believe we are all running from our own Nineveh.  I think we all can relate to Jonah, we all have ignored Gods call, we have all ran at some point, we have all be caught in a storm we knew was our fault due to our choices; we have all found our selves in darkness...alone in the belly of our own whale; we have all been given a second chance and seen Gods Power, His Grace and His Mercy only to stomp our feet like a 2 year old when things didn't go the way we think they should.  We all think we have it figured out, that we can be the judge.  We forget sin is sin no matter what kind it is. We forget His mercy and grace is for everyone and not just us. We forget we have no understanding on what the big picture is.  We forget we are but one of His children, we forget how deep our Fathers LOVE is for us all!


This is my story......................................................................................................................................