Forty eight hours ago was a dark time in my heart. It seemed everything had clouded over and a storm was brewing that I did not know how to contain. Forty eight hours later, I have interviewed for and been offered a job with a salary that will give me a perfect foundation and the chance to add much more in benefits and bonuses and yet still offer evenings and two days off a week to take care of the real estate that God sends me. This is so seriously amazing that it would confound anyone who doesn’t know how He works!

Circumstances are just stuff to God. Things to be handled.And is He good at it? The best!

I went back to the Humane Shelter today as well (it was one of those blue sky, sing along with Bruce Springsteen at the top of your lungs driving like you were in a red convertible days) and low and behold…my guy Gypsy was told I was his perfect match! He is the one I’ve had my eye on for four weeks, but I wasn’t moving on it until God gave me the sign. Today He did. And Friday I bring him home.

New job starting Monday, an unbelievable resolution to my bankruptcy troubles, a new dog and companion (there’s a reason dog is god spelled backwards…unconditional love and acceptance, with furry affection) and mostly a renewed love affair with my Lord and the love of my life!

Really surrender your circumstances to God and see what He can do with them….but be ready to get out of the way….sometimes He moves at lightning speed! Remember, He already lined up all those dominoes in your favor when you weren’t paying attention.

After a battle-scared day with attorneys, followed by a completely sleepless night yet one spent in the company of God and His word, I started the day with an awesome peace. Having asked Him over the night to explain why things were going so wrong and why I felt so attacked, He kept reassuring me it would all work out for my best.

Twenty seven years of trusting Him have let me know if He says it He means it!

I  went through the day reassuring my friends that however unfair it appeared, we could not see it the way God was seeing it and we had to try. I  was able to explain that even losing everything was truly a blessing and a gift from the Lord and they could see that I believed that, and I did.

In the late afternoon my attorney called me to come in where he explained how they had worked it out on my behalf. They had taken responsibility for leaving me at risk and not noticing the red flag when it appeared and they were stepping up to the plate to make amends. The result was far better than I could have hoped for, truly God had made a way where there was none.

As I look back on all the things I have lost, or that I perceived to have lost, and see that they were a gain for God, not only in His relationship with me, but in the lives of so many others our stories have affected. I would not change a single outcome if I was offered a do-over! The healing He has brought about through all of this in my soul is overwhelming. I am grateful beyond reason. As one friend said, “you were Daniel in the lions den, but God was with you!” And so He was.

You may take away all my worldly goods, even those that may be in my future, and I will still be one of the richest women on earth, and I saw that proven again today, beyond a shadow of a doubt! Lawyers don’t ante up for someone who could hardly afford to sue them for negligence. But mine did today and I was impressed and awed that they had heard God as well and as clearly as I did and done the right thing. It has altered my experience of attorneys forever!

One more sucker punch today just to see if I could handle one more. Bring it on! I am getting stronger by the day, it seems, in an endless line of losses and absolutely ridiculous attacks to bring me down.

I guess when you have faced life mostly alone as an adult, raised your two sons solo, and never made what would appear to be a minimum living, you do learn to toughen up. For years I felt like my emotions ruled me, but I am now noticing they are a gift from God, which when I use them appropriately and for His purposes, are also a gift to others.

I hear from many friends that this blog is an inspiration to them and they encourage me to keep writing. I really never thought anyone was reading it and I was just practicing over the past two years. I have come to the point where the practice has become part of my life.

There is no number on the amount of times we can be knocked down and get back up again. Personally, I have lost count. I often tell my friends of a certain age that I am like the proverbial Joe Paluka punching bag of my youth….. there was a layer of sand at the bottom of a child-sized plastic blowup character and kids, mostly boys as I recall, practiced getting out their frustration on it. Whatever punches they delivered, he went down but he popped right back up…as if to say “yeah, you thought that would take me out, huh? Well you were wrong! What else you got?”

I know that I am not alone in feeling like I am starting over at a point where I had hoped I would be slowing down, not speeding up! We are a tenacious bunch, and we will live to see ourselves at the front of the pack, as we continue to run the race that is set before us. I think it is only when I see how many are close by my side in the exact same race that I am encouraged to keep running, and if I falter it will be one of them who will catch me and encourage me on. I am very blessed indeed.

Anyone who is trying to make a major change in their life or do something they have always wanted to do knows the force of resistance they will meet head on when they try. We make deadlines we hope we can meet, and then struggle to meet them. It is as if there is a force equal to our desire that resists our accomplishing it.

Is that a law of physics or something? Seems like there is a floating memory in my head somewhere…it will come to me later and maybe I will come back and add it.

Anyway, you can be sure it is worth pushing against, just doing that one next thing, in order to get there. It probably represents the best thing you have ever thought you could do. In church we used to refer to resistance as the devil trying to block you, but I think it is a massive wall that you are trying to break through. That’s why I have come to the ‘remove it, one brick at a time’ way of dealing with it. Break it down into manageable pieces that you can move. Sneak up on it. Come in the back door and surprise it. But do something different, even if you have to fool yourself!

I bought six composition notebooks a few days ago and headed each cover with a different category where I am trying to make changes in my life. All of it on one list has always been overwhelming and confusing to me. Now I approach them each differently, not being upset if I only record progress in one book a day. Hopefully, my results will be magnified by separating my thoughts and actions to different goals. After a while,  I will be able to look back and see!

I am thrilled and continually amazed at how God is always working in our lives, behind the scenes, making plans for us when we are ready to turn situations over to him. It is like seeing a row of lined up dominoes start falling. Because someone took the time to line them up, it only takes a mere nudge to the first one to begin a long line of reactionary moves right behind it.

Yesterday I saw about four major things change in my life. Seemingly minor things, from the standpoint of actions, but major in terms of life and spirit. It took a thought change and a focus toward being entirely willing to put my circumstances and my future totally in the hands of the One who has never abandoned me. When I was able to do that, He began (again) to move heaven and earth on my behalf.

My worries never get me anywhere but stuck. While I am fretting and trying to control my destiny, God just keeps working backstage, setting up the dominoes. He knows I will eventually get to the end of my strength and surrender to His, and that is the nudge He is waiting for….the dominoes begin falling, and I just sit back in wonder at the good He can accomplish in my life so quickly.

As a child I remember saying “I give up” when I was seemingly losing in play with friends or siblings. Those are good words to remember when I feel like I am losing a battle in my feelings or thoughts. I give up….you take it from here Lord. I know He will, and it will come out far better than I could ever have imagined.

Isn’t it amazing how we actually can start life over every new day if we want? Looking backwards we can’t change a thing, but looking forward…..endless possibilities!

A very close friend and I both picked up a book this week that had to do with doing one new thing a day, to move yourself closer to a goal. Just one thing! Even a tiny one can begin the forward movement and get you unstuck. I have done my one thing, which is to make a list of some goals and begin writing the things that would move me toward them. Picking one small thing off one list each day does not look so overwhelming.

I remember how I used to have to break down chores for the boys to make them less overwhelming, but now I am the overwhelmed one, and the process still works! Onward, just do the easiest or the next important…your choice, the next best thing! Then feel good and congratulate yourself!

It’s funny, but I was with a loved one who is deep into twelve steps last weekend, and it got me noticing how often we are so focused on minding someone else’s business, we forget to work on the one person whose life and character  we could effectively change.

It is such a habit, however, that one really must be vigilant! It crops up all the time and I don’t think we realize it. If we could get a handle on that, I feel that tons of relationships would instantly improve! What heaven on earth that would be, really. There is usually so much more we love about a person than we don’t like, but often focus so much on the things they need to change so that we will really be happy, we stop noticing.

In walks single lady who lives alone for a weekend and all I could notice, with two different sets of friends on two different weekends, were all the tender loving things their spouse was doing that they had lost sight of. Clarity comes real fast when there is no one but yourself in the house….no one to blame for undone dishes, toilet seats left up, trash not put out.

I may hire myself out as  a visiting therapist who comes for the weekend and lives with you. Don’t know of anyone doing that, but I seem to do it naturally. Instead of a homewrecker…I’m a homesaver! Hmmmmm. Might be a need for that! And I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and eating meals with people and watching movies together. I am also a great guest right now because I have no furry companion to worry about while I visit.

But I did go to the animal shelter today to see if a dog was calling my name. There was one whose eyes met mine for a long long time. Hope I do better with the shelter match program than I do on Match.com! I have higher hopes it will come out right for both of us, but I am going to let him miss me over the weekend, just to be sure (actually, he’s not up for adoption yet, I am not that heartless). When its time, if it is meant to be, we will begin our relationship. I’ll keep you posted!

Why isn’t there a “So sorry to hear you’ve lost your home” or “Our thoughts and prayers are with you as you try to find a new job in this economy.” Somehow a regular sympathy card just doesn’t do it.

And where are the occasions to mark these losses. Should we have a firepit gathering where we burn the deed we didn’t pay off? There is no funeral to mark or signal the end, or even the beginning, of the mourning process for these things. I feel like people are suffering all around me, and yet we have no celebrations, or un-celebrations, to help release our grief.

I know I am sounding a bit morbid here, but for anyone going through these rough times, the grief just sneaks up on you when you least expect it, while you are trying so hard to bundle it up and leave it by the curb with a happy face and a ribbon on it. Sometimes you just need to give yourself permission to feel sad and cry. I have.

I am really noticing the effects of what I call “show up love” in my own life lately. I have recently been through a series (eleven to be exact, but who’s counting?) of fairly severe losses in my life, all within an eighteen month period. Now only one of these involved the death of  a loved one (my furry companion of over a decade) but all were, upon reflection, small deaths of hope, future, dreams, and optimism. What I failed to notice was that I had not allowed myself to recognize that and to grieve. Everyone knows to come to a funeral, but what if there is no body, no date, no place to acknowledge the event happened? Does that mean it didn’t happen? There is no Hallmark card for losing your home, your living, your dreams. People just continue with their own lives while you are trying to push your grief as far away as possible. It is still there, and sensitive people see it and hear it when they are with you.

Strangers were also more prone to notice than close family members (sons excluded), as it turned out. The fact that I seemed so isolated and people seemed to run the other way, as they do when you are going through a divorce (as though they might ‘catch it’ if they got too close) brought the pain to a head. Someone who has not lost their home and been thrown into turmoil trying to quickly make sense of another, cannot understand, but perhaps if they thought about it? What would it feel like to experience that situation? Is it not possible for us to truly walk in another man’s shoes for a brief time? Is there no way to step into their situation with them and look for ways to bring comfort?

I have found that it is. That there are good souls all around who can just be willing to re-arrange their priorities and just show up in my life. After hearing some unpleasant news before a recent unexpected surgery, my son was at a loss to cheer me up and get my mind back on the best possible outcome. Just then my cousin walked in the room, bright and cheery and full of tales of the parking garage and my whole countenance changed because hers was so bright and uplifting. I went into surgery full of hope and it went well.

She just showed up. And by doing that she changed everything for me. It often isn’t something major that is required of us. We all bring a new outlook and a new pair of eyes into a situation. When we step into someone else’s space and look at it with them, right where they are, right where they live, when we come to walk with them through it, we open all possibilities to see something they might have missed. The mere holding their hand going through it or letting them know you will be there after, makes all the difference in the world. Maybe especially when they soldier up,”there’s no need, really, I’ll be fine.”

Sometimes I feel like life is in slow motion, but normally that is when bad things are happening and I can’t seem to get the gears to switch into forward mode again, no matter how hard I try, I just feel stalled. Positive things seem to go so fast…I am always re-living them, going “gee, just 24 hrs ago I was with my son at his concert, or eating dinner with a friend.” But as I survey the landscape of things that don’t seem so hopeful, or for which I can’t see what is the next best thing I can do to get moving, I feel like I have run out of gas on a back country road. I am just waiting and hoping someone will come along with some help, or a can of gas!