WHERE DID THREE MONTHS GO?

Wow!  Where did those 90 days go since I last posted?  If ever there was tangible evidence that time really does fly, it would be indicated by my total inability to see those 90 days as anything other than a fast moving blur!  It is now Jan. 15, 2011, and in the Beth Moore study Esther, (which I completed 7 weeks ago) she stated that in order for God to work out our inspired destiny, we need to be totally transparent.  That is my intention this year, to be totally transparent.  Since I last posted, my sweet husband has made a job change.  The position he accepted in Jacksonville was short lived due to the fact that the owner of the company was a bipolar maniac.  I realize those two words are redundant, oh well.  I believe that God used those 6 weeks of time to help my man bid adieu to what used to be the furniture industry.  Interestingly enough, during the time he was employed by the bipolar maniac, a long time friend of his from West Palm Beach offered him a position in So. Fla. The owners are terrific believers that we knew 28 years ago when we lived in So. Fla.  The world is so small, and God is full of surprises!  We are thankful that he has a job, with good people that love the Lord.  The company needs to be turned around based on neglect by previous management, and I hope that the Lord provides that opportunity for all parties involved.  It is not a perfect situation, but it gets my spouse out of the house, where he feels better, than just having time to think about what used to be.  It is very strange for me right now to be a total empty nester, empty even of my husband!  I have never lived by myself, and it is a weird adjustment period.  In terms of transparency, I really have to pray more and eat less, as I am stuffing down sadness and loss, rather than dealing with those feelings in a constructive manner.  Plus, I can feel my stomach getting more flabby and my rear end getting larger with each passing day.  NOT GOOD!  I need to pray for energy and spunk way beyond that normally available to a 52 year old!  I still have a long way to run towards building our cake business, and I need lots of energy to market.  I feel such sadness for my sister who is my business partner, her life has been filled with much pain and suffering.  So I try to cut her some slack because she has so much on her right now trying to wind down her law practice, deal with a disaster of a marriage, and a son with muscular dystrophy.  She indeed carries a heavy load.  Her world collides with mine on a regular basis, and on the spiritual level, I feel that the enemy has sucked me in as well by not honoring Jesus because of the huge distain I feel for her husband.  If it is not peaceful between them, it impacts her mood, then it impacts my mood as well.  That seems very immature, but that is how we humans roll.  Its the dreaded downhill trickle effect.  On a higher note, I got all of the shipping issues situated so that we can throw our net farther than Orlando and ship our beautiful little cakes!  Made some adorable brightly colored little cakes today for a "Dora The Explorer"1st Birthday tomorrow, big fun!   On the issue of overeating,  it is interesting to note that I do not eat our creations because they equal time and money, and that would not be fair to my sister's efforts,  fueling my sugar/carb addiction!  It is fun to see that our baking creations continue to evolve and get prettier all of the time.  I know this sounds really lame, but one of the small joys in my life right now are really good pastry tips!  They easily give the impression that you've got cake decorating game when  you really don't!  It's all about the tools!  Good baking tools rock!  I started back to BSF this week as well as started a new Beth Moore study of Daniel. I so desperately desire the Lord's presence, and yet, something tells me if I would just be quiet and slow down, adopt a meaningful prayer life, I would have a much greater sense of His presence with me right now.  You can bury yourself in bible studies and totally miss relationship with Jesus.  Isn't that ridiculous?  Hate to say it, but feeling kind of baren spiritually, even though I want closeness to the Lord more than anything.  Thankful for sweet friendships, thankful for my precious dog, who is now my trusty Mon thru Fri. companion.  Thankful that no one in my family is sick, thankful that we are in our house and not behind on the payments.  Real estate taxes yes, mortgage payments, no.  Went back to the bankruptcy attorney today.  That is not fun, but most likely necessary.  Wish it was not so, but looking like the reality.  The loss on so many levels in our life made me cry when I was at his office today.  I'm sure it made him uncomfortable, as he is a"just the facts, ma'am" kind of guy, but the sadness was very real for me today.  Not always, but today, grief for both my husband and myself really struck me.  I try not to dwell on that thought, emotional self indulgence is worthless and sinful.    Once again, the burning question, "How did we get to this place of insurmountable debt, when we have always been so responsible and dilligent, reared its ugly head.   It is somewhat surreal to have had excellent credit all of your adult life, to have it all pulled out from under you.  Now we would have a hard time getting new cable turned on if we ever had to move!  Thank God that my husband is staying with his sister and her husband in WPB.  I am glad he has them to come home to.  If one of us has to be by ourselves, I am glad that it is me.  The loneliness is much harder on him.  It is Friday and I am glad that he is home in our bed tonight.  I miss him when he's not home, even though he drove me crazy when he was home unemployed.  Now, I really miss him every day.  God is good, He continues to cobble out a path for us to walk on.  Uncertain, yes.  Weird, yes. But He is there, and we just put one foot in front of the other, at His direction, every day.  Good Night!

Hope Has Arrived!

Great news!  My sweet husband was offered a job this week!   Yeah!  This is nothing short of God's miraculous handiwork.  Others have been looking for work for over a year.  He had six down weeks to lament the loss of the business we had built over 22 years, and God has placed him on a different road.  The Lord's Faithfulness always blows me away . . . He is Good All Of The Time!  Even when it doesn't feel like it.  Even we think that He is not there.  Very thankful that we can move past the uncertainty of losing our home and wondering where to go from here?  On a different note, commercial kitchen plan blew up.  That's alright.  It obviously wasn't right, something better will show up.  Having our Fall Open House next week for Lilli Buttons, excited about that.  Prepping as well for the Nov. 15th Taste of Maitland show.  Praying that God will continue to open doors for us to walk through.  All for now!

Waiting on the World to Change . . .

I know that it is not a good thing to spend time waiting for a day to turn into a new week, a new month, a new year, etc., as time is a gift and not promised to any of us.  I love the thought that that is what the present is.   A gift to be used well daily.  Even when you make the conscious effort to choose happiness over despair, it is still difficult, especially right now.  We are just waiting for something, even small, to happen to change the course of this monotonous waiting since the demise of our retail business.  A call, a glimmer of hope in a conversation, God, please send hope for the future today!   Publix, maybe even Chick-Fil-A!   Ruth Bell Graham was a woman greatly admired.  When she passed, her daughter recalled that the most remarkable thing about her mother was that she chose to be happy, regardless of the circumstances in which she found herself in life.  That is an incredibly difficult charge.  I would hope to someday have enough spiritual maturity in this life,  to realize that the day to day stuff is so fleeting, and that the eternal is one day closer.  The good news is nothing ever stays the same.  Ever. So no matter how dismal life's circumstances are right now, you are not going to be sitting in that same spot forever.  Change will come.  We just have to have faith to know that God is on the job, working out the appropriate job, for my Jesus loving husband.  I can rest in that.  No matter how many days that might take, because His provision is and will be enough.  On a baking biz note, our printed labels arrived yesterday, and they look beautiful!  Our business cards and cake menus arrive today.  Professionalism here we come!   Looking forward to our Lilli Buttons Open House, and all the creative possibilities that the holidays bring.

Got to get decorating for the Fall season, that always puts me in a good mood and seems to energize me.    Thankful that my hub started BSF last night, along with another man that we know, that God also loves dearly.  God is working behind the scenes, the picture just hasn't come into focus yet!  More later . . .

Inching Forward

Our women's bible study went well this morning, happy for our time together.  My sister and I are waiting on our printed materials in order to fully launch our cake biz, which should be next week.  Hopefully, we will have all of the details nailed down regarding the commercial kitchen we anticipate baking out of by next week as well.  Looking forward to scheduling a Fall Open House to launch our product to our friends and neighbors as well in the next few weeks.  Trying to get proficient with Twitter and Facebook postings.  Self promotion is not in my comfort zone, but if you want a business, better have perfected the techno part of life to sing your song out there on the internet!   Even though I know God is present in our lives at this point, I don't have a tremendous sense of His presence.  I have a calm assurance that He is on this unchartered and uncertain journey with us, but I would really love a finite touch from heaven.  I could really use that about right now.  Still feeling sad for the reeling sense of loss over our business, especially for my previously always sweet husband.  He is having a very hard time, trying to determine what his place in life will be now.  He is starting BSF this coming Monday, so that will be a great way for him to connect with other men to study in a structured manner, and reduce some of his isolation.  This will be the first year we will ever have been in BSF together.  That will give us lots to talk about.   This is a good thing, rather than the doom and gloom of the obliterated economy, which I am really tired of talking/hearing about.  On a different note, this is the first anniversary of the passing of my precious gran.  I miss her alot.  She was so loved by my four sisters and myself for all of her 89 years (well deduct 38 because that is how old she was when my oldest sister was born!)  But we were crazy for her from jump, I am still so thankful that we had her as long as we did.  She was so cute, and marked my life forever.  In some ways, I am very glad that she is not here to see how much the country has deteriorated, even in one year, and how much some of her family members are struggling right now.  It would have worried her to death.  Even though she professed her Christian faith and was baptized, she fretted, A LOT!  I always told her "Gran, worrying is like being in a rocking chair.  It gives you something to do, but gets you  no were, Now Stop!  Plus, it is an absence of faith!  When I think of her, it still makes me tear up.  A few tears today, but a little progress as well.  Really living your life, actually being in it, in a cognitive, purposeful way is tough stuff.  But the hard parts make the good parts that much sweeter.  So the difficult life stuff ends up being so key and instrumental in the patchwork quilt of your life.  Think about it this way.  If all of our adventures and journeys in life only produced a breathtakingly beautiful patchwork square to add color to our lives, it would be lovely, but nowhere near as interesting as the patchwork areas that represent brokenness, loss, or areas of our lives that are flawed, or dark and ugly, or scarred.  For those areas are where we are most likely to meet Jesus on a deep, personal level.   All of the life pieces are needed to create that which is the masterpiece that Jesus is working out in all of us.  We would have no coping skills minus the tough stuff that shapes the development of our character.  From the words of a Rodgers and Hammerstein song "without a hurt, the heart is hollow".  It is all needed stuff as we sojourn along.  God is good, He's just quiet right now.  Good Night.

My Hope For Today

It was a rainy, gloomy day today.  Hard to feel motivated about much.  Starting up a new Beth Moore Bible study on Esther: Its Hard to Be A Woman.  Excited about the study, feeling a sense of panic that it might just be a few of us.  Why should I even care if it is just two people?  If God shows up, which HE will, that is all I need to concern myself with.  By the end of this evening, several people have now jumped on and are also excited about the study.  God is good.  Why do we all get wrapped around this performance thing?  The Lord doesn't need a PR person, and somehow, I end up thinking He does.  Looking forward to the morning. This is my hope for today:  Psalm 27:13,14 - I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.  

Different Life, New Adventures

I wanted to start a blog because I am not very disciplined at journaling on a regular basis.  I think it is important to be able to record God's presence in your life, especially when your life is in transition, even when it seems like there is no motion.   I want to look back, months from now, and see where God has taken me on this journey, to see His hand laying out the path on which to travel.

My husband and I have been very busy building a retail business over the past 22 years, which was successful up until the last three years.  Which by the way, have been dreadful.  After many tears, prayers, and exhausting every dollar we could get our hands on, we now find ourselves in quite a different position.  We are in the process of closing our business, my husband must find new employment, (by the way, he has not been unemployed since the tender age of 12!)   His whole identity has shifted.  From business owner, boss, and employer of many, to a middle aged guy now home looking for jobs on the internet.   It is not much fun.  He does not like it, and I feel very sad for him right now.  How did we get in this weird, awful place in the country economically?  I am confident that God will deal with the responsible parties that ushered in the graft and corruption that devastated so many people's financial well being.  On the other hand, God allowed the meltdown.  Clearly, a purpose will be served in all of our lives that have lived through this period of time in the U.S., especially if you were/are a small business owner.  Will we ever feel joy or happiness again?  For months now, it seems as if we will never feel anything but gloom.   But I know that is not true.  God is good, He will show up, and provide employment for my very good man.  We went from having a very good life, our entire married life, to worrying about potentially losing our home, our very last asset.  I know that this blog has been a bummer so far.  That is the point.  In order to be able to recognize the Lord's direction for the future, I have to be honest about where we are right now.  Unfortunately, sad, often discouraged, and displaced is where we find ourselves on this day.   So the starting point for the hopefully happier part of the journey is right now.

My sister and I have started baking a delicious & lovely little treat that we have gotten very good reviews on so far.  God has opened some doors, and we are walking through them, doors that I previously would have never even thought about.  So, as our baking biz expands, I will share the joys and challenges that come with our new adventure.

On a different note, this difficult patch in our family history has made me so appreciate having excellent friends.  When adversity comes along, it really does help you determine who your friends are.  A very wise good friend of mine shared with me that the only friends that  I should be concerned about being connected to are the ones God wants me connected to, relationships that He has sown and cultivated.  Very true.  Relationships which have no lasting value are really exposed when hard times arrive at your door.   But the sun will shine again, we will feel happy again some day.  Joel 2:25 -  The Lord promises us that He will replace the years the locusts have eaten.  (Weird verse, but great meaning).  Good Night.