Tuesday, July 24, 2007

What I Know About: Riding out the Storms

By. Jennifer Texada

No matter how good you try to be, no matter how much as you may pray and no matter how you may be blessed you may feel there are always times in life where things are exactly going as expected.

For me this week it was a terribly high and unexpected car repair bill, a negative experience with my former spouse, then my furniture was not shipped or delivered the way I expected. Then on top of that I had to move into a smaller office at work, one of my new neighbors got their house broken into and I dropped my groceries all over the floor and broke a newly purchased carton of eggs (and as I already mentioned my money is tight)

So as a woman of faith how am I dealing? How am I in the midst’s of disappointment continuing to stay in faith and good spirits?

I am following my own advice.

First, God never said that there would not be storms, he said in the storms that is when you should really lean on him.

Second, I am trying in this storm to listen more carefully to what He is trying to tell me?

In the past, every time I have had one of these experiences I have come out smarter, more experienced, more polished. I equated to a diamond or a tumbled stone. A diamond has to be pressed hard, under intense pressure and heated evenly for years within a lump of coal to get the shine and value that it has. Maybe all of this pressure and heat is for a reason.

Maybe what I gain will be tantamount to the value and shine of a diamond.

I want to cry. I want to swear. I want to figure out my own way out of these circumstances. But what I will do is pump up the music pray until I can't pray anymore and walk slowly and carefully through this time of trial with an expectation that He will not only steer me out of this season un-scarred but let me find myself on the other side wiser and better off than I was when I first met the disappointments.