CHAIN BREAKERS…FOCUS ON GOD, not your problems in 2016.

One thing I knew better than to do, during my journey of Marriage Restoration, was to look at my problems. And yes many giants faced me…

1) My husband left me because I relapsed…

2) Which meant my income was initially stripped from me…

3) 2 months later, I stopped running from God and got delivered in my bedroom…

4) Two weeks after that, I ended up in jail for cashing a check, that came in my ministry mailbox (I thought God had someone send it for my rent)…but oddly the check had no name on the line, to: ____… and made out for Eight Hundred-Fifty Dollars… $850.00, for: April Rent… and was signed…

5) I was arrested, which caused me to sit down for 3 months…

6) Which allowed me time to read the bible from cover to cover… I had no idea what God was doing inside of me (in that jail cell), but looking back, we were forming a relationship…

7) I got out, but God was not finished restoring me yet… so the Lord built walls around me that my family could not penitrate… it was then my oldest daughter told the Department of Family and Children Services I was homeless…

8) in order to “protect” my younger children from me (then 14, 11, 5), they removed them from my care… this was more of a paperwork procedure; since, I had already allowed the children to stay with my daughter…

9) I was now in a court situation, working a case plan, in order to prove my stability, to get my children back…

10) while I was incarcerated my previous ex-husband signed away his parental rights; just three weeks after I got out of jail, which essentially made it easier for the courts to justify taking my parental rights, of my then 11-year-old son, Samuel, and lost permanent custody of my child.

11) I lived in my other daughter’s truck for 2 weeks… got a job but my daughter would not give me my social security card or my birth certificate, causing that job to be put on hold for the next 6 weeks…

12) a bed opened up at a shelter 20 miles north from my family… 2 weeks later, my ex-husband found out I was using our daughter’s truck and took it away, which left me once again without transportation…

13) I worked on my case plan constantly… the case plan included the following requirements be met in a 6 month time frame: stable income, stable housing, counseling, drug classes, parenting classes and visitation… went to church and volunteered, every time the doors were open, all while on probation and making their costly appointments…

14) only to come back to the shelter everyday to a roommate, that walked in constant jealousy towards me… one evening I came in late from a day of church activities and my roommate & I got into a verbal altercation… the next morning, the shelter manager asked her to leave, she retaliated by lying to get me kicked out as well…

15) Faced once again with the possibility of homelessness, I stayed on a mattress, in a friends garage filled with garbage, 20 miles from all of my court necessary business… there were many days I still had to walk 5 +/- miles to and/ or from work… while once a week walking up to 40 miles in a given day, to handle the issues of my case plan, visitation and probation,

16) always searching to do better, I found a job as a live in care-taker, caring for an elderly couple, in hospice

17) three weeks later the man, passed on to glory, the week before Christmas…

18) the family that hired me apparently felt awkward taking personal care of their step-father, and abruptly asked me to leave, hours after his death…

19) thankfully, I had come to know one of the grandchildren and his girlfriend graciously invited me to come stay in her finished basement through the holidays… and as God would have it I ended up staying 5 months and gained a second family…

20) blessed, but now being 30 miles away from all of my classes and probation, I was yet again, wondering will I ever see light at the end of my tunnel??? During this time, I was able to get my classes moved to the area, finished counseling and drug classes, fought hard and long but was able to get my visitation moved just 2 walking miles away… but sadly this was not permanent and I had yet to acquire employment…

21) when summer was nearing and family would be coming to stay, it was time for me to move on… thankfully, I filed taxes for a few clients and was able to find a room to rent in a home, and continued to trust God for a job…

22) that happened the day after divorce court,the enemy thought he had me this time, BUT GOD, I just kept my eyes on the Lord and kept pressing through…

23) but this job would take me another 20 miles further from my family…

24) I worked the 3rd shift as night auditor and m.o.d. for the next 3 months and was blessed after my first check to secure a mini-apt in an older hotel across the street from my job…

25) that all came to a sudden halt, when yet again, I was lied on by a fellow employee… people sadly can not handle another having peace and undisturbed composure, when their life looks altogether, but is falling apart at the seems…

26) only day out of the blue my husband called and we ended up going to church together and things just starting falling into place after that…

27) although at this point I had completed my case plan, but DFCS refused

 to believe that my life had changed… rather than fighting my husband and doing things my way, I continued to trust God and our next court day, I told the courts it would be best if our daughter, stayed with her Father and agreed, that my son, could stay with his sister, rather than change his schooling in his junior year of high school…

28) SUDDENLY after court my husband asked me to lunch and later we went together to pick our daughter up from school, planning to have dinner together that night before returning to the hotel… my husband asked me to move back home…

Dr. Charles Stanly ~ Focus on God, not your problems.