Covenant Angel

Success is not so much found at the end of the road but comes throughout the journey. It is falling down, and getting up; it is learning, teaching and continuing to walk. It is making a stand when the odds are not with you. It is being different with a cause…and willing to make a sacrifice for the greater good. Success is a JOURNEY. My journey has been long and very eventful as each one of you can perhaps attest to in your own lives. This is simply my journey. I know that God does not bring bad things into our lives, but He does use ALL things to bring us into maturity. As He allowed the tares to grow with the wheat, He allows people, things and situations to come into our lives. It is our responsibility to draw close to Him so that we can recognize what is from Him and what is not. He says that ‘my sheep know my voice’. We must listen intently to that small quiet voice. I would be the first one to say that I have not always heard His voice. We tend to get so caught up in the ‘busyness’ of our lives that we don’t listen. I am listening Lord!

There is a Scripture that I have hanging on a plaque on my wall….be still and KNOW that I am God! Sometimes we must simply STOP and listen. That is why He put Adam to sleep when He created Eve. Wow! Is that revelation?

I began my career in nursing school to help folks. I met my husband and had a family and raised my children. Although I thought that I would be a wife and mother forever after… in my Golden Years…God chose to take my husband home. Within 2 weeks of this time, my granddaughter had the accident that eventually resulted in her being taken home. Now you may ask where this is leading. This is all part of the ‘staircase of life’ upon which we walk. We do not see all the steps but we take them one at a time by faith.

My daughter taught me something as she was taking her journey with Gabrielle.  Her oldest daughter Sarah (now 21yrs old) drowned in my swimming pool when she was 3 years old.  God miraculously ‘raised her from the dead’ and she is a living testimony to God’s Resurrection power.  With Gabrielle, who also drowned in an ‘ornamental fish pond’…survived for a season and then was taken home.  Question arose as to why?  As I remember her explanation to the siblings… …sometimes God must push us a bit further than we have come in order to increase our faith and make us stronger. Now in NO WAY do I believe that God caused any of these ‘bad things’…but I do know that He uses what the enemy meant for bad…and brings something  good out of it.  We just must be still and listen!  That towering STRENGTH that Jenny expressed through her journey has helped me keep walking through my journey.

I believe that each trial along this journey has strengthened me and given me the courage to continue.  Roots tend to grow deep in times of draught and there have been many of those times.  When my diagnosis of cancer came, my first thought was…Father, I am coming home. Then I began to think about my journey, where I had come from and where I wanted to go.  In fact, my daughter said to a friend, “mom is in denial”. When I heard this, my spirit flared up in a bit of rage.  How can she say that!  Wheat grows, and the tares grow.  When we are grounded in the Word our roots run DEEP.  I notice that the weeds are not always so deep.  I began to see the cancer as part of this journey and my roots began to go deeper.  “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still“

Not knowing the next step, my faith arises with courage as I face the morning sun.  I know where my strength comes from.  Having my ‘port’ removed was simply a public declaration of what has already taken place.  The battle was already won when King David made his triumphal entry into the city.  He simply made a public declaration of what had already taken place as I have done.

I remain a nurse, I am still a mother and a grandmother, I am a sister, I am a friend and I am a Child of the Most High.  He has given me the courage to walk the staircase, because I know it will lead me to the other side.  When I think I am at the end of my life…I realize that this is the beginning.  My horizon may change colors and the wind may come from a different direction but I face it with hope.