Okay so it has been a while since I have posted, we have been going through a rough patch here at home. And as I pondered all the things that have been going on, all the negativity that was being thrown our way, I knew of course there is a lesson in everything that is going on, God allows things to happen to us so we can learn from them.
I have been in a very sort of stand still in my Faith life, my prayer routine had been becoming more of a drag and I noticed I hadn't been saying all the normal prayers like I was doing. It was almost as if I was at a fork in the road on the path God wants me to take, and as if I was looking at signs that was saying short cut, or detour and I was just stuck. I finally today wrote to my Heavenly Father and said you know Lord, I don't want to take a short cut, I don't want a detour, I want to pass all the signs up and keep on going down this path no matter how long it takes to get where You want me to go. Just please keep leading my by the hand, I love the lessons God teaches me even if in the moment of the lesson I am not very fond of it. Every little thing even the sufferings and hard times are worth it.
It all started I guess a few weeks to about a month ago, I noticed that things were slowing down in our spiritual life, and my husband and I do not have our marriage blessed and we have been discussing it here and there, and as a result we cannot receive communion in the catholic church, and for some odd reason we kept putting it off. Well I finally decided just to go make an appointment with our church parish's priest, I don't know why I didn't do it sooner he is a wonderful man to be around. Anyways when my husband and I made the decision, made the appointment and said "ITS TIME" this is our next step to growing closer to God, He needs to be in our marriage the right way.
Well oh boy if the that didn't tick off the devil, see anytime you make a RIGHT decision, or choose the right step on your path, anything that gets you closer to the Lord, red flags go up for the devil, and he will come at you with a force like no other. It started off with health issues, and physical pain like something happened to my back, I don't know what but I was physically hurting to the point I could not walk, and I was having other pains. And it just happened over night, this went on for about a week before things got better, this was right before we met with the priest, and wouldn't you know I went to the Dr. the same day as we were suppose to meet with the priest still hurting but wasn't not going to miss this appointment. And well I'll be if I didn't walk out that meeting and look at my husband in disbelief and said my back feels A LOT better when we left the rectory. It was because I did not let the devil keep me from our meeting, I did not let him cause enough physical pain to me to stop me from moving forward.
After that my husband and I each caught a bug, funny though our two children never caught this bug, and normally in our house hold once one of us gets sick it goes through all four of us, but I am so very glad that they did not get sick. But we both stayed down for a week. Right after I finished the bug, I caught this horrible migraine as to the point my husband got to work in the morning and had to turn around and leave on his first break to come home to take care of the kids so I could go lay in a dark room. And that is a big deal for him to leave work since he is the only working one in our marriage and I am a stay at home mom, we need that money. He had already missed a day of work from being down with the bug and had to miss another at the end of the week to come and take care of me. I am so very thankful to him though, he is an amazing husband and father.
Of course shortly after that, we had a good weekend still recovering from the bug, but on the Monday I was so excited I was praising Jesus for finally feeling better and I could get back into my art studio and start working on some paintings. Well 2 days later I caught the bug AGAIN only 10x worse. So I think our and my health especially was down for 3 weeks in total, it was NOT very fun but I knew it was the devil throwing his all at us. And I hope that we passed in the eyes of the Lord, I only missed mass once out of the 3 weeks and it was because my back was so bad off I could hardly get out of bed and walk down the hall in our house. But I made sure to go the other times even if I had to run out of church from being sick, I was not missing another mass. The devil will try, oh he will try big time, you just have to learn to deal with the sufferings and remember to ALWAYS offer it up, offer it for the poor souls in purgatory or someone in need of a conversion. I try to remember this so anytime something is wrong, physically, health wise I try to remember to offer it up and join it to the cross of Jesus.
Now my husband and I are still waiting on news from our priest about when we will be blessing our marriage but we are waiting patiently he is a very busy person and I think this whole month of September he will barely be around so I know patience is a virtue, but we took the right steps and now its time to wait.
I have notice though the devil is not finished with us and he has been causing a lot of problems in our marriage now, but we are praying and praying, we know God will raise us up out of the hard times. "For better or for worse."
I had also been asking God to give me a push out of my slump, I knew my faith and my prayer life needed a push, I still said my daily rosary but I just kept feeling so down and just in a slump, but I prayed and kept on going.
One day a girl I knew from high school messaged me, we weren't friends at all in school but we just know each other from there, she was overdue on her pregnancy and the Dr.'s were concerned she was not making progress, she told me she was scared and asked because she knew I was close to God she asked me to pray for her. I felt so amazingly honored for someone I really don't know much about, just going to school together would ask me to pray for them. I knew this was the push God was giving me because I just was completely humbled and I cried tears of joy to know, that I am leaving a mark on people and I'm not the one leaving the mark on them Jesus is, what He is doing for me and my life. The whole gist of what I have been trying to do by helping spread God's word or try and get more people to build a deep relationship with the Father. It showed me people are actually listening and it made me so happy that I just could not contain my tears of joy.
And of course because I have made more of an effort to write in my prayer journal daily, to praise God daily for all that I have, to say prayers through out the day, and always saying my rosary of course, but I also started saying a Divine Chaplet of Mercy and a Chaplet of Reparation not to mention I have started back on saying prayers out of my spiritual warfare book, I have been reading scripture again and reading back into my religious books. And praying for others as well. I feel so much better, I am so thankful that the Lord looked upon me and heard my prayers and gave me the push I was asking for. I love God so much because He cares so much for me and He takes such wonderful watch and care over me. He is an amazing Father and I am so blessed by Him everyday.
But with the good comes the bad, you know a lot of times we have some activity go on in the house with noises and knowing when there is an unwelcome presence in the house. However, things have been pretty quiet but I really think it is because we were just in this slump and the devil was kind of happy that we weren't progressing, but we have been picking up the pace and making efforts to keep on getting closer to our Lord God.
Just recently my husband had fell asleep right before me and he is quit the hard sleeper, so I was settling down for bed, and right when I laid down I closed my eyes for a few seconds and heard this loud bang in the house that sounded like it came from right by our bedroom in the hallway, I jumped it was so loud, I didn't see anything so I laid back down, and an all to familiar feeling came over me, my heart began to race and I became sick feeling, I can always tell when there is an unwanted presence in the house, I immediately went into prayer mode, saying my St. Michael prayer over and over amongst other prayers. And then I could hear as if someone was walking in our house and then in our bedroom and I was so scared to open my eyes, but I kept praying but it felt and sounded as if someone was walking around in our bedroom and around our bed, and felt like someone was standing over our bed watching us, look it was so scary I thought for a brief second that my husband left the door unlocked and someone got into our house. So I braved it and opened my eyes and looked up but of course nothing was there, closed my eyes again and there it went again as if someone was walking around our bed. It was one of the scariest feelings because I have always just heard noises, I never actually heard footsteps or the sound of a physical person in my house I mean I swear I could hear them breathing.
Eventually through the power of prayer I was able to get to sleep. The next morning I was nervous to talk to my husband about it because I know he believes me but when you say it out loud you know you sound crazy so its hard to speak about. But I'm glad that I did tell him because he said he woke up in the middle of the night and heard what sounded like someone walking through our house and then our front door close shut.
Explain that one right. I mean to an average person whose eyes have not been open to the unseen they would think you are crazy, but to the person who has experienced it first hand they will tell you it is the devil trying to scare you. He wants you to give up your persistent prayer and persistent relationship with God. So he will do whatever he can to throw you off the righteous path and if the first attempts don't work he will get more scarier and make life harder. But just remember Jesus had to go through hell and back to save us and to sit at the right hand of the Father. We now need to suffer willingly and keep on the path the Father has laid out for each and every one of us so we can be with Him and praise Him in Heaven for all eternity.
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