OMG MOMENTS WITH GOD

Isaiah 65:24 ‘Before they call I will answer, while they are still speaking I will hear’
March 5

I left home excited about my home cooked curried chicken and rice that my mom had made. I really looked forward to having lunch at work. I watched the clock like a hawk waiting for its prey. My lunch time was a few minutes off that day so I ended up going to lunch a few minutes past 2 PM. I went to the lunch room with expectancy. I climbed the stairs with urgency and when I reached the lunch room I headed for my prized possession in the refrigerator. I had great anticipation as I took out the blue and white container. However my enthusiasm came to a great halt as I opened the container to find that it was filled with YAMS. Yes Yams! no curry chicken and rice BUT good old Jamaican Yams. In an effort to leave home on time I took the wrong container earlier that morning.

What options did I have now, maybe I could go home? or maybe I could ask my mom to take it to work for me?. My heart refuted each resolution. Then finally I said lord I’ll just settle for my small pack of Ovaltine biscuit and some good old crystal punch aka water. The Ovaltine biscuit was definitely better than having Air pie anyways. As I was about to open the packet to start eating a co worker of mine entered the room to inform me that my supervisor had called me. In an instant all I could think was “what is it this time” “I cant get a break not even at lunch”.

I went down stairs only to see my supervisor with a medium sized Styrofoam cup in her hands. As I approached her she stretched her hands towards me and said “I thought you might want this’ I was baffled and filled with excitement at the same time. I honestly could not believe it. I asked her is it for free? she then explained to me that she had purchased the cup of Red peas soup for her lunch but she was not pleased with how it looked, hence she was giving it away. She had just opened the container and had not eaten any of it as yet. It looked quite fine to me, I smiled and jumped and shouted this must be Jesus. He is the only one who knew I had no lunch. What are the odds of my supervisor not wanting what she purchased on the same day that I didn’t have anything to eat. What were the odds of her thinking of me, she could have called anyone else. What were the odds of us being at lunch at the same time. As I heated the soup in the microwave my heart was overwhelmed with gratefulness. I had the best soup ever that day. I enjoyed every sip that went to my mouth. God had favored me even if it was by simply providing lunch when I needed it. It reminds me of the statement David made in the bible when he said “I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging for bread”

March 10
Tuesday March 10, I woke up early and prepared for work. I had no intention of arriving late, however I stopped a few minutes to speak to my mom about an important matter. Time really flies when you are talking because before I knew It I had 10 minutes to get to work at the specified time. I usually walk to work but this morning walking looked impossible. I would definitely be late if walked. I walked to the bus stop and decided on taking a taxi. Taking a taxi means taxi fare money. I took a minute to search my bag hoping something would come up, unfortunately I had no such luck, my bag had no money. I was broke! I whispered a prayer as I started walking. I asked lord please send a ride.

As I uttered the words , for some reason I looked ahead of me and noticed a white car had stopped. I wasn’t sure if the car had stopped for me or not so I continued to walk. The car still stood waiting and I thought maybe it was my coworkers car. ‘She does have a car that resembles this one’, so I started to run towards the car. As I approached the vehicle I realized a child was sitting at the back. My co worker has a daughter but shouldn’t she be in school at this time I thought. None the less I slowly walked up to the front of the car only to realize it was not my coworker who had stopped but a lady I did not know. I told her I thought she was someone else and was about to walk away. She then called and asked where I was headed and offered me a ride. As I sat in the car she then explained that she thought I was someone she knew. I asked her if her friend worked at the same company as I to which she replied no. She further explained that she noticed my uniform was different but my hair style had resembled that of her friend and her friend also lived within the same proximity I was walking. She Told me she wasn’t sure but then I started running towards the car so that ascertained her. I explained to her that her car was the same model as my coworker and seeing as she waited for quite some time I started running towards the car thinking it must be my co worker. After sharing our sides of the story she exclaimed “well it seems you were meant to get a ride this morning’ it was then I told her how I asked God to send me a ride. She was surprised when I told her and we both agreed that God had set us up that morning. I walked away from the vehicle meeting Francine and her Daughter Cloe. God had sent a ride for me when I needed it.

Prior to those two events I remember complaining to God that I needed testimonies of my own. I felt like God didn’t care about me and that my walk with him was a sham. I had heard people talk of Gods goodness and I knew by faith God was good and that he was provider but I needed my own experiences. I didn’t trust God with my finances and I lived my life always trying to supply my own needs and depended on my own strength and resources. I was tired of living that way. Today I embark on having my own experiences of faith with God. His word has said in Malachi that if we bring tithes into his house he will open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing so great we wont have room to take it in. He has charged us as believers to try him and put him to the test concerning this matter. In Isaiah 65:24 the new living translation reads I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers’.

I am putting God to the test and I know he never fails to provide for his own. All good things and gifts come from God. Praise him for all the things he has provided for you. If you need God to step in right now and provide for you just wait and see, he never fails, he is on time and he knows the date and the address of the place you need him to be at. Trust him! he is going to show up! Are you looking forward to your OMG moments with God. I know I am. Let us embark on this journey together get a journal and start writing down every time you get a breakthrough or answered prayer. God loves when we trust him and when we anticipate his moves. Lets plug in to the power of prayer.

Match Made in Heaven

Someone at work articulated an intriguing statement that made my mind explode with so many thoughts about marriage and relationships etc. The “match made in heaven” card was pulled out during a casual conversation and right away my mind went back to the awesome word of God. I fired back at my co worker with “the only match made in heaven was Adam and Eve” and even they had problems!

Adam and Eve were definitely a match God put together however they had challenges. Even before sin entered the picture there were choices and options. Whether married or single the decisions you make will have an impact whether positive or negative on you or those associated with you. In her marriage Eve allowed an external force to stimulate her decision. She then went on to impose her decision on her husband by stimulating him to act in the same manner as she did in regards to the situation. Marriage Is sacred be careful whose advice you take when making decisions in your marriage or relationship. Some advice if followed will further damage/demise your relationship instead of leading to its growth.

Psyche for some of you huh? But yes even matches made in heaven need down to earth maintenance. Relationships on a whole are hard whether it be with family or friends. Even sisters and brothers raised by the same parents have rivalry from time to time, disagreements, differences in opinions , annoyances etc But at the end of the day family is family you cant change that. You argue, you disagree, you forgive, sometimes you apologize and you move on its just another thing that happens. I believe that is exactly what God wanted when he told man to leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife. He wanted man to have such a strong sense of kindred bond and loyalty with his spouse. He was saying man cling to your wife like you would with a blood relative. Don’t see him or her as someone you picked up along the way and in the event of challenges you walk away. Cling to your spouse! You become one with this person. This leads me to ask how do you treat yourself? Do u value your feelings opinions etc Then treat your spouse as you treat yourself.

There has been a lot of talk about Divorce, on average research shows One out of thee marriages end in divorce. That’s no joke! Sometimes we tend to focus on the negatives and we exaggerate on the one that didn’t make it, but what about the two that did. What is it that they have done differently that made their marriage an everyday success? I am no expert on marriage I have never been married however I can give advice based on those around me who have been and from research and what I have heard from other married couples. My grandparents were married for over 60 years, my aunt has been married for about 25 years, my sister has been married for 13 years and counting.

Research shows that couples that pray together, have family devotions and have a strong sense of faith have lasting marriages etc question: does this mean a non Christian couple that gets married wont last? absolutely not! So what is it that makes a marriage last? My thought on the matter is the same as any other relationship:

• Forgiveness – 70 times 7 within a day
• Commitment
• Understanding
• Compromise – learn the art of compromise
• Sticking it out during the tough times
• Communication – It is the lack of communication that leads to unhappy marriages
• Making time for each other even when kids get involved
• Keeping romance alive
• Sexual intimacy
• Respect
• Support
• Doing things together as a team eg. Cooking
• Complimenting the person often
• Honesty
• Keep dating
• Monogamy – for those with the swingers idea its a no go
• Friendship – If the name wife appears more sacred and more valid, sweeter to me is ever the word friend. Be your spouses friend, talk about any and everything.

God has basic principles for the blue print of marriage, whether you are a Christian or non Christian once you follow that blue print your marriage will be a success. Here are some tips from his manual on life and relationships.

• Husbands Love your wives as you Love yourselves and wives respect and submit to your husband
  (NOTE: Submission is not license that gives a person the legal right to control their spouse)
• A soft answer turns away anger but grievous words stir up strife
• It is better to live in the corner of a housetop than with a nagging wife
• Marriage is sacred and the marriage bed undefiled
• Above all love each other deeply because Love covers a multitude of wrongs
• Love prospers when fault is forgiveness but dwelling on it separates close friends
• Love is patient , Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast,, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, Love does not delight in evil but it rejoices in the truth, it always protects, always trusts, always hopes ,always preserves, Love never fails.
• Be humble and gentle, be patient bearing one another in Love

Love is not fleeting, it is not an emotion that passes with the wind. It is not romance, romance is simply icing on the cake. Love is a decision. It is true that getting to know someone you find attractive is exciting, we go though many stages of euphoria as we get to know someone we truly desire and have interest in. We get the butterflies and all that mushy stuff but Love is much deeper than that. Love is practical, Love endures, Love inspires action.

Signed:KC

The Child That was: Older but never out of range

 

Concrete jungle! if I should fall I would surely hurt myself, never the less I don’t care, I’m playing my favorite game with my best friend Adrianna where we spin around until we become dizzy. We then hold hands and laugh in our girlish giggles. Life is fun! maybe this is how Mr. Tom feels when he drinks too much whisky. I often remember seeing him staggering home, his torn grey Clarks looking more like red with the red clay that saturates the roads of Salem. The trees look foggy all  I can see is a hazy green and at last we fall to the ground not getting too hard of a hit on our bottoms.

Today seems to be a good day my mint green uniform is in tact and not as dirty as it was last week when I bought guineps from the school vendor and my careless eating caused the guinep to stain my clothes. When I got home that afternoon mommy was mad her eyes popped out like golf balls, she looked at me like doctor evil and said “As of today your washing your own uniform’s”  she put water in a yellow washing pan along with some Sud Sud detergent and handed me the washing brush to get to work. That was my first life lesson into womanhood.

My dolls were my students. After all, I had so many of them why not open a school and start teaching just like miss Grant does, in front of the entire 1b class. By the time I get to her age which is very old I presume I should be a professional at teaching, I might even get a job as a teacher when I grow up. When I grow up though I don’t want to have to put that black liquid in my hair like miss Grant  does, I want my hair to stay black forever. Last week at lunch time I overheard the lunch lady saying miss grant wants to look like a young girl that’s why she keeps dying her hair

Memories ,memories! I sincerely miss my childhood days, carefree and young, no worries about tomorrow that was mommy and Daddy’s job. My only major concern was how was I going to get granny, to give me the life size doll that my cousin had outgrown, but still refused to let me have it! I despised how stingy and mean she was, it certainly didn’t cross my childhood mind that the doll might have been sentimental to her.

Adolescents is another story all together.In our teens we start to believe the world is against us meaning our parents of course. We feel smothered. Life is ecstatic and full of compulsion and taking risks. Love is our fairytale. When we hit the teens we desire to grow up so fast, to be independent, well Jamaica got independence in 1962 and look where it got us. Bad joke! but yes I remember those days of rebellion very well.

Turning 18 was one of the greatest days of my life, I thought now  I’m an adult. But with adulthood came certain responsibilities and suddenly I wished I had basked in the care freeness of being a child. I wish I knew then what I know now  instead of trying to mimic adults and wishing to grow up so fast. Some of us have it twisted “Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child.”

Yesterday as I danced with my 5 year old niece on the balcony I felt the little girl of my past calling me, reminding me of the spontaneity, impulse and playfulness of my youth.

I love to see kids enjoying being a child making mistakes and learning. It plagues my heart when I see kids in a hurry to be adults and getting exposed to things far beyond their years. If you are a parent and you are reading this, please don’t rob your child of that privilege and birth right. Kids don’t need to look like adults or dress like adults or even act like adults, they will have their entire life to do so in a couple or years.

Neil Gaiman puts it so accurately “I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.”

Every stage of life is important, enjoy every stage you are at. Live each moment to the fullest. Soon all you will have are memories of places you have been, people you knew and things you did. What ever cross roads you are in life, seek to spend each day finding joy in everything and anything you can. In every adult dwells the child that was! We all have an inner child no matter what age we wear, so don’t  stifle it because it will die and you will need it especially when you have children of your own. Activate your inner child with your kids, your friends, and your family. We have enough serious people walking around.

As you continue your day after reading this material, just remember, please remember!  play today and do something spontaneous tomorrow.

Dont You Dare Give Up!

When things go wrong, and they sometimes will,

When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest if you must, but you mustn’t quit.

Life is strange with its twists and turns,

As everyone of us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about,

When one might have won had he stuck it out.

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow,

You might succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out,

The silver tint of the cloud of doubt,

And you can never tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems afar.

So stick to the fight when you are hardest hit,

It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit!

-Author Unknown

How many times have I thought about quitting lets see once, twice, oh wait 4, 10,23,153 times. The truth is I cant put a number to it because its been so many. We all feel like quitting sometimes when life gets pressing and demotivating. School is too challenging, this subject is too hard, this project at work is driving me crazy, my business is going downhill, the bank repossessed my home, I’ve tried so hard to diet and exercise but I’m just not losing weight, this is my 21st interview yet no job, I’ve tried my best and nothing seems to be working out in my favor. I’m tired, I’m done, I’m finished! have you ever felt this way?

More than likely you have BUT just hang in there one more time, and another time after that because people who succeed are those who never quit trying. They take dips but they always come back to surface.

Did you know that some of the most successful people failed at first? Thomas Edison was told by his teachers he was too stupid to learn anything. At the age of 7 his teachers described him as hyperactive, prone to distraction and difficult. As a young man several of his experiments failed. In fact during one of his experiments a chemical fire started and the train baggage car from which he operated his laboratory was caught on fire. Yet he did not quit he persevered and went on to develop the telegraph, phonograph, the electric light bulb and a camera for motion pictures.

At the age of 16 Walt Disney dropped out of high school to join the army however he was rejected because he was under aged. Disappointed he then went on to work for the red cross as an ambulance driver. Later in life he started his first company laugh- o-grams which went bankrupt. Despite this set back Walt Disney was a man with a dream and on a mission.

Due to his perseverance and dedication to his dreams Walt Disney produced the first color cartoon (color and trees), snow white and the seven dwarfs and finally his dream amusement park Disney land. Initially when he decided to turn snow white into a film he was ridiculed and advised that he would fail. there was a lot of talk in the media about “Disney’s folly”. Despite the nay Sayers he pushed with his dream. Today Walt Disney is a worldwide name because of his creativity and imagination but would you believe that he was fired from his first job for “lacking imagination and his inability to come up with good ideas?”

Another example of a failure turned into success would be my favorite restaurant KFC as other people put it ‘its finger lickin good.’ At a very early age Colonel Sanders learnt responsibility having to take care of his younger siblings. His early jobs included working on a farm, street car conductor, soldier, railroad fireman, insurance salesman, tire sales man, steam boat ferry operator and the list goes on. As a matter of fact he was fired from several jobs before founding a successful franchise.

As you can see there have been many successes just as there have been failures. To look at a life without failure is to look at a life without success one cannot be possible without the other. Taking chances is not the end of the road its only the beginning. What are you good at, keep moving, let your failures motivate you to success! Don’t you dare give up!

Price Tag

How many times have we heard the saying Money cannot buy happiness? can’t even count right! sometimes it easy and tempting to feel that maybe if you had that big house in Beverly hills, or that expensive car you would be happier and things would be better. Better yet if we had more clothes , shoes and the cha-ching, cha-ching we would be confident and smile more often. The reality is money cannot buy happiness neither does it automatically contribute to a better quality of life. If money buys happiness why do so many wealthy persons take their own lives? why do they take anti depressant’s so often to nullify the loneliness and sadness they feel? money gets you what you want but it doesn’t always get you what you need!

Sometimes the American dream can become a nightmare ripping apart families. Parents, never be so consumed in making money to the point where you never have time to experience the joy of watching your son score his first goal in his soccer game or your daughters play recital, after all she is so excited about playing the lead role and would give the world if only you would make time to see her shine; just like you did when you were her age.

Some of the poorest persons are the happiest and why? because of love and contentment. They don’t possess many distractions that disable them from enjoying the simple things in life; such as pillow fights, laughing together and spending quality time with one another.

They cant help but eat together at the table and talk about their day because they live in a so called match box. It gets annoying having a big family and not a lot of money. It means not having your own space and wearing hand me downs from siblings but they learn the gift and the art of sharing and looking out for each other. Some of the closest and strongest families didn’t have much but they learnt the true value of having everything by just having each other.

Jessie j prince “price tag” hit a nerve with me tonight. verses such as ‘seems like everybody has a price’ ‘Why is everyone so obsessed money cannot buy us happiness’.

As I get older and relish the thought of having my own family I hope to have a good life where financially my partner and I can live comfortably but most of all I desire the gift of contentment and the gift of having a happy and close knit family where we enjoy the blessing of each other. I love the finer things in life, I love art, fancy decorations, the convenience of a car, beautiful home décor, pretty clothes, shoes and jewelry you name it. But I prefer quality of life over quantity.

One writer shares “its true money can’t buy happiness but i’d cheer up much faster while sitting poolside in a lounge chair outside of my ocean front mansion’

The Good book has two things that stand out about money, firstly “the love of money is the root of all evil’ additionally “money answers all things’ with this being said money in itself isn’t bad as with all things, but rather it is the love of money that drives us to compulsions like scheming, jealousy, covetousness (what we Jamaicans call RED EYE). It is the love of money that robs us of family time. We need money to pay our bills, buy food, treat ourselves, shopping but we don’t need money to be happy.

while Researching I came across a book entitled “you can buy happiness and its cheap” funny enough in some weird kind of way when you think of it there is truth in this statement. If you truly want to know the remedy to being happy, you can buy happiness by investing your time and thoughts into someone and not just something. Invest time in people and not just things.

Some of us be like “all I want is a chance to prove money cant buy happiness”

Come on already dare to be happy at whatever cross roads you are at now! Don’t be so serious, smile at life! don’t act like those people with the shades on their eyes and their heels so high that they can’t even have a good time. Its not about the MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, forget about the cha-ching cha-ching. Forget about the ba-bling ba-bling, lets slow down and enjoy right now! FORGET ABOUT THE PRICE TAG