Welcome Again!

This is a updated repost of my original, first blog. I have many new subscribers and wanted to share the beginning and welcome these new friends!

We all seem to be dealing with increasingly difficult life storms and these life storms seem to be increasing in amount, intensity and frequency. Some might even say 2020 is proof of that. 2025 is here! If you’re reading this, God chose for you to remain on this earth for now. He clearly has a purpose for each one of us.

In my life, I lived through intense storms-tracheotomy, cancer 2x, father with Alzheimer’s, mother with kidney cancer… and many minor life storms. I still consider myself to be blessed with God’s favor in my life! I know many of you have been through much more or much more difficult circumstances.

Life had always been easy and good to me up to my mid-life. Suddenly, life became tumultuous to me. When I started chemo treatments for breast cancer at the age of 44 and ovarian cancer at 54, I had no idea how I would complete the treatments and “survive.” Through His Word, prayers, doctors, nurses, emotions, stretching, and faith building, I endured. Along with those, I had past journals. I was amazed at how my journals reminded me of God’s faithfulness in the past and there was no reason His faithfulness wouldn’t continue. Just because I got my prayers answered the way I wanted in the past, it was easy for me to label God as faithful. But just because God was faithful doesn’t mean I had a miracle in my back pocket. The way God answers or doesn’t answer your prayers has nothing to do with His faithfulness. No matter the outcome, our God IS faithful!

In my storms, I would make the pain worth something no matter the outcome. God’s previous words to me helped me to move forward taking what I learned from the past to move forward with me into my future-whatever that would be.

In the midst of everything, God showed me how I was His pearl-chosen, valuable and worth so much to Him. As time has moved on, I have come to the realization that there’s more to a pearl than meets the eye. It’s a narrative of my beginning as gritty grains of sand to a lustrous, beautiful pearl. In Matt. 13:46 the man sold ALL he had to buy one, single pearl. It meant that much to him. Jesus is the one who gave ALL He had to purchase you and I.

Through prophetic words in 2018, I was told I had a story to share. I knew I did but didn’t feel like I handled my “storms” well or had the words to say. The prophetic words were “You’ve been through so much in your life that you could be a benefit to others. You’re thinking, ‘I didn’t walk through them very well.’ But that’s okay because sometimes with that comes the wisdom they need to help them get through their situations.’” It’s 7 years later, and I have learned how to share my story.

In July 2020, I put out a short synopsis of my writing on a website that publishers can search for book proposals. I heard from Kharis Publishing requesting to see 3 chapters of my proposal. They approved of those, so on to the next step. I had a Zoom interview with the Managing Editor. A week later, I had a contract! Everything happened so fast and fell into place so I feel like this is what God has called me to do. Now every time I think that story is old news and it’s time to move on, God sends someone else to cross my path, that needs to hear my story.

My book, Don’t Let Sand Fool You, is still available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A- Million and other various places. A portion of sales will always go to various orphanages in developing countries, mostly Africa, to establish resource centers that will empower children with literacy tools.

This blog is an overview of my journey and my way of writing down what I have learned about God’s faithfulness. I pray my words are a message of hope and encouragement to those who are struggling. When we grow spiritually and thrive in difficult circumstances, we bloom and flourish.