CHAPTER SEVEN
I WILL PRAISE HIM
Psalm100:4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
In Chapter Six, I had told about how God had said "You didn't praise Me", and I didn't understand what He meant but I began to seek Him to know, approximately 10 years had past since that moment. I remember everything about my first time I came for worship at my now church, except the message. 😂 But you see I heard what God was wanting me to hear, plus I had never heard a pastor begin to exhort during the praise and worship music. So bear with me this day was life changing for me.
It had been a year since I had worked at this church, but one of the ladies recognized me, and the pastor finally figured out where he knew me from 😁, the people were friendly but at the same time I was feeling out of place, you know a new church, didn't know what to expect, came by myself. Then church began, prayer, the worship music started, no choir but a great praise team, truly anointed. At one point the pastor got up and shared a great exhortation that captured my attention, then he sat down and I thought that was good but that was the shortest message I have ever heard. Then the music ended and he stood up and said "Church can we just love on Jesus a minute". Then I heard such a beautiful sound all around me people were softly saying who Jesus is. You are the Great I Am, Holy, Wonderful Savior, Our Redeemer, Our Lord, Our King. On and on it went and then quietly they stopped and sat down. And he began to preach. Even today many years later he will still do that time of exhortation and encourage us to just lift up our voices in praise. Did it take me out of my comfort zone, absolutely, but at the same time I loved the whole service and I knew that was where I belonged. After I had been going for awhile I began to understand the meaning of Psalm 100:4 I learned very quickly, "We thank Him for what He has done and we praise Him for who He is"! I was exactly where God wanted me.
I asked God once "Why did you bring me here since I didn't make much money working?" His beautiful answer: "You came to make money, I brought you here to worship Me". Think about it, if my daughter had not been listening to K Love that morning, she would not have heard they were hiring, if I had not followed through and applied, if they had not hired me, then I would never have known about this church. People that was all God, He in His providential plan moved and made sure I would get a job in the church He was going to plant me in, you could say it was my Karios moment. I have learned so much over these years times of going deeper with God, growing in Jesus, listening to the Holy Spirit and learning to obey. Trusting more and more in my Savior in bad times and good times, learning to set up markers that I would go back to over and over again to remember God brought you through here He is faithful and will bring me through again and again. What a chapter in my life that has just begun. Here I was given opportunities to serve in the kingdom of God, and here I began to learn to love myself for who God has created me to be. My desire to go deeper and deeper with Jesus continues even approximately 13 years later.
Shortly after I started coming I had to move from my ex-husbands home as he wanted to sell it. So I was living in a downstairs apartment. One night there was a lot of loud arguing going on that kept me awake throughout the night, in the upstairs apartment. At about 5:00am I thought I might as well get up and go get on my laptop and talk about my neighbors on Facebook. My laptop was on my dining room table and behind it was my china cabinet. As I sat up to get up, I heard very clearly "Don't do it". So I laid back down and immediately went to sleep but about 15 minutes later I heard a loud noise, so I got up to go see what had happened, because the people upstairs had suddenly got very quiet. I found from my ceiling dust had fallen all over my laptop and table, a hole in the china cabinet behind my chair, and a bullet laying beside the living room chair. Shaking I called the police, they came, they saw, and they arrested the man upstairs. The forensic man said that if I had been sitting in that chair I would be dead. Did you see what God did? Once more He saved my life and no telling how many other times He has protected me.
One day I asked God "Why did you not allow me to die those different times?" He answered "Because I have something better for you". And that goes back to Jeremiah 29:11.
I was so blessed in this chapter of my life (and still am) but like all things, chapters can change but God never changes, He is always faithful in every phase of our journey. I believe the biggest blessing in this life chapter was me seeking to go deeper with Jesus and God growing me. I felt like I had a real purpose in God's kingdom. But there was coming a shift that would grow my faith. Our faith grows in adversity, because in our times of trouble we draw nearer to Him. Sitting in church one Sunday and thinking about storms in my life (These storms were nothing to what was coming), I had prayed once "Lord whatever it takes draw me closer to You". But problems kept coming, and this Sunday I heard the Lord say "You are the closest to Me when you are in the middle of a storm".
A shift is coming for me personally in the next chapter of my life.
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