God Winks

One more blog for the day, and I think everything will be caught up. This one is called God Winks.

God Winks are the little glimmers of hope that I have been given when I have felt utterly alone. I began tithing before I knew anything was wrong with my marriage. I felt that even though we were borrowing money to live on, we would never reap God's blessings if I didn't tithe. So even at my lowest point, even at the point when I didn't even have sandwich bread and my kids were going to begin getting free lunches at school, when I was having to get my food from a food bank, (yes it was that hairy for a few weeks there) I remained faithful with my tithing. Here are a few benefits that I have reaped from being faithful. Even though as mentioned in the accountability blog, I may not have been acting very Christian, I remained faithful with my tithing.

I received a Christmas dinner through my daughters school, even though my oven was broken and I couldn't cook it and all of the food (including the extra my son had bought at Publix) I was still humbly blessed when they called to tell me the food was coming. I am hoping for better luck at Easter. My landlord also sent me a check in return for the dinner that went to waste.

We were adopted as a angel family. I will never be in a position for Christmas again where I depend on a man, or depend on a man to help me with that. It was so humbling, and I will never forget and will always pay it forward.

I received a check in the mail from a bank account that I had 10 years ago. I mean really? I just got this last Friday, when I knew he was out of town again and had to sign up the girls for sports, buy sports equipment for workouts, and my 14 year old had a eye infection that lead to her new glasses, eye exam, and 4 subsequent visits. I was a bit overwhelmed when he told me he wouldn't be depositing money until today, but that check was just enough to hold me over.

Here are a few more God Winks, I have seen over this.

From Beyoncé to Bethel the day on the bridge.

I finally was able to get his music off my phone, but apparently I left a Steven Curtis Chapman song, called Beauty Will Rise on there. For a long while every morning that I got up and got in my car, that song would be on automatically on my blue tooth. Coincidence that this blog is named after that song? I think not.

Friendships: Oh my goodness what would I do without them? I literally had two women here, My cousin and a gf that I met through my cousin. But I have had friends call me, text me, inbox me on facebook, dm me on twitter, every single day from Tennessee, they have stayed on the phone with me, prayed with me, prevented me from driving to Tampa and subsequently go to jail, they have laughed with me, cried with me, and I have had them any time of the night or day. Morning, noon, and night with advice and nothing but love. I have seen God in every single one of them. And it has been moving.

In keeping with the friendships, I was so scared that I would not get to know anyone down here aside from the girls that I worked with, but one by one, God has brought people through my children that have become a whole new set of girlfriends down here. He is showing me that indeed I can make a life for us down here without my husband, and one that is going to be amazing at best.

You are known for the women you keep, and I have been blessed with some of the very best.

A new church, that already has many people reaching out to me and pouring love to me and my children. Tonight my children went to church on their own and recommitted their lives to Christ too. I am so humbled by what God is doing, even when he is working behind the scenes, even when I don't please Him, He is working.

I have also never given up on Praying for my husband and his mistress every single day. I bought a book on Amazon called Praying for your husband from head to toe, and I have continued to read that, but the other day I went to find a cookbook I found the Power of a Praying Wife by Stormi Omartian. I begin reading that and chapter one was perfect for me, it teaches me to get things out of your own heart before you can start praying for others, so I have been working on that. How weird was it that this book was sitting in amongst my cookbooks? And here is my favorite part..Lord, please turn my selfishness, impatience and irritability into kindness, long-suffering, an the willingness to bear all things <------ I'm still a work in progress. Take my old emotional habits, mindsets, automatic reactions, rude assumptions, and self protective stance  and make me kind, patient, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled.<------ Still a work in progress, again but I know that he will make beauty for these ashes in all of our lives!!!