“Walk out of any doorway, feel your way, feel your way like the day before.
Maybe you'll find direction, Around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you.” Lyrics from Box of Rain, Grateful Dead Have you ever been in a situation where you were so sure it was going to work out only to find yourself slapped in the face with calamity, disaster or even worse, humiliation? Have you ever had a person enter your life that you thought was the answer to a problem only to have them spit in your face and call you crazy? Have you ever landed a great job only to get settled in to find that the writing on the wall screams not your cup of tea? Well, that’s just God taking you in a different direction. I’ve had a string of these situations recently and I find myself in the middle of such a situation right now. It’s not fun being unsettled, especially when the writing is so clearly written on the wall and you have yet to uncover your next destination as well as the how and when of your arrival. It’s like being stuck in two worlds. You know you aren’t staying where you are and you have some clues to where you are going, but the exact destination and route are still unknown. It’s all God leading you in a different direction. I was recently handed a job that was a literal lifesaver in that I was about a month away from being homeless when I got hired. I was very excited to find that not only was I able to stay in California, but I also had a pretty easy job with awesome co-workers, kick-ass bosses and a general laid back, easy going vibe of an office. All in all, it was a good fit… well, all except for the fact that it is nowhere near my life’s passion. I knew when I took the job that it was not a forever kind of deal, but I had no idea the honeymoon was going to end so quickly! These past couple of weeks I have become very aware of how tired and drained I am at the end of the day and the general disinterest in all things pertaining to my job doesn’t help either. Moreover, God is staring to nudge me in terms of reminding me of why I came to California in the first place. He’s starting to build a fire under me regarding my writing. I told my God that I needed a day job that excites and energizes me if I was going to get my writing groove back. I also spewed something along the lines of this tired and annoyed shadow of a human being is hanging on to her sobriety by a thread and now You’re nudging me to get back to writing? When and how was that going to happen? For all I know I’m just having trouble adjusting to working full time and you know – being fully aware of it. Luckily, I remembered something Mastin Kipp said in one of his classes… that confusion precedes clarity… so I’ve been hanging on to that invisible thread, and trusting God to show me whether it’s me or the situation and what my next steps should be and then something amazing happened. For starters a nocturnal owl perched in the room next to mine confirming my search for new digs…. Mind you I’m not sure where I should search for digs at this point as I also started hearing things at work about how the company was going to be changing over the next year. As it turns out, almost everything I love about the company will soon be non-existent. The people I love are moving to a different location, the laid back atmosphere is being replaced with an annoying high security ambience and the one thing I’ve always said I’d never partake in is becoming a part of my job duties. Well, how’s that for some giant and completely legible writing on the wall! I told my God I was beginning to feel like I was being shooed out of a town without any money or transportation to take me on to the next town. I then began to become acutely aware of the fact that the work I do in an internship capacity always energizes and excites me no matter how drained I am and that I needed to pay attention to that particular piece of information. It also dawned on me that I happen to hold a volunteer position in a different component of the same field. Light Bulbs Flashing! So not only was the writing on the wall as clear as day, but I finally had a clue as to what direction I needed to move towards. It’s all such an emotional whirlwind: this whole being where I am, while trying to figure out how to get to where God’s taking me. I like the people I work with and there are perks to my job, but it just isn’t my final destination. This job is more of a layover in that it is keeping me in place so I won’t miss the plane that is about to pull into the gate. Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t and we can’t take it personally, we just have to realize that God may be taking us somewhere else. The next time something or someone doesn’t pan out, ask God what that was about… I’m sure He’ll tell you that it was just Him leading you in a different and better direction.
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I have to be honest that these first two months in Los Angeles have not been easy. For one, I am up in the valley and apparently “no one hires people from up there”. Second, I happen to live with six female college students who don’t speak a lick of English as they are all from the great land that owns us, China. Being from China you would think they would be at least a little tidy, but they are just like American college students in that they are filthy and apparently under the impression that a fairy is going to clean up after them. My biggest problem as of right now is parking in that I am not use to having to have cash on hand 24/7 to park and I happen to be out of cash at the moment. Dear State Farm Bank: Please send me my debit card, as it is of utmost importance that I receive it. I am also not use to pedestrians being everywhere so if you, a pedestrian, see a silver Impala please look before crossing because I am probably not even aware that you exist. On the bright side, I am finally starting to get a handle on navigating this giant city and as a result only make one wrong turn per trip, which is an improvement of gigantic proportions.
Boredom and lack of human interaction has also been a major problem in these first two months. As is being stuck in a hot, un-air conditioned house in the valley that could use some serious TLC. Moreover, I am facing the fact that I need income as medical bills keep arriving that I cannot pay. Adding to the boredom and impending financial doom is the fact that I am getting sober for the umpteenth time. Needless to say, I need something to give and I need it to give now. Unfortunately, I seem to be sending out resumes left and right and nobody seems to be interested. Moreover, those that are “interested” only seem to be interested in telling me that I need to “move to the city” or better yet “you need some experience before you can intern here”. Um, really? I thought internships were for experience and as a matter of fact, I am in the city! And for the love of God, the 405 is not that bad! Suck it up Lalians, Suck it up! Any who, things got to the point that I felt like I was suppose to receive some sort of key in order to actually live here and without that key I would be doomed to wander the streets as a beggar. No matter how much I prayed or cried, nothing seemed to be changing. I felt locked out and I had no one to seek advice from and I didn’t know what to do so I did the only thing I could do… I unloaded all of this on the poor messianic pastor at the messianic synagogue I have been visiting and I did this unloading during the service. He, obviously having dealt with a bunch of crazy people in his life, asked if I had ever tried fasting and prayer. He said that whenever he needs a breakthrough in life, whether it is financial, relational, emotional or physical, he sets aside a day or a weekend to fast and pray. He told me that Yeshua, himself, in the seventeenth chapter of Matthew, told His disciples that some problems require fasting and prayer. As luck would have it, the congregation was having a day of breakthrough prayer and fasting the very next day. I assume you think I went. You would be wrong. I got scared at everyone trying to get me to go so I left the service as quickly as possible. I must have resembled a dear caught in headlights. Note to self: flight response is alive and kicking; fight response – not so much. After I got home, I looked up Matthew chapter seventeen and found in verse twenty-one that Yeshua did indeed say that some things can only be conquered through prayer and fasting so I decided to do my own little version in the solitude and safety of my little rented room in the hot, sticky valley that everyone pretends doesn’t exist. Being that I have never done this before and being that I always have a bit of method to my madness, I decided to plan out my six hours of prayer and fasting… I’ve never done this before and thought a whole day was a little presumptive of myself. Hour 1 (12-1pm) – Praise Hour 2 (1-2pm) – Prayer Hour 3 (2-3pm) – Praise Bathroom Break Hour 4 (3-4pm) – Scripture Hour 5 (4-5pm) – Prayer Hour 6 (5-6pm) – Praise Okay, so maybe I did a lot more praising than I did praying, but due to a recent realization, I actually connect to God through praise much more than I connect through prayer. While, I could probably do a whole post on all that thought encompasses, it will not be done today. I do have to say that the experience did not disappoint. I thought I was going to be bored. I thought I would not be able to concentrate or run out of things to say, but let me tell you that when the God of the Universe wants to talk, He has a way of commanding your attention beyond all of your human capabilities. I used the Praise & Worship channel on Pandora for my praise hours and actually found some songs and artists that I really enjoyed. As for the first hour of prayer… I began by telling my God and King my purpose for this time and explained in detail what I was feeling and what I felt I needed from Him. After that, I opened up the floor for Him to speak and well, let’s just say He relayed what He needed from me before He could give me what I claimed to so desperately want! I had recently taken a class entitled Actualizing Your Soul’s Goals with Mastin Kipp from The Daily Love, an online blog and community. In this class Mastin taught us the difference between goals and intentions and lead us through a series of exercises designed to bring out our own individual purposes for this life. By the end of the class everyone had a list of intentions, goals and grounded action steps to help them reach the goals that would bring true fulfillment. I have to say the class was awesome and I was immediately hit between the eyes with the realization of what was keeping me in a very unhealthy cyclical holding pattern from which I was desperate to break free. I thought the work from that class was done, but during the first hour of prayer God took all of my class work and went much, much deeper. I ended up spending the last thirty minutes of prayer completely re-writing my intentions, my purpose and something Mastin calls my Major Definite Purpose. I had gotten ahead of myself in the class and while the majority of what I wrote was and is true, I have work to do before I actually get there. AMAZING! After the initial prayer hour, I continued with my itinerary until I came to the scripture hour. I actually didn’t have a clue as to what I was going to do with that hour. I suppose I was planning on looking up some verses on some particular topics I am struggling with but I ended up just asking God to guide me as I opened His book and He did. It seems He has some things to tell me about life and how one is to live life. He directed me to several scriptures, one of them being 1 Thessalonians where Paul talks to the new Christians regarding how they are to live their lives and why. He also led me to look over the Ten Commandments again. It seems as though God wanted to remind me that He has some advice on this thing called life and that it would be good for me to familiarize myself with such advice both on a physically practical level and on a mentally practical level. And don’t think the hours of praise were a vacation either. I strained to really listen to and contemplate the meaning of the words I was singing and in those words I found God speaking loud and clear regarding many aspects of my life. It is interesting to note that I now feel that my own personal life purpose is to… “Be a blessing to everyone I meet by empowering myself so that I can empower others to live out their own individual purposes thereby sharing their own unique gifts with the world and making the world a better place by having done so.” … When I am so far from being a blessing in any sense of the word to any other human being on this planet. In simplest terms, I have a lot of transforming to do in terms of what I say and what I do blending into a recognizable harmony. All in all, I am very happy with the outcome of my first ever day of prayer and fasting and feel it is a great way to reconnect with God, empower yourself when feeling vulnerable or need divine insight into a person or situation. It is especially useful for times when a breakthrough is needed. If the door is locked, go to the Person with the key… You know, the Person who created the door and the lock or at least allowed the lock to exist. Of course, the challenge is to keep your focus on God and His love and NOT on the end result because God will only give you that which you are ready to receive. Though you can be sure that He will reveal exactly what you need to cultivate in your life in order to be ready for that which you want. As for me, I guess I was ready. Let’s just say that the giant door on the entertainment industry appears to now be unlocked. I have received a multitude of internship opportunities and am in the midst of the selection process as I type this post. On an even more pleasing note, I am beginning to receive interviews for paid positions within the industry too. Hopefully, I will land an offer soon and be well on my way to obtaining a place of my own in this land known as La la. If God is still talking… then He hasn’t given up on you yet and if you are a believer in God, then you should know that coincidences are the actual footprints of God in our lives. So with that said, you don’t open up to the same page in a book twice and think nothing of it… at least I don’t. I was actually browsing books for a gift and happened upon a title that caught my eye. I took the book off the shelf, opened it up, appalled at the topic it opened to, shut it quickly and put it back on the shelf. I continued browsing books and eventually came back to the first book. I again, took the book off the shelf, opened it up to the exact same page and thought “Ok, maybe I need to read this” and so I did. As with many stories I have to take you back to the beginning, which would be the prior evening.
I was in bed reading Joel Osteen’s book, It's Your Time. One of the main themes of the book is along the lines of as long as you are doing your best for God, He will create doors where walls once stood. That particular night a sentence jumped out at me. That sentence read: Your attitude determines whether you move forward in God’s divine plan or whether you stay put. The next day while driving home from work I turned the radio dial to 95.7 to hear a daily broadcast from Bishop Brandon Porter. His message that day was in regards to how ‘our little is preparing us for our lot’ and that when God gives us something, whether it be a small thing or a huge thing, we are suppose to make it better than it was before. In other words, we are suppose to do our best for God knowing that there is a reason this task was given to us and not someone else. This reminds me of Steve Jobs when he said you just have to have faith that the dots are going to connect somewhere in the future. Anywho, like I said I was driving home and on the way I stopped by Barnes & Noble to pick up a book for my mother. I was actually planning on picking up Joyce Meyer’s Battlefield of the Mind Devotional, but the store did not have it in stock and so as I browsed the rest of her books my eye immediately fell on Be Anxious For Nothing. After opening up to the same page twice I decided to read that page against my will and it told me that while we are waiting on the Lord we are suppose to bear the fruits of the Spirit and not walk around angry, miserable and defeated. Hmmm…. Right then and there I knew God was really speaking to me. I had recently told Him that while I used to pride myself on being on the scenic route in life that I was no longer enjoying the ride and that I was ready for the direct route. I told Him I had goals that I wanted to accomplish and that I was even interested in having a husband, possibly even a family and a place to call my own where I don’t get attacked for putting too much of my stuff in the fridge. Most of my friends spent their twenties climbing the ropes in their preferred careers whereas I spent my twenties doing everything but my preferred career. My friends are now enjoying the fruit of their labor while I have a whole lot of labor and absolutely no fruit: Nothing to be proud of or enjoy. I feel like I’ve been on a loopty loop for ten years, seriously. Interestingly enough, it was the very day that I said this to God that all of the above began. I personally believe that God is trying to tell me that the key to my getting off of the loopty loop and boarding the express rail is to start producing the fruit of the Spirit and keep producing them no matter what. And I do have to admit that it has been these last ten years of personal and career dissatisfaction that have helped me get rid of the shyness and timidness that plagued me for most of my younger years. In fact, I can say that had I not had these ten years of “ugh” I would not be mentally, emotionally and spiritually ready for where I am headed. I can also say that even though I personally did not care for what I did career wise, I sure did learn a whole lot that I can take with me because everything I’ve done is of the universal kind. From overhauling a human resource department to helping run a utility construction office, I’ve either worked in or been exposed to every possible department within a business and I have a feeling that this experience is what is going to land me my next job only this time I’ll be in a preferred position, within a preferred company and in a preferred industry. I will have gotten off the loopty loop, boarded the express rail and finally be in a position to make something of this life that I am living. But as God has beaten over my head, it all starts with the fruit. Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control…These are the fruits of the spirit and we are to produce them no matter what. Life doesn’t wait to start until you are in your perfect position so neither should your production of spiritual fruit. You just have to know that where you are right now is preparing you for where you are going and once you get there you’ll have the ability to look back and just marvel at how much God knows and just how much we do not. And sense I'm being honest here, I do have to admit that this post was birthed about a month ago and there have been several instances since then where God has tapped me on the shoulder regarding the whole doing your best for Him no matter how much you detest your current circumstances. As far as He is concerned until you are out of those circumstances you are suppose to be doing your best for Him no matter how much you want to burn down that building, shoot that boss or strangle that coworker. And wouldn't you know, here I sit about 8:45 pm on May 30th half listening to Piers Morgan Tonight while reading through this post very aware of a slight stay of execution regarding my move west and BAM! Crap! I mean if I'm going to put something in my blog I should be practicing that which I preach so I am going to do my best from this day forward to be my best in my current so-ready-to-be-out-of-here circumstance until I am actually out of the circumstance and if I happen to find myself in another similar position until I get my footing in Los Angeles, then so be it. I 'll just keep producing spiritual fruit knowing at some point the tides will turn and I will get the personal and career satisfaction I desire. P.S. All praying folk are welcome to pray for traveling mercies as I make my way across the country sometime this month and while you're at it… a job with benefits would be nice too! Love, Light & Laughter to all my readership! |
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