Every chapter that I wrote, led me on this journey of joy. Yes, there was the hard struggle, but to remember, and to go back and think how the Lord answered every prayer, how He came through for every single need; there wasn’t a need that went unmet. He used people in my life to believe for me, to pray for me. 

There’s an instance where a dear friend of mine and my mom kept telling me that there were programs that would help single women, single mothers buy their first home. I just didn’t believe it. I wasn’t even looking for a house. And my pastor’s wife comes up to me one day, and she tells me about this house in this neighborhood that she thinks I should go look at. “It’s a foreclosure and it would be perfect. It’s in a nice part of town, nice neighborhood.” And she encourages me to go look at it. I didn’t listen to her advice. But then my boss’s wife comes into the office and she asked me, have I considered buying a house? And I’m just dumbfounded. I don’t know what to say. And she tells me about this house in this neighborhood. These two women have never met. They tell me about the same house within the same week. 

So by this time, I am very curious at what the Lord is doing. I still don’t believe that I can do it myself. So I’m going more through the motions to satisfy my pastor’s wife and my boss’s wife. Okay, I’ll go check out this house. I take my children to go and see it. And because it’s a foreclosure, the windows, the mini blinds are all open. We’re able to look into this house. My kids immediately fall in love with this house. They’re so excited. They’re already picking out their bedrooms, and I’m walking around, I’m like, “Lord, if You want this to happen, You got to move some mountains because You know how much I make. It is not a lot. How am I going to do this?” When you bring God into it…What does the Bible say? “All things are possible if you believe.” I believed He could do it, I just didn’t know if He wanted to do it for me. 

Then within a two day span, I get the scripture that says, “Rise up, take up your bed, and walk.” The first time I read it, I’m reading my devotional, didn’t think anything of it. The second time I actually hear it on the radio and my ears perk up. I’m like, “Okay, that’s the second time. I need to listen.” I didn’t know what it meant. I truly didn’t know what it meant. Then the third time, I’m reading the newspaper, our local newspaper, and they always have a ‘Verse of the Day’ and that same scripture, “Rise up, take up your bed, and walk.” Why that scripture in a newspaper, that random stuff, I felt like, “Well, that’s just a random scripture that the editor picked out.” But it wasn’t. It was the icing on the cake that God is telling me, “Get up. Do something. You need to move. You need to put action, you need to put feet to the prayer of what I’m doing in your life. You’re getting this house.” 

I contact the realtor and the realtor guides me and he says, “You will be outbid. But HUD likes to see a family. They want to know that it’s not an investor. They would rather award the house to a family, than an investor.” I was awarded the house. I was, I won the bid that was $30,000 lower than the highest bid–and there’s a story behind that as well–That $30,000 was the back child support my ex husband owed me and never paid it. But God spoke to me and said, He was going to give me my money and that’s how He did it. He did it with the difference between my bid and the highest bid. I just get chills remembering that!

We all have a story and I simply shared mine in the way the Lord wanted me to by writing the book. Writing a book, not everybody is going to write a book, but you can write things down in your journal. You can have a notebook, it doesn’t have to be anything fancy. And when you’re writing things down, remember that God writes your story. He’s the One in control of it. He’s the One that we want to be in control of our story, because there’s so much joy when He is writing our story and we follow; we let Him shape and mold us into what He wants us to be, not what we think our parents, or our family or friends, but what He wants us to be and who He wants us to be. You would be surprised who needs to hear your story. Don’t be afraid to share it. I know with social media, there’s plenty of opportunity to share our story. There’s plenty of opportunity to open up and share what God has done for you. Let them know, “Hey, this is a little struggle I’m having. This is how God answered, this is what God did.” That scripture, that word that God gives to you about that situation, it may be something that will totally blow someone else away.

I keep going back to that scripture, “We overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of our testimony,” because it’s not just mine, it’s our testimony. And when we share that with each other, it gives us the motivation…well if God did it for them, He’ll certainly do it for me. He’ll answer for me. The theme of my life is John 10:10 “He came to give us life and that more abundantly” over and over. I may not have abundant riches as far as a bank account, but I have abundant riches and peace and joy and love and family and all the, all the things that are, you know, eternal.