Not My Time, but God's Time

So many people sit and wonder why am I going through so much strife? How long do I have to struggle? Aren't I doing everything that God wants me to do? Has that ever been you? Have you ever cried only to face more hard times? In these times did you praise God in advance or did you ask "Lord why me?" When you didn’t have the money to pay your rent, did you stress and turn to people and not God? When you were standing at the bus stop did you say thank you Lord for making a way for me to get from point A to B or did you just remain angry and wish you had your car? When you were dealing with the circumstances of life did you label it a circumstance or were you able to accept it as the next building block in your testimony? I have been in each one of those situations. I even felt that God was punishing me, but it is much more than that. God needs us to pour out of our soul the word of life that He has put inside of us, but how can we do that if we don’t go through trials and tribulations? It is through our trials that we become strong enough to stand up from where we were to move to the place that we need to be. The Bible says that our steps are ordered, so we should be able to rest in the fact that God is only taking us through things to prepare us for something better. I stayed in a messed up relationship for far too long, only hurting myself and putting at risk the lives that I should be touching, but God! God has a way of opening our eyes IF we are ready to trust Him. I was trusting money, security, sex, and even drugs and alcohol instead of trusting my God. Singing His praises on Sunday only to be out drinking heavily by the end of the week, but God shook some things up. Not in my time, but His time. He let me stay right where I was. Crying and pleading for His help until I was ready to move, and then when I thought I was ready He reminded me "Not in your time, but Mine" Has that ever cut you up inside? We want to do things on our own agenda and not God's, but He has a way of bringing us back to earth. "Not in your time, but Mine" I believe in a divine purpose for everything. Had I gotten out sooner I wouldn’t have truly realized just how graceful and merciful God truly is. I would not have appreciated my life and its value. God is calling us higher, but we have to be ready to move when it's time. I learned from my ordeal that I was ungrateful to those who tried to help me. Being so used to "thinking" I was doing things by my own strength had me on a high horse thinking I needed no help, and not wanting to ask for help, but God has a way of breaking us down to nothing, and it's at that place of brokenness that He is able to do His best work. His strength is made perfect in our weakness... My rent got paid more than once and it was not by my strength. I didn’t even have the means to put food on my table. Brokenness. My ex and I lived apart, but I still longed for that security. God said "NO" The security I thought I had I had in the wrong place. God reminded me that it is through Him that all things are possible, that He was my security and not man. When I started to look at the ex as my way to pay my rent and support myself and my son, God quickly reminded me that He giveth and He taketh away...and He does things so expeditiously that we don’t have time to come up with a back up plan. Why? Because He has the ultimate plan. He is the back up plan. He is plan A B C D and E if we allow him to be. It's such a different outlook when we remove self from the picture. You start seeing people doing and saying the very same things that they condemned you for. People begin to need you, but when you needed them they weren’t there or they didn’t appreciate you. Seasoned folk say "you don’t miss what you had until it's gone" The ex called to once to tell me he was sorry, and the truth about what I meant to him after we had moved on. He talked about times that I was there for him and times he was glad I saved him from himself, times I picked him up when he couldn’t get up, and I thank God that I was those things, but God was telling me my time was done. It was His time now. I had done and fulfilled my purpose, learned my lesson, and that it was now time to let Him be God. I couldn’t keep holding on to the very thing that God was saying "let go" of. Obedience is key in keeping His commands and lining up with His will. I'm not saying God made me stay in the relationship for four years because I don't believe that. I know that I didn't trust Him enough to leave....I remember the rides down 290, incidents at home, his job, and I'm thankful for God's covering, protection, and will for my life. I used to wonder about my relationships with certain people, but after this ordeal I learned that we have to touch lives, but we have to know when to let people go as well. If we hold on to people and things when God is saying "let go" we not only hinder our growth, but theirs as well. Not to mention we miss out on blessings that God has for us.
God makes everything beautiful in time. I realize that I was once just a seed cast into thorns, but I now realize what a beautiful rose and strong woman I am meant to be.