I'm baaaaackkkkkk!!!!! :)

As y'all know (well y'all meaning those few who actually read my blog) I'm not one that blogs every day... or every month for that matter :) But not going to lie this has been a long period of silence for me and y'all know I have a lot say :) However this short blog is really just explaining my absence JUST in case any one of you were nervous I might have fell off the face of the earth! The real story is we were having all kinds of electrical issues due to the builder of our home doing.... well a crappy job and cutting a lot corners, one being not putting a grounding rod in when he did the electric work!!!!! So hence we got struck by lightening and slowly but surely we started loosing power all throughout our house. Which causes issues when the stove doesn't work, the fridge slowly dies out, the hot water heater isn't heating so on and so forth! let's just say it means no cooking, cold showers, going to dear friends to wash clothes, and sweating to death in the summer heat! But God is good!!!! My parents came down and my dad and Wes worked on it together and what we were told would be a $1500 fix they were able to do under $200!!! Did I mention God is good? :) Anyway, that story to say we canceled our internet because it wasn't working and pretty much kept it off because it wasn't a necessity! But Wes is starting classes here soon so of course we had to go online again. Something about not being able to do classes via his iPhone! :) So that's where I've been. There is a blog that I really want to write about what we feel God is wanting us to do so on and so forth... but I need to make sure Wes is ready for me to share it with the cyber world! ;) We have told several dear friends and some family and it's nothing we feel we need to hide, I just want to make sure my husband is ok with me blasting over the internet! haha I know y'all understand! Hopefully I can give y'all a little sneak peak next week after Wes gets home.

Other than that things have been going great! Wes is in Arabic training here locally and hating every minute of it :) Except right now he is somewhere dropping bombs so he is pretty happy right now! haha Ian started preK this year! I know.... I am in shock as well! But we are both adjusting well! I work part time at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in the SVU department! My main task is fingerprinting, but I help out in whatever the Investigators may need! I have come to honestly and truly find out there are some strange, disturbed, crazy people in this world! I mean I have always known it but this puts an entirely different perspective on it!!!! But I am love, love, loving it :)

OK so this was a lot longer then I thought it would be... but oh well I know you aren't surprised! :)

I would like to introduce you to someone...

You know the blogs you read that is all about ONE person... you know, where you sit and read about how great and wonderful this ONE individual is in your friends life? Well... this is me about to do that... :)

Haven't you ever had someone in your life you love to introduce people to? Someone that means the world to you and has done so much for you and you can't imagine your life without and you get so super excited when you get the chance to introduce this amazing person to someone else because you know whoever meets this one special person they too will just fall in love with them? Well I have this person in my life that I want to tell you about... But first I have to giver a background story (of course lol)

So I'm not sure if most people know this but I have an enemy. I have had this enemy for a very long time and I have never been able to get rid of him or even make truce with him. He is always aggressive in his hatred for me, but there are times when it seems like I can't get away from him. He has beaten me down and left me so lonely and depressed. He has made me feel like dirt and there are some days I feel I fill so discouraged from all the lies he fills my head with. It gets so bad I have had nightmares about what he might do to me. Well this enemy I have has wanted me dead! He essentially will not be happy until I'm gone from this world. He hates me because I am not willing to be his slave so to speak. If I don't do what he wants he attacks me. I mean actual attacks! Verbal, mental, physical... you name it... he's done it. He is not satisfied until he has complete control over me and I just can't allow that. So like I said he will not be satisfied now until I'm beat down so hard that I won't be able to get back up.

But I met someone... Someone so truly amazing! He saw the situation I was in and told me if I asked him He would step in and take control over the situation. Well for a while I just let it be... Although He didn't. He was persistent and I knew He truly cared. So tonight I had enough... I was at my breaking point... I couldn't take it anymore. So I went to Him and told Him I was done trying to deal with this on my own... I needed Him! I needed Him to step in and take control for me because I couldn't do it on my own anymore. So He did. And what He did was truly amazing and no one has ever done before. He went to my enemy and told him it was over, he was not allowed to mess with me any more. Well the enemy got his crew and beat my friend up! They beat Him so bad that he was unrecognizable! And then the worst thing happened... They killed Him in the most horrific way possible! I couldn't believe it! I was in tears! My friend took my place... I should have been the one to die... I should have been the one my enemy defeated... But it wasn't me.. Someone so awesome... Someone who loved me so much... He went to my tormentor and said He would take my place... He would take all the pain if my enemy would just leave me alone. And that is what happened! He died in my place!!!

So He is who I want you to meet! Without Him I would not have life! Without Him I would not have peace. He is my joy, He is my song. He comforts me when I am heartbroken. He is my Rock, He is who I lean on when times get hard. He provides me food, shelter, clothing! He is the reason I wake up in the morning! He is my big brother! He is the reason life is worth living! He is my financial adviser. He is my greatest treasure. He is my help when it seems like there is no help! He gives me hope when there seems like all hope is gone! He is my shoulder I lean on when I can't stand! He is my beacon in the night! He is my very best friend! If the whole world were to walk away from me I know He would still be there! He is also the One who didn't only die for me that day, but he rose from the dead and LIVES for me!!! I want to introduce YOU to MY JESUS!!!!!

Driving is a good time to think...

I love driving in my car alone and listening to music! Just shutting everything out and not having any distractions and it just being me and I can listen to whatever I want!!! It doesn't have to be Veggie Tales or Mickey Mouse but it can be grown up music. So there is where I was a few days ago when I was driving to physical therapy... I had just dropped Ian off and I had a good 20 minutes of driving time. Me all alone in my car listening to my music! Instead of turning the radio on like I usually do I put in one of my cd's. I let it play and was somewhat listening to it but mainly it was just background noise as dozens of thoughts were running through my mind. For some reason it was a day when I had heavy thoughts weighing on my mind and heart. It seemed like I was being bombarded from all sides and there were so many uncertainties and there were many unanswered questions. It would have been an easy day to feel sorry for myself...but I hadn't gotten that low yet...but it was close in coming.

It was just life hitting me. We all know how that goes! There were many questions running through my mind...many thoughts...many "whys?". Why did it seem like nothing was going the way I thought it needed to? Why were things happening that I had no control over but I really wanted to control? Why did it seem like God was playing "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" with things He was deciding to throw in my life? I felt like God was saying "there's Leila...she still needs to grow in so many ways...I think I'll go ahead and give her this problem, and this trial and this tough decision." There were a lot of "whys?"! A lot I can't really get into right now because I am not comfortable just yet with sharing. But you can see life was getting at me...in my mind...my thoughts...it was consuming me.

But all of a sudden my mind seem to clear and my ears were opened and this song started playing.



And then it was like someone came in my head and flipped on the light! How ignorant am I? I mean really...it's not being harsh...it's true ignorance! I was being so consumed with me me and more me that I was pretty sure God had forgotten about...well me. I was pretty sure God had bigger things to worry about so I was put on the back burner for a bit. I'm being straight up honest with you today...I know better...I have always been taught better...but at that moment I really felt that God had decided that my life wasn't that important and maybe I just wasn't worth it! That's why I am saying it was pure ignorance.

Matthew 6:26 even says Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

There are times in my life I do feel like I am worthless...but I am smart enough to know that I am more precious to God then birds! And He takes care of them...so why am I thinking God doesn't want me to be happy...why am I thinking He has forgotten me? My goodness folks...He told the sun where to stand in the morning, He told the ocean how far to go, He told the moon where to stay till evening...but somehow in my little mind I had figured He didn't have time to handle my life or problems.

The same God who died and then raised Himself from the dead and who now lives...I had put limitations on Him! There is no way around that...it is true ignorance! You can't put limitations on what God can do! He spoke this world into existence! Yet I had put him in a little box and had decided that day that He couldn't possibly handle my problems so I was needing to figure it out myself!

But while this song was playing I was reminded of these exact things. And these exact thoughts went through my head because I know God put them there to reassure me. You know how I know I am loved? You know how I know I am taken care of? You know how I know God understood how much I was hating physical therapy, how much I was concerned about why our breakers didn't seem to want to stay on, how worried I was about our heater going out soon. How I was worried about if Wes and I were training Ian the way he should be trained. How God understood how I was worried how Ian would grow up and not go in the wrong direction. How I was concerned about my son's salvation... How I was concerned about the different decision that were being made at Wes' job and how it would affect us. How I was worried that I would never be content with our family of 3? The list goes on and on...but do you know how I know that God knows this and understands and I am not alone? I know this because MY REDEEMER LIVES!!!!!