Silver Lining

They say that there is a silver lining to every cloud. An added unique tint to every note of a song of pain. And sooner or later, in every darkness, the shadow reduces just enough to see a faint outline, or a glimmer.

God. Is. Totally. Amazing.

In case you didn't catch that before.

GOD IS SO AMAZING!!

This is a testimony blog post, so if you don't likey, you has permission to click the big red X. :D

I'm typing this freshly awake from my lengthy sleep, which was induced by five hours of mowing and strimming the gardens yesterday (which look amazing, according to Mom! :D) moving heavy pots around and hauling three fence panels upright (while the neighbour man watched me. Nice guy.)

It's kinda funny, cause the last time I cut the grass (Uncle Peter has done it since then, except no one did it in the winter months) was the night before I flew out to Kansas. I looked up at the planes flying over in the twilight and the stars beginning to twinkle, thinking, tomorrow...tomorrow I'll be up there.

Little did I know how much two months, eleven plane flights and four states could change my life.

Sorta the same thing yesterday.

Except this time, it's just under a month away.


At the beginning of the month, on receiving my payslip, I sorted my finances out to what I expected them to be. Taking out the plane ticket, there was no way I would be able to leave enough money for Mom on the minor income I will have in June and be able to cover my other bills/money uses. On realising that, I put my face down on the desk (I was at work) and cried. One dream that I had worked towards for eight months had already been smashed that week, and this was the final straw. Tanya gave me a hug and checked to make sure I was okay. (She's really sweet.)

I can't remember what point it was, but I was working on a 2-minute survey where there were many answer machines and no replies. And I was praying until people picked up (which is always a fun risk to take ;)). I gave America back to God, again. And with a month to go, no money or hope of any, He gave me perfect peace.

"God, if it's Your Will I should go, then provide. Please. Cause I can't."

It reminded me of last year...something I was going to blog and never did.

Back when I was working for Sam's friend Lisa, who paid me for cleaning her house twice a week and invented jobs I could do to give me money, and spoiled me beyond belief...

I had £300 roughly, and was so excited about being halfway on the flight money. Then something happened and I had to transfer the money, leaving me with something like £120 in the bank.
I was very sad as I walked back out of town from that, to Tesco where my sister was waiting (we were living with her at that point). Then...my MP3 player broke. As it turns out, none of us would have had any money to replace it - especially since I wouldn't take anything that I didn't have to out of my "America fund".
That really made the tears overflow.

I remember asking God, why? He had taken everything else away...Dad...home...belongings...we were locked out of our home...living on my sister's floor...why couldn't He just leave my MP3 and my hope of America?

Then...the Peace descended; HIS peace, beyond anything I'd known before. And while I stood there, waiting for Sam, I just kept repeating, over and over, "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord."
Everything I owned, everything I was and am - is His. Why should I complain at what He chooses to dispense with? I can do perfectly well without it, for His grace is sufficient!

I gave myself five days. And sent out an email to my friends asking them to pray for rain.

I have to admit, I should've made it a bit clearer as some seem to have been praying for the real stuff, and Britain has been deluged over the last few days. :P

Three days in, although I sent another email out asking people to pray for God to sell a cow rather than to send rain, I was rather convinced God had made His mind up. I knew He could do it. I believed He would if He chose to. But I believed it wasn't His plan for me to. And had calmly resigned myself to an Ireland trip and working at BMG on the telephones...(shudder)...for another year.

Mom reminded me I could extend my overdraft. Which means the bank would pay my bills while I was away, and I would just have to pay the bank back.
And some other people said the same. Just - go and do it!
So...I could force God's Hand.

But no...cause...it's five days and God provides, or I don't go.

You know that weird feeling you get, like you're putting God to the test? Like...He's really not going to act even though you know He can?
There was another reason I didn't want to go on the overdraft. Is because...there were non-Christian people watching the outcome of this. And to extend it would be like announcing, God couldn't provide in time the way I wanted so, I'm doing this.

And going anywhere in your own power is never the best rule.

I can't remember the day, but one day I was working on a mix of finishing projects at BMG, and to get the surveys, they had to constantly refresh the contacts we were ringing - some ridiculous number of eleven people or something. I finished them for the third time since 3:30 at 4:38. So my boss told me to go home early.

As I was waiting for my friend Rob Moore, who finishes uni(versity) at 5:00, I wandered up to the bus stop we normally go home from, and headed into Birmingham to find a travel agents. Just to check, of course, on how much the flights were now. Because the amount I took out of my money when I did my finances was £770 (which was what the internet figured a decent size trip was now).

There "just happened" (there have been so many "just happenings" for America both this year and last!) to be a travel agents around the corner - literally. Open - until 6pm. Awesome!

The price was £619. I went away to think and pray about it.

A few days later, (either one or two), I went to the bank to take my final "bill" out. The amount that I had left was more than what I had had left after the first bill was taken out.
I double-checked. Then phoned Mom during my lunch break.

And...went to book the ticket after work.

A ticket that will not only take me to America, but will also land me in Europe for the first time.

I was speechless. Shell-shocked. And absolutely flabbergasted.

Isn't it funny how, when in spite of prayers, tears, from about a hundred people around a globe, we are so shocked when God Almighty answers our ant-y requests?


Sunday morning, yesterday, I walked into church after a guestimate of three weeks absence.

I've been really down lately, because three weeks ago, I sinned pretty badly in an attempt to do something right. (Which, yes, was probably the most stupid decision I've made in a while.) It lead from one sin to another, to the point where it felt like I'd reverted to twelve months previously.
I head-knew God had forgiven me, through tears, repeated pleadings and praying, but my heart wasn't accepting the forgiveness (how foolish...) and neither was I ready to forgive myself.

I was convinced that God taking the first dream from me was punishment for my sins. And that He wouldn't let me go to America in punishment for the same.

The phrase most often repeated in my mind was "There is absolutely no hope. No future. Nothing more beyond - this."

He was pulling me back, slowly but surely, reminding me that He truly still loved me...had forgiven me...waking me up one morning with the words on my lips, "Your mercies are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness!"...showing me a Scripture Saturday morning in 1 Peter, regarding LIVING hope. Christ.

Then Saturday night, something else happened. (All these vague obscure "something else's". *merry grin*)

I was curled up on my bed crying for God to take me, burn me, refine, purify, cleanse, and please, please heal me because there was nothing I could do. And...you know the real, final feeling you get when you reach the end of your tether? Yeah.

So I walked into church yesterday morning. Asking God to speak. Not expecting Him to, really, but praying He would.

Pastor Steve opened the message with HOPE.

Seriously.

I cried. :P

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.'"
(Jeremiah 29:11)

And then subsequently preached on Jeremiah 30-31.


"'Fear not, O Jacob My Servant,' declares the Lord, 'and do not be dismayed, O house of Israel; for behold, I will save you from afar...

For I am with you' declares the Lord, 'to save you...

...only I will not destroy you completely.'...

For thus says the Lord, 'Your wound is incurable, and your injury is serious. There is no one to plead your cause; no healing for your sore, no recovery for you. All your lovers have forgotten you, they do not seek you; for I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the punishment of a cruel one, because your iniquity is great, and your sins are numerous. ...

For I will restore you to health, and I will heal you of your wounds,' declares the Lord, 'because they have called you an outcast, saying, It is Zion; no one cares for her.' Thus says the Lord, 'Behold, I will restore the fortunes of Jacob, and have compassion on his dwelling places...

You shall be My people, and I will be your God. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with loving-kindness. Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt, o virgin daughter of Israel!...

With weeping they will come, and by supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk by streams of waters, on a straight path in which they will not stumble...

There is hope for your future,' declares the Lord, 'And your children will return to their own territory. I have surely heard Ephraim grieving, 'You have chastised me, and I was chastised, like an untrained calf; bring me back that I may be restored, for You are the Lord my God.'...

For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes.' At this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me."

An everlasting love for the virgin daughter of Israel.
She wasn't virgin.
He made her as new - for that was the way He chose to see her. He purified/will purify her as though her past had never been.


"Thus says the Lord, 'If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all they have done,' declares the Lord."

And because of His promise to them, I know...I know...that my God has not abandoned me.

Thank You. With everything I am.

Yours Alone, my Father,

~Mademoiselle Siân