Cantrell's Chatterbox

When life overwhelmes me I feel the need to write. I have been living in such a dark place recently. I was playing with fire in so many areas of my life. I almost allowed Satan to have my soul. I almost decided to give up. Almost.....But God is bigger and he has another plan! He was faithful to me during all that happened and he still is! Ultimately though, it was my choice...not God's. God wanted me to draw close to him and trust him. He was begging me to follow him no matter what, but I was tired of trusting him only to have terrible things happen to me over and over again. I felt like I already had enough bad things happen to me in this lifetime. God knows exactly all that has taken place and I can tell you with confidence it has truly been things that most people never have to face. I simply didn't understand why my life turned out the way it has. When all I have done is serve him. If I would have gone out and sinned I would understand the punishement. We all know that there are consequences for sin. But that has not been my case. I was deceived and now my life is so different than all my dreams and hopes. All the hard work in vain. All the tears and prayers for nothing.

I became a nice shoulder for satan to sit on. He would whisper things to me constanly. "If God really loved you Jenn, he would not have allowed you to be so greatly deceived. He would not have turned his face from you all those years you cried out for him for help and had so many questions. Why did it take so long for you to find out the truth anyway? How could God see all your suffering and allow you to continue to be unaware and hurting? Now look at you....you have nothing! No home to call your own. No furnishings execpt a boys bedroom set. No money, always at the mercry of your family and friends who feel sorry for you. Your boys are hurting. They aren't in a normal situation. You are a single mom trying to raise them and you have no future. How can God ever use you now? You are a failure! Why do you keep trusting him? People need to pay for what they have done. So many people need to pay. Why are you suffering and they have all the things you don't have? They are blessed and you are not! It is never going to end Jenn!!!! Never! Look at all that has happened to you just in this last year. People say God wants to use you but is that what you want? If you keep trusting him he will keep bringing all these horrible things upon you. He will take even more away. He knows what you love and he will take all that you love away from you. All so that you can glorify him? Is that REALLY what you want? Did he ever ask your permission anyway? You know if you had a choice you would have passed on this heartache and allowed God to find another helpless person out there. Go ahead and compromise. It is just a little thing. It doesn't matter. No one believe that way anymore anyway. You are the only one. Besides, who do you think you are? No one notices you? If you change it will not affect anyone else negatively! Go ahead and have some fun! You deserve it! You need to know what the real life is all about! At least be angry at God. He is the one who has allowed this to happen to you. Ask him why! Tell him it isn't fair. Feel sorry for yourself! Be angry! Just don't trust him anymore."

This is what I would listen to. Instead of putting a stop to it I would listen. And, as you can imagine I started believing what satan was telling me. I started questioning a lot of things. I started making excuses. I wondered if I could get by with this or that. I felt like I had the right to have fun. Thankfully God was working on me too. God knew I was walking the fence and seeing how close I could get to the other side. God kept asking me one question...." Jennifer, are you going to serve me no matter what?" And, every time he would ask me this question I would ask him to have mercy on me but to ask me a little later. That I needed more time to think about what I was going to do with his question.

Looking back I am surprised that I didn't fall into blatant sin. It was more just a battle in my head. God started scraping the blinders off my eyes. All the lies I was listening to from satan he would show me the truth. I started seeing how ugly sin is. How satan is never satisfied with just a little bit of us. I have seen first hand how satan destroys lives. He makes people into someone you don't even recognize. I knew that if I gave satan just a little bit of me, before long I would wake up one day and not even recognize myself. I would be doing things I swore I would never do. I knew satan would suck out every ounce of blood he could get and then when the last drop was empty, and I was no longer of use to him, he would throw me away like an old pair of shoes.

"Jennifer, are you going to serve me no matter what?" This time I knew my answer! With all my heart I will serve you God. I will serve you no matter what! I don't understand why my life is the way it is, but it doesn't matter. I don't need to know. What I do know is that God has never let me down. He has never abandoned me. He believes in me or else he would not have allowed these trials to come because he promised us that nothing would come our way that we could not stand up under it. And what if I am one of those blessed people that God says (just like Job)..."Have you seen my daughter Jennifer? She loves me. See her suffering? She serves me. She trust me and she praises me through the good and bad!" WOW! You can't even begin to imagine how scared I feel when I think of that. I don't want to let God down. I know I have so often. I have made so many mistakes and any time I think I can live life without God's daily help I fall flat on my face.

Here I am again today. Jaden's health not looking good. I know all the negative possiblities. I also know that I serve an amazing God! One that can heal him in an instant, with just the word. Most importantly I have a peace that never leaves me even through the hardest, most difficult times of my life. I have that peace only because I chose to answer that question that God asks of each one of us. "Are you going to serve me no matter what?" And so today I want to say to you once again satan that no matter what......I choose to serve Him!!!!

I am ashamed that I ever doubted God and allowed satan to be my "shoulder friend". But, one thing I have learned in life is that we can learn from our mistakes! And so here is a little list of things I have learned. This is the list of things I was batteling with, but now they are things that are on my " I will not" list. This is a list I made for myself, so that next time satan comes and tries to be my "shoulder friend" I can point him to this list, or simply flick him off with my pinky finger! Because I serve a mighty God!

I will not compromise my beliefs and convictions because others have or because difficult situations are upon me.

I will not make excuses.

I will not flirt with sin. I will hate sin and not allow it to entice me.

I will not show Satan my weaknesses. He is my enemy. I will not give him any credit for anything.

I will not give you choices God.."if you do this for me, I will do this for you". I have no right to give you choices.

I will not be angry at you for allowing me to go through painful situations in my life.

When life changes and I am left with broken pieces, I will give you all my broken pieces knowing with you on my side I will always have a bright future.

I will not resent what I do not have. I will not feel sorry for myself. Instead I will praise you and thank you for my blessings.

When the trials, troubles and tribulations come my way and I feel overloaded and overwhelmed, I will remind myself of all the blessing and situations you have brought me thorugh victoriously.

When my faith is weak and all my strength is gone I will cry out to you for mercy.

I will continually forgive those who have hurt me and cursed me. The deeper the hurt the deeper I forgive.

I will not hold grudges or pray that people get paid back for the evil things they have done. I will trust you to be the great judge. You see everything and know everything. You see directly into our very souls. You know all our darkest motives and intentions.

I WILL SERVE YOU LORD, NO MATTER WHAT!

First of all let me just say how awesome it is to be in the good ol'e USA on the 4th this year! I was so excited about it I decided to buy all of us "flag shirts". Usually the boys are the one who are patriotic but this year I couldn't resist! :-)

We spent the day at our good friends house....Pedro and Lorena. She is one of the best cooks I have ever met and so I love going over to her house and cooking with her and learning new tricks! And of course I did! Pedro grilled chicken, fajita meat, sausage and brisket. It was amazing! Not to mention all the sides. One thing that I loved was what she did with the onions. So, I will share, for those of you who like to try new things. She took a raw onion and wrapped it in foil. Then they grilled it until it was super soft. Then, she cut it in half and squeezed fresh lime juice all over it with salt and pepper. I know it is so simple but let me tell you...those onions were awesome....and addicting!

So, after we ate and stuffed ourselves I went to church to speak to the youth. We had a good service. And then of course we ate all over again. ~sigh~ While I spoke at church the boys and my parents watched fireworks and the boys played with the sparklers. I missed out on it but it's okay.....this was my 1st July 4th to ever be at church so I am not going to complain about it. ;-)

I will post more pictures of our youth on the 4th when I get the pics from my friend. In the meantime here are a few pictures I took from our weekend.

I hope you all enjoyed your 4th as much as I did! I will just end by saying once again... I am so BLESSED to be living in the USA again!