God's Call

Hey everyone!  Well, it looks like I am breaking my weekend posting trend and posting during the week, haha, this will mess people up!  :P  A few posts ago I shared some of my family's history in the business and miracle category.  Today I am going to share about where God is calling me as a person and how He has brought me to this point.  I have been blessed to not have to wonder what God wants to do with my life to the extent of most people.  At the age of five I heard God tell me that I was going to be a missionary, I went and told my mom at the time and she felt God tell her that what I was saying was true.  I was going to grow up to be a missionary.  I know that it must have been God telling me, because at the age of five, I wasn't sure what a missionary was, but I knew that is what I was going to be someday.  The years began to pass and I headed off to school.  Mom and dad sent me to public school because that just made sense to them, they had both grown up in the public school system and we lived in a good public school district.  Even in kindergarten the teachers spoke of things a young child shouldn't know about, drugs, alcohol..... it was all talked about.  Sure, they were telling us that we shouldn't do them, but why are you even planting the thought in a young child's head???  Anyways, while there, the idea began to take root that I needed to do something with my life that would be noticeable to everyone.  The other kids had grand plans of becoming famous and rich, and the teachers promoted it too.  While nothing is wrong with fame and riches when used for  the right purpose, it began to lead me away from the calling God had placed on my life.  Being a missionary wasn't some glamorous position that would bring about fame and riches.

First day of kindergarten

When I was reaching the end of first grade, mom one day noticed a group of what appeared to be troubled kids leaving the grade school.  She asked one of the other moms why they had been there and she told mom that they tutored us every day, they were the honor students.  This bothered mom and dad a great deal, these were the kids we were being given to look up to, and this was not what mom and dad wanted my sisters and I to become.  By the end of the school year, after much prayer, mom and dad decided to enroll us in the private school at our church.  They were not sure how they were going to afford it, but they knew it was where God wanted us.  A few weeks before school started, mom received a call from the church asking her to be the school secretary, her pay and the discount she would receive covered the costs of sending all four of us to private school!  Even though I was in a private school, the idea of fame and riches were still what I wanted, I didn't want anything to do with the calling God had placed on my life.  The funny thing is, in my little girl head, the idea of fame and riches came in the form of being a meteorologist!

Fast forward two more years and mom and dad felt God changing our direction yet again.  They had decided to go to the local homeschool convention to buy some books since they had heard that they had selections you couldn't always find at other stores.  On the first evening there, mom started crying and said God had just told her that she was to homeschool us.  This was a role mom never would have imagined herself in, but knew that this is what God was calling her to do.  Mom was scared, but she went back the next day and picked out curriculum and tried to get as much advice as she could.  Looking back, God had already been preparing mom for this role by showing her she was capable of teaching us.  When we were making the transition from public to private school, the private school said I was behind where I should be in reading for a second grader.  While other kids my age were capable of reading small chapter books, I hadn't even been taught the basics such as being able to read "cat" and "dog."  Inside one summer, mom caught me up to my grade level, and well, lets just say books and I have been inseparable ever since.

My sisters and I were thrilled mom was going to homeschool us, we had been wanting her to for a long time and now it was finally happening!  God used that first year to turn me around and get me back on track.  Mom read a chapter of a missionary story to us every day, and by the end of the year I had felt God calling me again, and this time I answered, "Here am I, send me!"  If my mom hadn't been willing to step out on a limb and follow God, I can honestly say I do not know if I would be pursuing the calling God has placed on my life today.  Mom homeschooled me all through high school and has been my biggest cheer leader.  I graduated a few years ago, and I think it was one of the hardest days of my life.  Homeschooling has given us a special bond and friendship greater than any other!  I can honestly say that mom is my best friend.

At my graduation with mom and dad

At my graduation

This brings to where I am now, I am currently in college working towards my degree in Business Marketing.  After talking with multiple missionaries, they all suggested I go for some form of a business degree being that the business side of studies is often neglected in the traditional "missions degree."  When I finish my degree I hope to take online seminary probably through Liberty University.  This year I am also going to get to go on my first missions trip!  As you know from my previous post, in the past finances were tight for my family so I could never go on a missions trip.  After a lot of prayer, God has opened the door for me to go to Kenya this November!  Originally I was supposed to go at Christmas time, but Nairobi will be having elections then and it would be to dangerous, so the trip has been moved forward a month for safety purposes.  I am so excited that God has opened this door for me.  While there I will be getting to work with children which is what I hope to do in the future.  From the time I was a little girl, as young as two or three, I would tell my mom that I was going to grow up to be a mommy to hundreds and thousands of babies.  Mom would laugh knowing this was not possible, but now I know that God placed that desire in my heart at a young age and I will get to be mommy to hundreds of kids because God has called me to work with orphans.  After Kenya I am hoping and praying that I will get to go to the Philippines next summer or the following as that is where I feel God is calling me.  I wish that there was room here to truly share all of the details in what God has been and still is doing to prepare me for the future, but you would have had to be there to fully understand it.  After all, we are talking the story of my life, "X" amount of years!  (HAHA, yeah, the age is still a secret.  :P )  My hope is that this gives a little bit of a glimpse into where I am heading and the amazing way God has brought me to this point.  And to all of you wanting to know, don't worry, I fully intend to post about my trip to Kenya when it comes.  Also be looking for updates around June or July on how the planning is coming together!  Thank you so much for taking the time to read some of my life story!
God Bless,  Michelle

Happy Birthday Papa

Today is my grandpa's, or papa's, as we like to call him, birthday.  Living in the same town as my grandparents has allowed us to form a special bond with our grandparents that many don't ever get a chance to experience.  I have very fond memories of going over to grandma's and papa's house and having papa help me climb the tree or ride a bicycle or scooter. 

When we would go over to their house for grandma to give us piano lessons, Papa was always there to keep the rest of us entertained while we waited our turn for lessons.  I am so thankful for all of the years I have been blessed with this special grandparent.

Yesterday we had grandma and papa come over to celebrate papa's birthday with a birthday lunch.  While we were together we took the pictures above with Papa.  Happy birthday, Papa!  I love you!!!

Of My Past, Ministry and a Little More About Me

Today, my family and I went to work at His Helping Hands.  HHH, as it is also called, is a local ministry run by our church that provides clothing, food and furniture for those who cannot afford it.  We had fun sorting shoes and helping keep the shelves filled for those who were looking for shoes.  This ministry holds a special place in both my heart as well as my families.  When I was eleven years old, while my family was building our new house, someone saw the plans dad had drawn for our house and asked him if he had ever considered doing it for a living.  This gave mom and dad the idea to start a side business of drawing house plans for people.  A few months later, while we were still working on our home, (we were doing a lot of the work ourselves) my dad lost his job.  The company he had been working for was downsizing and his position was one they no longer needed.  God provided though, and a friend at church had need of the kind of work dad had been working in and hired him.  During this whole time my dad was starting his side business of designing homes.

Nine months later however, the friend from church came to dad and said that he hadn't had the need he was expecting for this form of work and needed to let dad go.  We had just moved into our new home and the form of work dad had always previously worked in could no longer be found in our home town.  Mom and dad really prayed about where God wanted us to go and felt God telling them it was time to take the part time design business full time.  When dad told his former boss this he told dad that it was impossible, we would never make enough money to survive.  Trusting God though, mom and dad stepped out on faith and took the design business full time with only one builder they were designing for.

I remember as a young child sometimes talking with my sisters wondering how we were going to make it, but God always provided just in time.  I have grown to look back at this time as a special time of growth, for through the hardships, my family and I learned to trust God at a whole new level.  It was one thing to say that we trusted God for our daily bread when a company was giving a monthly salary.  It took our faith to a whole new level when we truly had no idea where the next pay check was coming from.  During this time we saw many miracles take place and I would like to take time to share just a few of the many that happened.

One Christmas, I was fourteen and we had been running the business for a few years at this point.  The past few Christmas's had been hard, but there had still been presents under the tree.  This Christmas though, mom and dad took my sisters and me aside and said that the money just wasn't there for Christmas this year.  However, they had one present they really wanted to give us and when they hopefully got the money later in the year, they were going to give it to us then.  My sisters and I were fine with this, after all, the true reason of Christmas is celebrating Christ's birth, not presents.  At church, the Sunday right before Christmas, we had to slip in late and sat in the second to last row in front of an older woman we had not previously seen.  After church she started talking to my mom and told her that watching us had blessed her greatly.  She asked if she could give each of us a small gift, but we were not allowed to look at it until after she had left.  My mom said yes, thinking it would be just a small piece of candy.  After she had left, we opened our hands to find folded, really tiny, a ten dollar bill for each of us.  Mom started crying and told us, she and dad had wanted to give us these sewing baskets we had been looking at for Christmas, but they didn't have the money.  The sewing baskets were just ten dollars.  God had seen the desires of my parents and my sisters and my hearts and sent us the Christmas present we had wanted so badly.  We never saw that lady again, but I look forward to the day in heaven when I can tell her how God used her to bless us so greatly.

Another time, when I was about sixteen, I believe, our family did not have the money to make the monthly grocery trip.  Mom had a turkey left from Thanksgiving in the freezer we could eat for lunches and dinners, but we had nothing for breakfast, not even eggs.  God once again intervened. Just as He says in Psalms, that the righteous shall not be out begging for bread, He supplied us with three loaves of bread for breakfast!  We had gone to church on Wednesday night and my grandma had been baking in the kitchen and decided to bring some to us.  She had no idea the extent of our financial problems, we were always very careful to not let anyone know about what our needs were. It was more fun to see how God would provide and later we just enjoyed telling people what God had done for us.  We were able to eat breakfasts from that bread for the rest of the week until dad got paid the following week and we were able to go shopping for more groceries.

I have a lot of stories in the food department, so here is another one.  This story actually became repeated twice, so I will just tell about the first time.  Once again we were out of money to buy groceries.  While there had been enough to pay the bills, none had been leftover for a much needed grocery trip.  The pantry was empty as was the freezer and refrigerator and mom and dad didn't know what they were going to do.  As they walked to the mail that day, knowing that there would not be any checks to be found, they found a card in the mail box.  Inside the card was an anonymous typed note saying that God had placed our family on someones hearts and they felt led to give us this gift card.  It was a two hundred dollar Walmart gift card.  More than enough to provide the food we would need for that month!  We never have found who sent that gift card, or the one that came a year later when we were in the same circumstances.  We just know that God provided for us when there seemed to be no way.

I could go on and on about stories like this, but this post is already getting long and I haven't had a chance yet to tell the stories about what God did today!  By seeing my past,  you can now begin to understand why the ministry of His Helping Hands means so much to us.  While HHH was not one of the forms God used to rescue us in one of our many times of need, it is a way He has used to help many others.  God has, since our troubled times, blessed us so that we no longer wonder where the next meal is coming from, but for many, they still face this problem.

Today, while restocking the shoe shelves, mom heard one of the women worrying about how she could not find a pair of shoes her size, and she really needed some new shoes.  Her time was almost up and she was going to have to leave empty handed.  Going up to her, mom asked if she could help her.  The lady told mom her problem and getting her size, mom went back to the stock room to find her a pair of shoes.  She brought out some pairs and the lady tried on one of the pairs and it fit perfect.  It was just like Cinderella.  God had provided her the pair of shoes she so desperately needed, just in the nick of time.

During the morning four people accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior!!!  One of the women who became a Christian immediately turned to her husband who only spoke Spanish and told him about Jesus and he accepted Christ as his savior as well!  It is for reasons like these two that I love getting to go to His Helping Hands.  I love to not only get to see and be a part of helping people who are in positions similar to where we once were, I even more so love getting to see people discover Jesus as their Savior.

Blessings,  Michelle

The Challenge...

Hey Everyone!
Tomorrow Alan from Anthem Lights is starting a memorization challenge.  Back in January he said he was working on memorizing Jude and when he finished he was going to memorize James and asked if anyone wanted to join him.  Since I didn't know when he was going to start James I decided to hop in and memorize Jude and then hopefully be able to jump in on James.  Well, I finished up Jude about three weeks ago and it was one of the best things I have done.  I have always memorized scripture, but I had never thought about memorizing a whole book.  I am so thankful that I decided to give it a try, it totally changed my perspective!  I have had so much fun when I am reading in another book of the Bible and I can suddenly see a parallel between it and what Jude is saying!  I have been anxiously waiting for Alan to begin the memorization of James challenge and this week he announced that it is beginning tomorrow!!!  Please consider joining, it was one of the best choices I have made and I think that you will find it to be life changing.  Here is a link to a video of Alan talking about the challenge.
God bless,  Michelle

The Beginning

Hi, my name is Michelle!  Welcome to my blog, Of My Life and Chocolate Strawberries.  I suppose that this is where I give a short bio of myself, although if you really think about it, that is what the whole blog will be, the story of my life!  I don't have any particular direction I am planning on going, just planning on having fun posting random thoughts and happenings with a few fun girl posts here and there too.  Hey, I am a girl and love being a girly-girl!  I am somewhere between 20-25, I just don't intend to let the actual age be known, after all, you NEVER ask a girl her age.  :)  I live with my wonderful family made up of my parents and three sisters.  Because of the fact that we are an "all girl" family dad has the rule that all of the animals must be boys so we have two cats and a bunny that are the "boys in the family."  Well, I'm not sure what kind of introduction post this is, but it will have to do.  Hopefully as time passes I'll get a better hang of this blogging.  :)

God bless,  Michelle

P.S.  Where did I get the name?  Well, chocolate and strawberries are my two most favorite foods and they just happen to go together!