God’s Story

Well, I found it. I felt compelled to write today about what God is doing (the author) and I pulled up 2 old websites where I once kept private blogs and even video messages as a journal of things. Neither of them worked and I felt frustrated in knowing it would likely take me all night to figure out what has broken in websites that hadn’t been updated in months. Ironically, I landed on this one here by hearing the name of it alone in my thoughts – the immortal pen.

It seems self serving to share stories about my own life. I ask God constantly to rewrite my story and give me a happily ever after that I can’t testify to. I tell God that I promise to share what he does with my life and inspire others who are like me; those who have walked in shoes that don’t seem to fit. Well, I guess they may fit but they’r rather uncomfortable to say the least.

But it isn’t about me, is it? I mean, when I think about what I’ve truly learned throughout my life so far it’s that I often get it wrong. I’ve tried everything imaginable spiritual and I’ve been at this longer than most. I didn’t come to seek God in my mid-life crisis or through a friend. I was born into this path it seems as a little girl who spent most of her time in solitude staring at the stars and wanting to connect with something bigger than me up there.

I’ve known God as the one gives me a second chance at life. A tussle with suicide taught me that I don’t even have the power to take myself out; so much for free will. And I’ve known God as the miracle worker and healer. Months spent in the hospital with a loved one who was given 5% chance of survival taught me that God can defy human logic, science and the so-called experts we hold on pedestals here on this planet.

It would seem that I’d be at a place by now where I trust more than anyone – my faith has been tested and God has never let me down. But in truth, Ive been in a wilderness for too many years to pretend I’m not unsure at times that God still loves me and is still writing my story with each detail purposed.

I still believe God can do anything. I guess the question I often ask is why hasn’t he? What is all of this leading to?

Last month I was in a whirlwind of anxiety. My daughter asked me to move to Austin with her and we both had our reserves about the idea. Living together was a nightmare in the past after she’d entered adulthood. What would be different now? Yet what choice did either of us have? I was on notice with the room I’d been renting in the Valley of Socal and she was on notice with her apartment as both of us felt out of place and miserable in our current circumstances. My happily ever after love story with the LA radio guy had went nowhere and she hated her job and felt out of place in southern Florida. Both of us were lonely and struggling to get by day to day with money and financial worries.

I remember driving into to work one morning in silence with tears rolling down my face. I yelled at God, “Please guide me! I need you to give me signs and confirmation of what you want me to do. Be loud God. Don’t let me miss what you’re telling me today.”

As I arrived at the parking lot a notification came up on my phone displaying a memory from 2018 of the state capital in Austin. I laughed at it telling myself that AI must have heard my prayers and served a photo of Austin. Then once on the plane a man approached me and asked for help. “Can you help me? I’m special forces and I think they gave me the wrong seat,” he explained, flashing a paper strip that illustrated 37b. I pulled out my sky phone and asked for his name. “Emmanual…. Emmanuel Austin,” he stated. I about passed out.

Emmanuel I learned from the Bible means “God with us” and Austin as his last name was the second sign I’d received in less than hour passed after my desperate tear-filled prayer. Later on the trip I received a text message from a flight attendant asking me to switch a trip with him. After I agreed, he sent me a friend request on our app and I read his name out loud. “Austyn Austin…. now way!” I texted him back, “Your name is Austyn Austin?” He replied, “It sure is.”

Ok God… I hear you loud and clear, I thought. I put in a transfer that night and then waited days for the 25th to arrive when the company would process the transfers. To my surprise, they denied me the request. Why would God tell me to move to Austin and then not give me a job transfer? I had already committed to moving into an apartment with my daughter. I decided to not waiver. I’d trust God no matter what and go to Austin even if it meant that I may have to forfeit my job. And so I did.

Driving from LA to Texas my daughter and I had received good news that we were approved for an apartment called Avalon. I’d prayed about it. My prayer was, “God I want your will to be done. If this is for us make the approval easy if it’s not cause them to deny us.” But hours later we received another approval from an apartment we’d inquired about a week before. This one was conditional. They wanted $700 extra in deposit and another $2000 at move in. My mom called and we all talked it out on speaker phone as I felt my anxiety rising again. My mother and daughter both raved about how beautiful the other place was. But for me, I’d leaned on God for a solution. To make matters worse none of us had even seen the Avalon because they didn’t have any units available to show us until the weekend before our move-in date.

It’s not easy to trust God when you can’t see. We want to test the waters, take a tour and then choose our path. But for me, I knew there was something lacking in my own decisions and human senses. It’s something I’d learned like a bat beating over the head in the many years that had recently passed. I wanted what God wanted. I didn’t want to pick a path that looked great but would lead to problems.

My daughter and I ended up in a huge argument and I almost turned around and went back to California. Sitting in the parking lot of a gas station in Albequerque New Mexico I raged with anger and tears filled my face as I thought to myself, “I was a fool to think we could get along. I can’t move in with her I should take her to the closest airport and go back to Cali.” At that moment a huge gust of wind grabbed my driver side door and threw it into the door rail with my foot caught inside of it. I yelped out loud as my daughter’s tears stopped and she responded, “Oh my God! Are you ok?” I wasn’t. Within moment my ankle swelled up the size of a golf ball and I could hardly walk. But the drama did interrupt the arguing and confusion. Within the hour she signed the lease at Avalon and we didn’t speak another hateful word to eachother the rest of the trip. It was settled. My crippled self was moving in with my dautghter. She didn’t get away unscathed either. Once we arrived in Texas her eye was swollen and red. And still today, nearly 3 weeks later she’s nursing an infected oil gland back to health.

I don’t think God wants us to hurt and walk around with swollen ankles and swollen eyes. But I do think he wants us to listen to his guidance and to not fight and ugly to one another.

Today she needs a job and I do too. We have a beautiful new townhome and we’ve been blessed to be given the funds to pay our first rent and even pay to furnish it with daily trips to the Goodwill and frequenting Facebook marketplace. We’re both here in Austin without any idea what our purpose or career path should be. We’re just here on faith that God has a reason he brought us here.

I was gifted a co-listing in real estate with my old broker who moved to San Antonio and I’ve made vidoes, fliers and my daughter and I even wrote a song about it. But we’ve not had a single showing in 3 weeks. Meanwhile, I was given a temporary transfer next month to Austin and was told I’d have to return to LA in August. Why would God not have them give me a permanent transfer? After all I signed a year lease.

My son hasn’t come to visit, although we set a room up for him. He’s been texting me pictures of him at the basketball court and he’s busy door-dashing to try to make some money. At the end of the month he said he’s coming back because the pro basketball player I met on a plane that drove my daughter to Florida is coming to visit us. I don’t want to say to much on this but God knows my hope and that’s definitely a little glimmer of Heaven that I look forward to seeing arrive.

In other news my mom just facetime’d me to let me say Happy Birthday to Drako. She’s been very kind to me and I’m grateful. And I need to make a video tonight for Majestic. My contract ends this month and I’m hoping they will renew with me at least to give me enough to pay my bills and not struggle. And finally, Joe says his house will be ready to list in 2 weeks. So many things keep me looking up and I’m not sure what will happen but I hope something very good is here for us all in Austin.

God knows what I need. Maybe I don’t have all that I want today but I’m doing my best to walk in faith and direct my thoughts to hopeful tomorrows. In the meantime, I feel led to start writing again. Not thoughts and emotions but truth. He’s writing my story and I am living inside of something that has been very difficult but each day I desire to surrender more into his plan and believe that what he has in store is greater than anything I could try to manifest on my own.