Sunday, July 26, 2015

My Miracle Is Imminent

Too many coincidences, which I believe are signs, happened to me this weekend, that I felt compelled to share.

On Saturday I had a rough start to my day. I was under such a heavy cloud of depression that I was struggling to get ready for work. This is not normal for me, as I'm usually pretty happy. Before I left the house, I prayed to God that He not only help me get through this day, but to please rescue me from my current struggles. I asked Him why I had to continue to endure the same petty, unfair treatment that I have been subject to for over a year now. I have smiled, been patient, turned the other cheek, let things roll off, given it up to God--everything I could think of. What else was He expecting me to learn? I said that I understood that this was only temporary and He had something better coming for me. I truly believe that. I just wished that he could give me a break.

On the way to work, I was still in a major funk, so I continued listening to Joel Osteen's book "Breakout". I listened to it before, but started again a few days ago. I knew I would get some positive vibes and change the channel on my thoughts. I was up to the part about how God can speed things up for you.

I know that I am meant to do something great with my life. I have a novel 98% finished, and a memoir started that has potential to be the key to my success. The memoir is called "Skipping Church: Confessions of a Reluctant Believer", and I believe that getting this book out there is the first step on my path to eventually becoming a Life Coach and Inspirational Speaker. It occurred to me that since I had always written fiction, I never really paid attention to articles on publishing non-fiction which is totally different. With fiction, your manuscript has to be complete and perfect before you can even think about sending a query letter to try to get a literary agent. With non-fiction it is all about proposing your idea to see if there is interest in publishing it. I made a mental note to look into that at some point.

Usually I would have procrastinated 'looking into that' for months, years or never. That night I Googled "How to write a non-fiction book proposal". The Google results were all good, the first written by an agent I had heard of, the second by Writer's Digest. I knew I would be able to find everything I needed to know, so I bookmarked the search page to read tomorrow. Before I closed the window, I had scrolled down just enough to see the title of a result that said "Sample Book Proposal". The subtitle said something about submitting to Christian publishers. I opened it and not only did it give concise and specific information about what it should entail and how it should be formatted, but the sample letter was for a Christian book that had a lot of similar themes to mine. (Just to be clear, I will not plagiarize the sample letter. I will just know what specifically should be included, but the info would be my own and about my specific story).

I was LITERALLY given the tools I needed to make it easier for me to take this huge step in determining my future happiness. If I don't take these obvious gifts from God seriously and do something with them, then my life forever sucking is entirely on me. This is how He is helping me to speed up my rewards. He knows I am at my breaking point, but He knows I am ready now to break out. I have been at my breaking point before, but I have not been mentally ready to take the steps to live my purpose. Until now, I also did not believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that my miracle was imminent. I have work to do and it is going to be a lot, but least now I have a road map and a jumping off point.

At this point, I thought this blog was done, but the signs kept coming on Sunday.

First thing in the morning, we caught the Blue Heron swooping in and landing across the pond where it was then totally camouflaged. If we hadn't seen it flying in, we wouldn't have seen it at all. I took this as a sign it was going to be a good day. Any day that we see the heron is already a good day.

On my drive to work, I asked God to use me today and to put the right people in my path. Today I helped a girl to figure out that she needed to read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, because I had gone through similar experiences and it had helped me. When a couple asked where they could find Heaven Is For Real, I walked them right over to it, and then grabbed the copy of Akiane's book so that they could see the painting of whom both she and Colton Burpo believed to be Jesus.

My last customer of the day was looking for the workbook for A Course In Miracles. I wasn't aware of a separate workbook, but we had a copy that had the complete text and workbook. I mentioned that I had not yet started reading it, but I have it, and that just yesterday I had bought a copy for my cousin.  The customer and I were having a great conversation. She had read A Return To Love by Marianne Williamson, and I had read Spirit Junkie by Gabby Bernstein, which both explain the teachings of A Course In Miracles, and we convinced each other to read the one the other had not.

As a side note, It is amazing how many customers happen to cross my path who are looking for something that I know I am probably the only person in the building that has read it or even heard of it. From Inspirational authors like Gabrielle Bernstein and Joel Osteen, to life changing fiction like The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. At least four times in the year and a half that I have worked in a bookstore, I have been approached by a customer looking for books by Abraham Hicks. If they had happened upon almost any other employee, they would have looked it up, found nothing, and the customer would have left empty handed. But I ask, "Are you looking for Law of Attraction books on the teachings of Abraham by Esther and Jerry Hicks?" The answer is always yes.

I came home from work to find that my husband had started reading The Bible. He said to me, "You had another book over there that I was going to read if I couldn't find my Bible...something about Miracles". I said "You'll have to narrow that down for me. With my books that could be anything". He looked over my shoulder at the bookcase and pointed it out. I put my hand on the book he was referring to and said "Seriously? This book? This is the book I was literally just telling you about twenty minutes ago. The book I bought for Nancy. The book that was the reason I was late coming home from work because I had a customer looking for the workbook to go with it. The book that basically launched Gabby Bernstein's career." Oh. My. GOD.  On my way home from work I had been thinking that in January I would start reading it, but evidently I am not meant to wait. This will be my next book to read.