Get Behind Me, Satan

Sunday after church Michael & I let the boys have a hey-day in the big mountain of dirt on his property. I think there's no question in looking at them that they had a blast.

At one point Michael took Drew for a ride on the 4-wheeler. Because it's being dug up, the red dirt is like powder. The two of them thought it was funny to circle Nick & I a couple of times. Needless to say, I had a layer of dirt all my own after that.
And now I get to brag on my boys for a minute.

First Drew. Michael told Drew he would pay him for every stick he collected from the property. Drew was very excited and picked up as many sticks as he could find. When Michael paid him the next day, Drew came over to me, held out a dollar (half of his earnings), and said, "Mom, I want you to have this so you'll have some money too."

... I had to explain to Drew that mine & Michael's tears were happy tears because of his selfless act of kindness.

Now Nick ... my little man who turns 3 on Monday. He has finally started saying a few new words here and there. His most recent ones are "Drew", "what" and "why".

It's no surprise, since Drew is Nick's hero, that it is Drew's name that gets used the most. It is so cute and precious coming out of his mouth!

I realize most moms get this excited about their children talking when their kids are 1, not on the verge of 3. Just consider me 3x more excited than the normal mom.

You're probably wondering who this couple is. Yeah, well, join the club!

A few days ago I received an email from this "couple" from "Puerto Rico" who were supposedly moving to Portland at the end of October and getting married here on Nov. 14th. They needed a Wedding Planner to do all the planning for them in their absence.

After working in Adult Protective Services for so many years, my antennae went up and I was highly suspicious it was a scam. However, after several very detailed emails back and forth, Michael and I both started to believe that maybe this was the real deal after all. I negotiated a fee of $3500 and started some preliminary research while I waited for their signed contract and overnighted deposit check.

... Only it never got that far. With this morning's email, it became very evident that my initial instincts had been correct all along. The whole thing was a financial scam. Thankfully there was nothing lost, except my hopes for a great new client.

I took it well, mostly because of last night's topic at our monthly Women's get-together at the church. It was on spiritual warfare. The comment was made more than once that Satan, as the great Deceiver, wants us to believe that he's not involved in any kind of warfare with us ... which means that we're left believing that either we're to blame for what's going on, or God is. That really struck me.

Before any of you throw comments my way, let me assure you that we all agree that not everything negative in our lives is a result of Satan's attack in our lives. However, there are times that it is.

I have no idea why I can't seem to get hired anywhere, nor why I can't generate more clients. I've been left believing either that it's my fault (was I out of the workforce too long? does my resume not look good enough? am I not saying the right things in my letters to potential clients? am I not marketing good enough?), or that it's God's fault (where is He when He promises in the Bible to provide for our needs?). It's been quite the struggle to work through either belief ... that it's my fault, or that it's God not stepping up to His promises.

It never occurred to me until last night that perhaps me not finding either a job or clients is because Satan is attacking me to try to destroy me ... either by destroying my faith, or by destroying my testimony. Wow. So realizing the client scam was indeed a scam and not a new client didn't depress me. I refused to continue to allow Satan to win. So he didn't get to today.

God is still God, and I am still His daughter. And nothing that shakes my world can change that.

So speaking of shaking my world, my attorney successfully postponed my hearing on the contested restraining order to August 26th. We now have time to get together a winning case.