I began putting this journal together in 2023 and it was quite a year. There were days I didn't have the will or the strength to continue, and God had to drag me out of myself and back into His grace by my bootstraps as I resisted him kicking and screaming.

There were days when the sheer magnitude of His grace left me crying and thankful and not knowing how to serve this God who does miracles in my life that are undeniable, personal, and so wonderful.

2022 left me without a roof over my head and no money in the bank, but God saw a way for me to have the deposit to put down on a single room flat with a tiny kitchen and even smaller bathroom.

It was what I wanted at the time because I felt small. Humbled. Defeated. Without hope and with no vision of my future. For the first time in my life, my tomorrow was a blank wall before me that I could not even see the vaguest outline of.

To be honest, I chose to shut down my business and start over with what little I had left. To be really truthful, if I had done it in March of 2022 when I asked God what I should do and if I had listened to His answer, I would not have been in the situation I was in.

God told me to chase my dream and let go of that which was destroying me without setting my hand on the plow and looking back. Instead, I asked human beings for advice. They unanimously told me that it is good to have dreams, but dreams don't pay the bills.

I foolishly allowed them to speak life to my fears, and by November, the unstable markets had turned my capital from something I could have started over with to just enough to pay the deposit on my new flat but not enough to pay the first month's rent.

There was no road for me to follow in the wilderness. Everything I tried, and that usually worked for me, failed because without intending to do so, I put my hand on the plow, but I was looking back at the person I was.

I prayed, ranted, and I shut down. In between, I buried myself in my stories and stuck my head in the sand. When I had the courage to surface for air, the magnitude of my situation sent me careening into self-doubt, self-recrimination, self-destruction, and self-hatred.

When I finished my tantrums, emotionally depleted, scarred, and broken, the Holy Spirit would move in me, because, with my defenses down, I was finally ready to listen.

The first thing God taught me during those endless first months was that although I was alone in the natural, I was not alone in the spirit. It was a slow process for Him to teach me that I am loved and that I was not abandoned but separated. And this was the second lesson.

He set me aside from the voices in my life that I listened to and that, although inadvertently, were leading me astray and making it hard for me to hear God's voice.

Those lonely first months taught me that even people we love influence us in subtle ways that alter us over time. With no voices in my life, God began shedding the layers of who I became to bring me back to who I had been created to be.

It was an incremental and immensely painful experience, and even now, there are some layers that are still coming down little by little as I grow in understanding.

At first, I didn't understand what was happening, and it felt like God was allowing life to pummel the soul from me, but as the layers came down, it dawned on me that I was not being destroyed; I was being freed.

Like a butterfly escaping from its chrysalis, the struggle was making me strong so I could be who I was meant to be, instead of who the world and my insecurities molded me into.

Letting go of the safety of the familiar person I had become, was more terrifying than walking away from the life I had lived for more than twenty years. The walls I built around my heart and mind were so thick that breaking them down left me vulnerable like a newborn baby. It took more courage to allow that to happen than anything I have ever done.

Every instinct in my body wanted me to build everything back up again, but God wouldn't allow me to hide from the truth.

I couldn't sleep at night. Rest would elude me, and when I finally stopped fighting in the early hours of the morning, everything would come pouring out of me. Tired beyond words, I would bow my head, and, sacrificing my pride and my ego, I would submit to my God.

The greatest monster for me at this time was fear. I can't tell you how many times God told me not to be afraid, He is with me, or "Be still and know that I am God."

All of my young adult life, I was not in control of my life, which made me feel powerless on a level I didn't understand and when I finally had control of my life, I needed to control everything. That included the things I put in God's hands.

When I took control of my life, I fought my battles alone, leaving no room for God. Although, I didn't realize this at the time. The weight of the world rested on my shoulders. I was responsible for everything, and it wore me down.

Every time God showed me that I am not in control, but He is, it only made me cling to that sense of mastering my world more, but in the end, failure followed. Small losses, big losses, and it took losing most of what I had and most of the rest little by little for me to admit that I am not in control and never was.

This was the third thing that fell into place for me. Be still and know that I am God. The message God had been giving me since 2018, but the practical application of it in my life never sunk in.

Letting go and living each moment, doing what my hands found to do, and not thinking about the future or worrying about a tomorrow that was not in my hands, took a long time. There are still days I struggle with that one.

The first time I did, it was the end of the month, I had very little money and I needed to pay the rent. It was the 26th, and it was almost the weekend, which meant my rent was due on Monday.

I had sold everything I could sell. Everyone I knew to ask had had unexpected expenses, and I was ready to sell the last two things that I had been clinging to, the fridge and washing machine.

I sold the fridge, which I rarely used since I had nothing much to put in it. But I couldn't bring myself to sell the washing machine because I understood that with the pain I have in my hands and arms at times, there was no way I could wash my clothes by hand.

That morning I prayed that God would find a way for me to keep the washing machine and pay the rent. By Tuesday, not only had God provided the money in ways that still leave me teary and that started healing my trust in humanity, but he also provided money for food for another week. People that I never thought would help me, arrived and gave me what I needed because "God pressed it on their hearts that I needed help."

Praise God, Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides.

It was the first of many miracles that got me through to August, and for the first time, there was no answer to my prayers. I had nothing left, and the rent was due in three days.

A friend asked me to help them at the church bazaar, and God had been pressing me to ask her for help for a while, but she suffered a recent loss, and I did not want to impose, so, once again, I fought the Holy Spirit's urging.

But God would not be denied and by the end of the day, I had a much larger flat to move into, taking the load off my shoulders of paying rent. Still reeling and insecure, it took a few months for me to settle into this grace God bestowed upon me through his faithful servant.

It turned out she needed someone to look after her house since she works far from home, and I needed somewhere to go. But even as God did this for us, something else had been on the verge of happening for months, but never quite got going.

I had a roof over my head and electricity to use at my discretion, and in turn, I made sure things went smoothly at the property where I now lived through the Grace of God.

At first I had my deposit to live off while I settled, but I still had to find a way to get a steady income. My friend helped me out, and so did many others, but in my heart, I asked God for a way to move forward.

Another friendship led to work I wasn't didn't have the qualifications for, but God had qualified me for through a lifetime of experience. It took my friend a very long time to confine me of what she saw in me and although things were slow to start, it led to me being part of something that suits me. For the first time, I have a job that I like and that challenges me to be all God made me to be.

Things are growing and expanding, and the blank wall before me was never blank. I was just too close to it to see the word "HOPE" emblazoned all over it.

I learned another lesson from this, but it is not the fourth one. There were others in between I will tell you about on another day. This lesson was called, I do this not to harm you, but to give you hope and a future. It encapsulates the last thirteen months of my life.

What I saw as a defeat, was just the first step in getting me from my comfort zone, separating me until I learn to listen to the Holy Spirit within me, and then placing me where I needed to be to do what I was born to do.

This year could have destroyed me, but God built me up into a different person, and it all started with a prayer I prayed in 2020.

I asked God to place His hand on my career as an author and to give me a job I liked with people I trusted who were Christians like me and for me to step into my destiny so my life could serve Him and give my life purpose.

God said my story would inspire people one day, and my life would be a blessing to my family for generations.

If this year taught me anything, it taught me that God hears our prayers, even the little ones. That His timing is perfect and that he provides things we need long before we know we would need them. Friends. Knowledge. Connections. Stuff.

This is the final thought I leave you with on this first day of 2024. I have always known that God has a plan for my life, but it wasn't something I believed with my whole heart. Why would he use me? I have nothing to offer, I thought. But God created each of us with a destiny, a purpose, and a calling. And as long as he wakes us up in the morning, you still have things to do to for His kingdom.

We have no idea of the influence we have on other people's lives or how God uses us, but we must learn to listen to the Holy Spirit and obey.

I learned to take nothing for granted this year, and it taught me that everything is a gift from God. He made it possible. He provides what we need long before we need it. The "suddenly" things he does in our lives were started a long time ago and perfected by His hands.

I've seen some of the threads God wove together in my life, and it left me humbled and grateful. My fate and future I leave in the hands of the one true God, and I thank Him in the Mighty Name of Jesus that I am His child. I thank Jesus for freeing me from the wages of sin and giving me life in abundance.

We do not grow in our comfort zone, but we grow when we are uncomfortable. If God had allowed me to stay where I was, I would still be the person I was, stubbornly trying to make it work when God already set everything in place for me, but I was on the wrong path.

It took God allowing the foundations to be ripped from under me to teach me to stand. It ook losing everything to learn the value of all God provides. It took God taking away friends and the familiar to teach me to trust people again.

It took an act of God to bring me to my knees before God, so I could stand before man and not be afraid. It took being stripped to the bone to teach me that I should not worry or fear, for I control nothing and the God who loves me will not let me go.

It took chipping away all of my defenses to learn that I am wearing the Armor of God and that I was always safe. It took having nothing left to lose to teach me it was never mine, and that fear and worry stole the security of trust in God from me.

God does everything for our good and His glory. Our triumph in life is His glory. His light shining through us glorifies His name.

This year of loss has been a year of triumph. I stand at the beginning of 2024, and I am not where I used to be, but for the first time in my life, I am comfortable in my own skin.

I am who God made me to be, and He has a plan with my life. I don't need to know what tomorrow brings because God's grace is sufficient for today, and tomorrow will be the same.

I submit to your will, Lord God. Your will be done, not my will, for Your will for me is good, and Your plans for me are far greater than I can hope, dream, or imagine. Thank you, Lord, for what you have done for me. Show me how to live the life that You intended for me and how to serve You, Lord. I ask this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.