Life is Real: Borrowed Title from Mrs. Deyara Morris Burns
"Life Is Real: Borrowed Title"
My daughter a Youth Pastor, Mrs. Deyara T. Morris Burns, preached a sermon entitled, "Life Is Real" when I lived in Houston, Texas. I was so proud of her. It was a tough sermon because she talked about our past when we lived out of our vehicle after I lost my job working with the Maryland Department of Commerce in 2013. One of my siblings, I believed, mailed me a copy of the sermon and I sat in my car to listen to it because I did not have a tape player in my apartment.
When I listen to it and did not recall all of the facts as she did. I thought to myself that every one remembers things in their prospective. I was just proud that she had the courage to tell her story as she saw it. As mom, I was just suppose to listen, be proud of her accomplishment, and support her.
Many years later, and I am now living in Owings Mills, Maryland in what is deemed a luxury apartment complex. It is a nice place to reside. It has all the amenities that I wanted when I moved in; swimming pool, Amazon hub, parking garage, fitness center, business center, conference room, elevators, two bathrooms, two bedrooms, nice spacious apartments, but no hard wood floors. That would have made it perfect.
What I did not have is nice neighbors above me.
I was looking for peace. I found peace of mind having my own apartment. But I did not get the one wish of having my daughter come and live with me before she got married.
One time to make up for what happened before. You know, when we was homeless.
I was not able to wake up and see my daughter come out of her bedroom and say, "baby, I am off to work." I thought I could set the clock backwards.
God wanted us to go forwards. He wanted her to start her own life as a married young lady. He made sure I moved home to Baltimore so that I could share in that celebration.
What we did not know is that a pandemic was coming. We did not know that she was going to get married during Covid #19. We planned for a year and did not see it coming. We did not know that life was truly getting ready to be real again in so many ways.
I did not see me losing my job at Sam's Club before the pandemic started. I did not see me starting a new career in the middle of a pandemic. I never saw myself being on boarded virtually. I never saw myself taking a $9,000 pay cut.
Life is getting real.
Now, after seven months into my new career, I have to move out of the apartment I thought was perfect. Where am I moving to? I do not know.
Life is real!
I am at a cross road where I have to stop and listen closely to God's instruction.
This time, I have a job. I new career in Education. I am not making the money that I once was. But I have income coming in. There was a time in my life where I did not have a steady income.
Life is real!
As I pin this blog, I am grateful for my past experiences. I guess that is why I have not started freaky out about where I am moving to. Yes, life is real but in God there is nothing impossible. I have decided to take the lemons that life gave me and truly make lemonade out of it.
I was given an Christmas ornament of a pickle a long time ago. When I put up my tree this past Christmas, I found it in a gift bag. I never opened it. I read that it was suppose to bring be luck. I never believed in luck before. But, I figured, I was going to hang as many of my old ornaments on my Christmas tree as I could because for 8 years I could not afford even a fake $60 tree. I hung that pickle along with all my other ornaments. I can not even recall who gave it to me. Sad! A gift given and not remembered.
Life handed me a pickle during the pandemic but God should me the beauty in it. I am grateful because life is real. Yes, we are given lemons. It is what we do with the lemons given to us. It is up to us if we can turn a simple cucumber into a sweet or sour pickle. It is all up to us.
It is what you make of the life that Christ Jesus gives us to glory in Him that matters. It is a fork in the road for not just me but for the World and especial the United States of America. What are we going to do? Tuck and hide? Or let's play ball and win!
It's real!
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