I ran into someone from my past and she asked, “Where are you living these days?”  “I live right here in town, same house as the last time I saw you.” I told her.  Only a few weeks before I asked a woman at my church where she lives, and she replied. “Oh, just down the road.”

A while back I had a dream that a man was rummaging through our mailbox.  It was nighttime and he drove up in a white Cadillac Escalade. He parked in my neighbor’s driveway and left the engine running with the headlights on.

“Hey! Someone’s in our mailbox!” I shouted to my husband.  Then my husband ran after him.

I woke up and told my husband about the dream.  This began a journey down a strange path with our mail.  I started getting mail with our address addressed to people who don’t live here.

Then I received a piece of mail for Thomas S. I looked at the address and realized our neighbor’s mail had been delivered to our home. But I didn’t recognize the name on the envelope.   I walked over to deliver it only to learn that my neighbor I’ve know for 17 years  goes by one name, but his mail is delivered by his legal name.

Where you receive mail establishes residency.  This world is not my home. I live here now but my citizenship is in heaven.

Life brings shifts and changes.  A close friend of mine passed away last year. Heaven has become her home, but she didn’t get there without a fight! She had to face the dragon! For years she battled cancer, suffered through surgeries, and chemotherapy! It was gut retching.

A woman at church described the unwanted divorce she was going through as a “lifequake.”   Just like an earthquake that can redirect the course of a river, or move a mountain, a lifequake can make huge changes in someone’s life. You can be relocated, live in a new place, with different people, and it happens suddenly!

The first time I felt as thought the moral understanding I had of the world was blown apart was when my Uncle David dropped me off at the children’s home and never came back.  I remember lying in bed and distinctly thinking, “I don’t think your body is supposed to hurt this bad when you are ten years old.”  I cried myself to sleep every night.  My mom had died, my grandparents were sent to a nursing home in St Louis, and my sister and brother lived in separate houses. I lost my entire family! I was all alone!  My first chore at the home was vacuuming the hallways with a red industrial vacuum.  Every morning I struggled to get out of bed and was expected to do my chore.  The vacuum would bounce off the walls while I pushed it back and forth with my eyes closed. I was dazed, and confused. I was traumatized.

The second time the moral understanding I had of the world was blown apart was in the aftermath of my first divorce. I rebounded into a second marriage, Nine months into my second marriage my husband got into his car and drove to California instead of work.  We had been in church together at Christ Church of Oak Brook the night before.  In the morning he kissed me goodbye, and never came back.  Emotionally I was wrecked! I didn’t sleep for eleven days straight. I called the hospital because I had taken a sleeping pills but still couldn’t sleep. I asked if I could take another pill without hurting myself. They wouldn’t tell me over the phone.

I hung up and dialed 911. The ambulance took me to the hospital and they gave me a sleeping pill and sent me home with my friend Don Brown.  In the weeks that followed I was in constant fight or flight. I couldn’t sleep, or think straight. I was calling suicide hotlines regularly.  My family was sifted, and within weeks of my second husband abandoning us we lost our house and were relocated to Carbondale, Illinois.  I slept for three days when I got there. I have no memory of those days other than waking up to realize the nightmare was real.

I know what it’s like to face the dragon!

The first time he reared his ugly head I was just a girl. He ripped into our family! My parents divorced. My mom died of breast cancer.  I lost my entire family and ended up alone in a children’s home.

The second time I faced that dragon he destroyed my family again. Divorce followed by a rebound marriage filled with deceit so deep I lost my home and barely held onto custody of my children.

The dragon will destroy your health, your family, your finances.  He comes to kill, steal and destroy.

I’m not naive. I have developed wisdom by surviving the fire.

I had the opportunity to get a look at an airstream travel trailer that was for sale.

When I walked inside there was a sign that said Welcome Home!

The salesman asked me what my price range was.  I recounted a story of when I was 17 years old, and I bought my first car.  The man at the dealership saw me from a long way off.  He took me for every dollar I had.  I wanted a metallic blue Dodge Daytona.  What I ended up driving home was a maroon Plymouth Sundance.

The guy at Camping world said, “You don’t want to get sold!”

As someone who formerly worked as a stripper in a desperate attempt to save myself, my answer to that is an emphatic “Yes! That’s right! I don’t want to get sold!”

Our conversation continued. “Do you deliver? My van is pretty old, and I’m not sure it could pull this trailer.” I asked him.

“Yes, we deliver.  But ya know, you could cheat! People do it all of the time! They just hook right up and drive down the road!” He told me.

”People cheat?” I responded.

”Yes! People cheat! They do it all the time!” Then he pointed to a small refrigerator with a bell and said, “If you buy a trailer you get to ring the bell on the top of that refrigerator.”

Whenever I see or hear a bell, I am reminded of a time when I was reading the Bible and I came across Psalm 32:9.

“Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”  Psalm 32:9.  

I stopped and said, “Lord, that is exactly like my husband is being!”   I kid you not, it was as if the Lord flipped the pages of my Bible and highlighted Zechariah 14:20.

“On that day HOLY TO THE LORD will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the LORD’s house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar.” Zechariah 14:20.

”Lord, are you trying to tell me that my husband is holy to you?” I asked.

“Why shouldn’t you play cards on the SAVANNAH?  Because of all the cheetahs.” (Dad Jokes by Joe Kerz)

I’m back in the saddle and traveling the path to publishing. This time the Lord has laid a Christmas story on my heart.  See you on the next post! Merry Christmas!

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