Feb.28th-Homeless in Houston-Farewel!

This is a statue of Sam Houston at the Sam Houston National Park outside Houston! We're on our way to Dallas!

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Jim, loading up and ready for the next chapter. But we are leaving Houston with no job, each other, a little savings, and a BIG BIG unknown. But "With God before us, who can be against us?" (I can tell you-The dad danged Devil, that's who, and all of his little minions who are employed at his beck & call!

Janet Holt Hall wrote at 11:29am

Godspeed as you travel into the next part of your lives..... Deut 31:8 says "The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."

(My new Houston friend, Janet, sent this encouragement to me on my Facebook. Needed it desperately today. See below):

Farewell, Houston! I will add our pictures later on, but we left Houston at 230 on our way to Dallas. We had a wonderful dinner with our "Angels" Charles & Janet Hall dining at Carrabas. Our first time there, but it is an excellent chain we can highly recommend (especially their bread-that stuff was obscenely good)!

Anyway, we packed all of our "wordly belongings" and left to come to the next step in the journey. Our "Angels," Charles and Janet Hall, suggested that we could be operating in cyberspace while we drove. They have Verizon connection on their computer. Now I know I am not quite in the 21st century but really long to be, especially if we are going to drive across the entire United States! So, Cricket & AT&T were our stopping points. Cricket had little coverage in many of the areas we would be passing through; AT&T had many more-ergo, there was little choice. We bought the service, so that we can surf on the internet while we are driving.

Today, we were driving to Dallas, and I am paying bills and checking e-mails. Then I get this notice from Expedia that our reservations for our plane flight to Sacramento had been cancelled. Aghast, I called them, and guess what? I had made our plane reservations for Saturday vice Sunday. Boy, did I screw up! Anyway, I was able to change our reservations, but it cost usanother 320 which is money we didn't want to spend at this point with Jim's being unemployed. We are now gearing back to the basics.

Jim was his wonderful self about it all. He didn't yell, didn't scream, didn't anything, except tell me that he loved me, and we would make this work, but I would have to do pennance by getting up at 300 am CST to catch ou 600 am flight! Ugh! I redid our reservations feeling just awful, but knowing that Jim's love is beyond my screwups. I will say that the Devil has been trying to get in little dings in-not big major majors, just little "gotcha's" to keep us off balance. But, he's not going to win. I know that God knows how this story is going to turn out!

Got to Angel's. Her friend, Janice, also was staying at what I call the "Antal B &B"! John and Angel are truly angels and open their home to any and all. Janice was a friend of theirs when they were stationed at Ft. Knox. Talk about another person God put into our paths. She and her husband had just retired from the military, planning the next chapter in their lives with lots of freedom and travel. Then, her daughter was killed when a drunk driver came across the road and slammed into the car. The children (she had four) were not hurt. Now Janice and her husband are raising these four children, and what a testimony to God. She told us this is what she was called to do, and this is her service to God and her daughter! Jim and I were so humbled just being in her presence. It's so hard to look upon our difficulties when we hear stories like this. And as I have said so many times in this blog, He has caused our paths to cross and hear stories far far worse than ours. People have seemingly just been opening up and sharing their burdens with us as we share ours with them. In some strange way, it buoys all of us, doesn't it? We are also finding more children of God handling major major attacks from the enemy and testifying to God's goodness through the dark times.

I told Jim that I have come to one conclusion. Either these are all series of bad mistakes and circumstances in many of our lives and there's nothing. Or God is in charge and He loves us enough and trusts Himself in us enough to allow us to share in His suffering, so that we can become more like Him. When I hear people who have been hurt beyond belief, lost loved ones, and are forging ahead and giving God the glory, it's a truly humbling thing.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to hear with my ears what you have done in so many lives, and how You have brought people through the darkness and back into the light. Instead of Conrad's book "The Heart of Darkness, "I should write one called "The Heart of Light and Love" if it hasn't already been written.