"Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name!"
God's faithful to His promise because He brought me out of prison on January 1, 2009! I giggled this morning when I reviewed my old blogs about my days of imprisonment and saw how God carried me through my days of spiritually and physically imprisonment.
On July 3, 2004 I wrote about how hard it is to read or do things while I'm living in different motels on Xanga. Today, I laughed when I reread everything I typed when I was seventeen years old! I realized how much information I once withhold from all my friends. When my family first moved out of an apartment to store up all of our furnitures in a storage and stay at our first Motel 6 as homeless at La Sierra Ave, Riverside, CA by SR 91/Riverside Freeway with 28 maximum number of days to stay. When the number of days maxed out, we will have to move into another Motel 6 or into a campground. All campgrounds and motels have their maximum numbers of stay, but there are a few homeless people who will negotiate with the campsite owner/manager to stay longer. In Xanga, I wrote "I finished reading about 75 pages [of Undercover by John Bevere] since June 15 [it's been 18 days]. I am going so slow!!! Everytime I opened the book to read, I was distracted by something else." I smiled at my seventeen-self! I refused to say or confess that I was down. Actually I wasn't able to read because those negative thoughts surrounded me at that time, I was imprisoned with hopelessness and confusion. My friend, Breanna, asked me if she could take me out for my birthday. I didn't reply because I don't know how I could explain to her about family's situation, which is private. We all don't know how we could tell them without burden them or confuse them. We agreed that it's better for us to keep it in silent. I had to let my friends go since I knew that it will be hard for them to understand. I tried so hard to leave my family and friends into God's hands as I tried to read page-to-page.
On November 22, 2004 I finally expressed how I felt about leaving some of my friends, "I would like to hang out with some of my old friends that I haven't seen for a long time, but I don't know if I can. I am kinda of confused with some stuff like why I am not hanging out with some of them anymore. Oh well.. I missed some of my friends at the youth group at the Rock. I guess I have to move on or something.. but I still don't see why I should. The world may be too weird sometimes and unfair. Soon I will be off on my own.. Hopefully I will find some friends like I have there."
My seventeen-self was the same as my confused and angry twenty-two-self. One day, I decided that God's not keeping His promise to bring me out of the prison at all. In my 4th year at Gallaudet University, it was as if I told God, "I'm going to fix this myself! You stay in your waiting room and I will be the doctor!" I decided to put God aside for a full 6 months because I was fed-up with God for not giving me a new Spiritual-knitted family that I once had at the Rock.
But God rocked my world on December 30, 2008! I exploded with anger on the way to airport when my dad suddenly turned around! I was set to go NYC for the New Year Eve with my friends from DC. I pulled the sliding door back and unbuckled myself to show my dad that I was capable of doing something crazy, threatening him to stop the caravan. When he slowed down because he feared for my life, I jumped off and grabbed my bags to climb over the fence in an effort to find a ride or so to the airport. After a long stubborn night, I failed. I had to wag my tail down and wait expectantly for my dad to come back and he did. I went home thinking, "My dad owes me $50!" I went to bed in anger, "my life is pointless! All of it is pointless!" After a long night, I submitted my life,"Okay..." then I went to sleep.
I made sure that my mom drove the caravan on the next day. So I got on the next flight and got to DC. When I got to DC, I realized that it would be unwise to go to NYC with all of my stuff into the crowd without signing myself into a hotel with my friends before going to New Year Eve ball dropping at the Times Square. I had to give up. I had two choices: to keep fighting for self-fulfillment or to submit myself to God and let Him fill me up. I decided to look through my book shelf to see if there is something short that I could read for NYE as my "rededication date" with Him. I found "Steps to Revival" by Pat Robertson which is only 32 pages long! Sure, I need a recovery program from God to reignite me! After that night, God opened the scroll of blueprint for my life and guided me through my recovery program and igntie me big time!
The first step of the God-given recovery program began on January 4, 2009, I finally saw that God began to knit a new Spiritual family for me at National Community Church (NCC) when Pastor Heather Zempel preached Prison series "Perspective". "What do you do when life imprisons you? Paul knew who his life was about and what his life was about, and that perspective enable him to find freedom and joy in midst of difficult circumstances." Wow, I just submitted my life to Him to get myself out of 6 months imprisionment! Then I wore my new NOTW prison hoodie to the next service at NCC
I allowed God to take care of His promise and stay into the present as I unclenched my hands to wait upon Him and rest in Him. David had to allow God to bring him into the kingship as he faithfully thank God. I had to allow God to keep His promise as I thank Him continually like a trusting child who is sitting quietly at the dining table for her parents to bring her the meal rather than a child who is jumping at her parents' side impatiently for the meal, causing the waiting time to lengthen.
"The Holy Spirit is showing me that there are those of you that feel alone and isolated especially during these holiday seasons. You have been through so much adversity in your life and it seems never ending. Many of you have built a wall of protection around yourselves because you have suspicion and mistrust of people and you won't even allow Jesus through.
The Lord says I want to restore the years back to you that have been consumed by the enemy as well as your own mistakes that you have made. It is My desire to restore those things that have been stolen. Trust Me to show you how to get out of the place that you are in and bring you into a life of joy and abundance." -Elaine Tavolacci, 11/27/2010
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