*Salvation* 100% Honest - Is it real? You be the judge. Failures, flaws, and victories.

I was in a chat room and told someone that if they were sure they were saved and still had a problem in their life that they needed to pray it through. Realized afterward this is what I needed to hear also, about the overeating thing. I began to pray about it. God never convicted me that it was gluttony. That is what people in the ancient world used to practice, like in Rome, eating delicious foods for the flavors, and throwing up to be able to eat more. I had a person tell me it was idolatry, putting food before God. God never convicted me of that. He just showed me that I have emotions that are painful for me, and I compulvisely eat to avoid those emotions. So like I said, I began to pray. God helped me. He showed me that my family is not really a family, to not go around them anymore. I will have to find my real family in Christ. Hopefully that will include my son. He showed me a lot of things about my grandparents, who raised me, that would not be proper for me to disclose to the world. I don't believe he showed me for that reason. The things he showed me are things I knew, but had been blocking out. I never wanted to be fat. My grandmother wanted me to be fat so my grandfather would quit leering at me when I was a teenager and began to develop and become seriously attractive. I was on a diet and wanted to be very thin, "hot" thin. But I wanted to please her, thinking it would gain me love. I have suffered a lot from being unloved, but as God showed me everyone has psychology to deal with. We will see how this goes.
Oh, another thing he did was show me through a book I ordered from www.faithpublishing.com "Parent and Child," that I need to discipline my son more and not let him get away with being disobedient. I did so, it was quite an ordeal, but my son is behaving himself much better now, and my feelings of anger have decreased.
I feel like what I need to do to get back to the joy I had when I was first saved is to work out these issues that affect me emotionally like this.

I took the form over to Social Services for my son's health insurance, NC Health Choice. The last paycheck from my aunt was not included, but a letter from her former employer was, stating the date her employment ended. Right there at the end I was thinking, "No one is going to get any documentation, and I am going to have to change the form. I cannot handle my son not having health insurance." I called my aunt's former employer, our neighbors and landlords, and so they sent over the letter. I don't know if Social Services will accept the letter so it may still be up in the air.
My son needs a jaw widener orthodontic device, which costs 1,000 and that doesn't include any braces at all. My aunt seems to be expecting me to pay her car payment for her when I get my money at the first of the month. That would be in addition to the money I will have to pay to keep the utilities on, my contribution to the household, plus virtually all the food.
I don't want to pay the car payment because someone already gave her money to pay off her car and I think she spent some of it and that is why she owes money now. I don't know that for sure, but the car was supposed to be paid off and she was spending alot at that time after she received that money. I have very little money, I only make 12,000 or so a year including my benefit and my sons half benefit he gets for having a disabled parent. I have money 12 times a year to spend some. I want to spend that on myself and my son. I think alot about that spending money and try not to make any mistakes in what I buy.
I just don't see why I am responsible for my aunt.

A sister in the Lord suggested we start a web site. It is to encourage people in the Lord. It is www.heavenly-comfort-zone.com. Ever since I started working on the site I have craved a cigarette. Could it be SATAN!? I hope you have seen the Church Lady skit by Dana Carvey, or that may sound weird.
Anyway, I have also been getting offended with my sister in the Lord over nothing. So there you go again.
My computer has a Java problem, sometimes the Pagebuilder software konks out and I have to shut the computer all the way down then restart. Otherwise I can't save the pages I am working on. It is getting old. I can only save my pages a few times before it konks out. I have downloaded Java, and it is better than it was. Before it wouldn't even launch sometimes. I am so glad I won my computer in a raffle, because I would hate to pay all that money and then have these glitches.
I am considering either buying a computer, getting my son a gamecube, or getting the cable hooked up. When he is home we both want to be on the computer, and there is "nothing else to do." I have been reading my Bible alot, but I don't have the urge to do that ALL the time. My son didn't get his homework done. He had an upset stomach. He has acid reflux just like me and is only comfortable if he is stuffed full of food, just like me.

I called a member of the church I used to go to, and told him that I got saved. I asked him to mention it to the pastor there, and see what he says about me coming back to church there. He sounded cold toward me on the phone. The last time I was at church the pastor came and shook my hand -- it was at an all day meeting-- and he had sort of a hardened look on his face.
All I did was have a breakdown in church and start crying because I felt the pastor kept criticizing me during his preaching, and I was doing my best.
That, and out in the parking lot I yelled, "This is just like with Brother Rice, and with Sister Melanie! He won't be happy until I am gone!"
I talked too much in church, testified too much.
I sang some songs which the Lord blessed miraculously. I sang some repeats of those songs that flopped.
I feel I have humiliated myself by asking to be "let back in," and also worried about what might happen.
The devil has been trying to discourage me, tell me I am not even saved. He has tried to throw up inconsistencies in the Bible in my face. I still believe in God, though. I know he is real, the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, and the God of Jesus, and I know I am saved. So I do not know what to make of these inconsistencies.
God has shown me several of my pet theories are false.
One was that the creation of the devil started in Eden, when Eve got a wrong spirit, that the devil comes from man, since we are spiritual beings and get wrong spirits. After being introduced to the devil via his subtle lies toward me lately, there is no way he comes from man.
Several times I have had to say that he is brilliant, and in one way a person could admire him, because he is so good at what he does. He has really been getting me discouraged!
Another pet theory is that the account of creation is an account of when God terraformed the earth, which used to be like the moon or Mars, desolate, no atmosphere. I reread Genesis and it talks about God creating the stars and the sun at the same time as creating life on earth.
Now I don't know how to reconcile known physics and the Bible, since the universe is supposed to be billions of years old.
One time I was thinking of the hamper full of 100 dollar bills, and the Lord told me, I will give you...and he showed me the city of transluscent gold, and gems. It wasn't like a vision or anything, more like a visual thought. Living in that city brings more happiness than all the world's treasures. I need to work on "Godliness with contentment is great gain."
I have been looking online, and emailed an ebay seller who offers a 6 month layaway on computers. I have been wanting to buy my son a real nice gaming computer, and also get one with Radeon TV wonder in case I ever decide to get cable, so I can have it be like a media center computer and do TIVO type recording. I have been getting stirred up through that to WANT. This computer thing may not be right, since it is affecting me this way.

When I first got saved I was full of joy. I smiled all the time. I still feel that joy at times, but my anger has returned. I read recently that anger is a spirit.
There have been several areas where I have failed God. I should only eat what I feel led to eat, instead of pigging out. I have been daydreaming about having a laundry hamper full of 100 dollar bills. "Having food and rainment therewith be content." I should be more meek. I felt like the Lord showed me that the person I am around who criticizes me a lot can help me grow spiritually, if I will take it without saying a word like Jesus took the mocking, and spitting that was heaped on him before His crucifixion. I haven't done all that well at it. It's scary to think I can lose my salvation, and I have such a cunning adversary (the devil). I am a lazy person and could end up losing my salvation by lack of vigilance. I want to be safe forever, in heaven!! Maybe the devil is just getting me discouraged.
He keeps telling me,"You don't know if your salvation is real" (Because I have to take it by faith.) "Commit a sin, it doesn't have to be a big one. Then if you lose your salvation you will know it was real, and you can turn around and get saved again." This is the equivalent of what he told Eve in the garden of Eden.
There is something I am having to surrender to the Lord. I have to accept it if I never have another car again. My car is in the shop, and it has been in for months. They can't figure out what is wrong with it, and they are foreign car specialists. I just feel led to try to get to the point where even if the car isn't fixed and I never have another car, I can accept it as the Lord's will--equally to the way I could accept it if the car was fixed. The apostle Paul never had a car.
I am not there yet, but I am getting there.

I prayed to the Lord for 15 dollars so we could get a pizza. I hunted around in some of my aunt's things and found a quarter. I hunted around a lot more and found nothing. I got a sealed letter down from the cabinet that had been here ever since I moved in over a year ago. For some reason no one had ever given the letter to the recipient. The letter was from one of our neighbors to another neighbor. I opened the letter. There was a note and 5 dollars in it. I could get a Little Caesar's pizza, and with some money from a debit card, a two liter off-brand soda.
I told my son what happened and he wasn't happy about it. He said it was a sin.
I can't imagine Jesus opening someone's sealed letter. My aunt didn't come home with the car so we couldn't get the pizza that night. I wanted the pizza that night.
By the way, my plan all along was to pay my neighbor back when I got some money next month. The money had been there over a year, what difference would two weeks make?
My son brought up the subject again today, after I had settled it with my aunt that we would use the car to get the pizza today. I felt that IF it wasn't a sin, that it least had the appearance of evil, and the Bible says avoid even the appearance of evil. For my son's sake I got the 5 dollars, and I got the note out of the trash. It had coffee and a few coffee grounds on it. I sent my son over with the note and the money to the neighbor's house.
I may have lost my salvation, or be treading on dangerous ground. The Bible says if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
Maybe the root of the problem is I had no business praying the way I did for a pizza like that, since we had food in the house. I don't think we are supposed to pray selfishly.

The Lord had me to pick up a hitchhiker today. I know, it's dangerous, but I also know it was the Lord.
He had been hitchhiking since yesterday and stayed out last night. He was thankful it wasn't so cold last night. He had no money and hadn't had anything to eat since yesterday.
I was able to bring him to a soup kitchen. However, the kitchen closed 15 minutes before we got there. They gave him a plate of food anyway!
I took him back to the highway. I only gave him a ride of about 20 miles.
I saw things in myself that need to be changed. I was overly interested in the food he got. I am fat. I speed too much and am impatient while driving. I have other flaws too. I want God to purge me, to make me perfect before Him. I haven't told you yet that I am on psychiatric medication. I act weird, wooden. I was nervous, that's why I acted stiff. I told him that I am not sure where the Lord wants me to live, that I often question that, whether He wants me to live here or move elsewhere. I told him about my car being in the shop and how the glow plugs need to be fixed, and as a diesel the car doesn't like cold weather. That would seem to rule out living in the mountains. But I told Him, I will end up living wherever the Lord wants me to live, and that I have only been saved a few weeks.
The man said, "I believe in Jesus Christ."
I wish I would have been a better person, and God would have had me say something like, "Are you living free from sin?" I wish I could have been so much a better witness to him.

This happened a few days ago.
My son went to a playground with a another boy. He rode one of his bikes and let the other boy ride his other bike. I didn't know he let the other boy ride the other bike, since this boy one time took my son's bike and kept it in his grandmother's storage shed for a long time, then gave the bike back.
There was more trouble this time. A boy was waiting at the playground when they got there. Now the two boys told my son, let us ride your bikes somewhere, we won't be gone but a minute. My son said okay. So they just stayed gone.
I went to the boy's grandmothers house and told them what happened. I told my aunt to call the police. The police reportedly said they couldn't do anything about it since we didn't have serial numbers for the bikes.
My son and I prayed about it. About 15 minutes later the boys and one of their Fathers showed up with the bikes. The police had found them and talked to them!

I have been getting stressed out about things, and have had to give my responsibilities to God, and trust Him to handle them. One of them is a yearly application for health insurance for my son. God showed me I have the victory, because I do not want to lie on the application, and I will not lie. I have to leave it to God as to whether or not my son has health insurance. What has had me in a panic is that I was worried that my aunt's income from a job she has had would knock us over the limit, and I won't be able to get health insurance for my son. I was also worried about providing the documentation. I don't know if my aunt has saved her check stubs. I was able to give it to God and he helped me fill out most of the form and also to see that I have victory...whether or not my son ends up with health insurance. I just have to trust God about that.
One thing which has proven tricky is the issue of what I eat. I have previously been in a twelve step program for overeating (Overeaters Anonymous). I have not been abstinent in years. Abstinent means a person eats only what is on their food plan. Taking a bite over the food plan would be like an alcoholic taking a drink.
I thought that the Lord showed me to get back on a food plan I had been on in the past, and to start a notebook about my emotions that cause me to reach for food.
I had one day of abstinence, then the next day, yesterday, I had a complete meltdown and ate a lot. I have started thinking that someone I fellowshipped with the other day doesn't like me very much. Rejection and also having to separate from others because of their behaviour are my triggers.
I know the Bible says, "Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." Now I am believing what the Lord wants is not a food plan, but just to eat what he shows me to when he shows me to, and not to keep a notebook. I will have to see how this goes.

I prayed, God help me to never smoke another cigarette again. I put out the cigarette I was smoking and ran the rest of the pack under water.
Later I started craving a cigarette, but I had this attitude that I will never smoke another one again. That attitude was not in me before. I think God has done another miracle and put a new attitude within me.
I am still going through withdrawals, but so far so good, and if this attitude lasts it is definitely a miracle.

It all started when I got a Gospel Trumpeter. I read an article about how we need to read our Bible everyday, even if it is just one verse. I had not been reading my Bible for a very long time, so I decided to do this. I put some effort into it on my part.
I began by reading one verse. God immediatley convicted me with the scripture I read that I was not saved. I read a few verses for a few more nights, then I began reading more in my Bible. At the same time I checked into www.possumroadchurchofgod.com and found out about "Evening Light" radio station on Live365.com.
I also found a book I wanted on ebay but I couldn't afford it. I did a search on the author on Google and found the book on the Faith Publishing House site: www.theshop.net/faithpub/fpbooks.html. The name of the book is "The Secret of Salvation" by E. E. Byrum. I was able to order the book. By the way, if you go to the site, the book is listed under "The" not "Secret."
I had my hopes up that this book would help me.
I also ordered some other books which I have not read.
I read the book and it DID help me. I learned that the reason I never could get saved was that I didn't know how to repent properly. There were two sides to this.
One was the fact that I wasn't really sorry for my sins. I viewed things from a psychological perspective and was of the opinion, look at my childhood, the way I was raised, what do you expect. God showed me everybody was psychology affect them, I was still a sinner.
The other part of this was I needed a deep felt desire to totally turn away from sin and walk holily with God. My attitude was, "Here I am, if you want me to move, God move me." I knew I could not get the right attitude about this. I prayed several times, "God give me the desire to relinquish all sin, help me to truly repent."
God miraculously put the right attitude within me, and I knew this was my chance, because if you deep down want to turn from sin and you cry out to God to help you, you will get saved. This is just one of the things I learned from the book.
I knelt down and asked God to save me, in so many words, praying to him, and Halleluiah, he answers prayer. He saved a miserable, disgusting, lowlife like me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank God. More to come...