Challenging Your Disappointments: As Appointments with Destiny

By Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne

Challenging Your Disappointments as Appointments With Destiny is a sequel to the book When Your Mess Becomes Your Message and continues to dare the reader to look their negative circumstances and face them head on with confidence that it all works together for good. This book engages the reader to understand how the disappointments in life are actually appointments that must be kept in order to reach their destined place of prosperity, fullness of life, and heritage of richness. Just like any good mountain climber, whose objective it is to get to the top of the mountain, will use the bumps, rocks, and protruding objects from the mountain to help them in that goal to climb to the top, so we must understand our circumstances that occur in our lives that seem may be classified as disappointments, are actually helping us reach our destined opportunities. Cancer can kill, but treatment saves lives. Rape and incest are detrimental but revealing the trauma brings healing and hope. Divorce and breakups bring pain but moving on sets you free. Incarceration, a baby out of wedlock, a gunman gone made, makes us ever more grateful that we have a source of comfort when all else fails us. Death of those you love reminds you to enjoy life to its fullest since its something that will eventually happen to us all.
When we find the strength to face our worst fears, we will in that same moment find the courage to move on and Challenging Your Disappointments as Appointments With Destiny gives its readers the courage needed to make it through every disappointment that must be faced reminding us that with every disappointment is an appointment with our destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479788590

Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne

n/a

Book preview

Challenging Your

Disappointments

Appointments With Destiny

Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne

Copyright © 2013 by Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2013901886

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4797-8858-3

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4797-8857-6

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-8859-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 07/24/2013

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

WHEN THE MOUNTAIN WON’T MOVE

THE OTHER SIDE OF PAIN

BITTER BUT BLESSED

BUILDING CONFIDENCE THROUGH STORMS

CHANGING OUR PERSPECTIVE TO CHANGE THE OUTCOME

ARE YOU STRONG ENOUGH TO BE WEAK?

GOING TO THE NEXT LEVEL

YOUR APPOINTMENT WITH YOUR DESTINY

REV. KATHLYN BARRETT-LAYNE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To my children and grandchildren who mean so much to me. Thank you for being the inspiration that I needed when times were hard and I wanted to give up.

Thank you my dear Riley for your support and love that has carried me through some very difficult moments.

To my Reach Out and Touch International Church Family, I love you and thank God for you, always mentioning you in my prayers and meditation.

To the Pastors of Staten Island United Ministerial Alliance, especially Dr. Demetrius Carolina who helped with the completion of this project and Reverend and Mrs. Alfredo Archibald, and Churches United for Worldwide Action; thank you for the opportunity to serve you and the churches you pastor.

To my siblings and parents, especially Waldena for your help with this project and Victor, thank you for the love of family.

To the family members of the victims of Sandy Elementary School shooting, Aurora Colorado shootings, Boston Massachusetts terrorist attack, Oklahoma City Tornados, Trayvon Martin, and the enormous number of victims of violence across this country; I dedicate this book to you for your fight to be strong when your own disappointments were too much to bear. God bless you.

INTRODUCTION

GREAT MEN AND great women have made their marks in society only after they have faced great disappointments and found the courage to stand when they wanted to give up. We all have confronted events and circumstances in our lives that appeared to be one way and turned out to be something totally different once we saw it naked and bear for what it really was. There have been events that we thought would turn out one way and at the end of the scenario, the complete opposite was staring at our exasperated facial expression of Oh My God… No doubt at the onset of many events in our lives that look so wonderful and engaging, we get caught up in the moment with excitement, enthusiasm and great anticipation with thoughts of enjoying the journey we were about to embark upon. That new promotion seemed so exciting. The new car seemed to be a real dream come true. The news of being pregnant was breath taking. The wedding ceremony and reception were remakes of the perfect fairy tale story bellowing the words, . . . and they lived happily ever after. However, when reality sets in, the physical, mental, and emotional hangovers resulting after the novelty wears off cause many individuals to sigh deep thoughts of regret at what seemed like the perfect life. There are individuals who learn to live with what they interpret as the biggest mistake of their lives and others cannot live with their mistakes and end up continually punishing themselves and everyone around them because of the disappointments and mistakes they have to own up to. How many individuals are suffering in the wake and fury of a storm that passed through someone else’s life because they happen to have been in the path of the individual who placed their entire life’s savings on that one horse that was a sure thing only to have that horse come in last? In an effort to find fault or place the blame someplace else when we have blown it, we seek to find someone or something else to blame, and we create a chasm between ourselves and those we blame even if we chose to blame God for the misfortune or the disappointment.

This is a common practice for many common disappointments that happen in life including divorce, an unwed teen parent, incest victimization, substance abuse, and even adulterous affairs. Instead of looking at the scenario to move forward, somehow we look at these situations and spend exorbitant amounts of energy casting blame, getting revenge, covering up, struggling to forgive or struggling to move on, and we never learn the valuable lessons in the disappointments that should allow us to become better for the experience. We get bitter, stay bitter, and pull others into our bitterness. Blind leaders that lead blind people have ditch experiences. They all end up driving off the road and into a ditch.

My own struggles had gotten me to the point where I almost stopped expecting something good to happen for me because every time I tried to set a goal, there was disappointment at the outcome. The dangerous part about having back to back disappointments is struggling with a clinical depression that often accompanies multiple scenarios where disappointments continually reoccur. The mountains stood in the way, and the battle to forgive and quiet the storms of anger pushed me over the edge. The enemy of our souls knows our areas of weakness and uses them to bring about our destruction. The thief, as scripture calls him, comes to steal our blessings, kill our dreams, and destroy our lives. That’s his daily mission. So sending one disappointment after another was his way of trying to keep me in bondage in an area where I was most vulnerable. The attempts to drive me to a lack of self confidence and even to the point of suicide were the purpose for blinding my vision and distorting my view of why God would allow the things going on in my life to continue. When you grow up in a fundamentalist religious organization that doesn’t believe in wearing pants, short sleeves, or jewelry, divorcing and remarrying was sure to send your soul to hell. If unresolved marital issues are not dealt with and worked through in prayer and counseling, they will lead to sin. There are no middle grounds when it comes to dealing with the frustrations of human relationships when we are trying to live for God and live holy. People are in denial if they believe things will all of a sudden be okay without taking great efforts to make some drastic changes when faced with drastic situations. I believe my own divorce after 20 years was a wake up call to many men and women in my Christian and non-Christian circle of friends and acquaintances. The enemy is not joking and he doesn’t play fair. Why are we still playing around as if we have everything under control? When are we going to recognize we are in a real war and if we aren’t careful, we will be part of the statistic the Bible refers to when referring to the wide and broad gate that leads to destruction; , . . . and many there be that find it. We must get up everyday and choose our mission. We must choose to not be just another statistic. We are a testament of people who have met the challenge of disappointments but overcome them so God could use us to help build His Kingdom here on earth.

When Paul was locked up in prison he wrote a very challenging letter outlining for us the instructions for how to properly handle these disappointments that are obviously going to continue to visit our lives from now until this world is no longer in existence. He teaches this to the Christians living in Philippi when he is locked up in prison not sure if he would live or die. He explains . . . for me, to live is Christ and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21). How can someone look death in the face and have what seems like a flippant attitude? Certainly many others would find it difficult to just sit there and not be truly unnerved, wondering who could be called to get a stay of execution or have the decision overturned. Some would want the press called to publicize this great injustice to give this pending execution national attention. But that wasn’t Paul’s focus. Paul focused on writing letters to Christians, encouraging them in their walk with Christ. Paul had come to an understanding so many of us need to come to. He realized he was chosen and ordained to do God’s work and his trials were God’s way of marking Paul for the higher calling in Christ.

In our penal system today we have hundreds of thousands of young men and women locked away for years facing years of separation from their loved ones, facing the fear of being rapped, abused, or possibly killed. They live in the grip of fornicating homosexual lifestyles with the risk of being infected with the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted diseases. Going to prison is a death of sorts for those who are incarcerated and for their family members. Many times they are taken to areas that are accessible only by a bus or train. Many don’t have loved ones who come to see them because of the shame or guilt the family feels or because of limited finances. Some are serving life sentences without a chance of parole. It’s not unusual for spouses and children of the incarcerated to go on with their lives and start a new home and a new family with someone else. For those serving life sentences without a chance of parole life has stopped and they are waiting for the plug to be pulled. Many individuals end up in prison for one mistake or for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately, some are in prison and they aren’t even guilty of the crimes it is alleged they have committed. It is especially painful when children from God fearing homes end up serving time in prison or facing execution. But, we need to be aware of the greater attack on those children whose parents are ministers in the gospel and the children who have been raised in a church environment. These are the number one targets for the enemy.

Paul is sent to prison for lifting up the name of Jesus and preaching the gospel so effectively that it was destroying the economy and challenging the religious beliefs of the people of the town. The hostility, jealousy, rage, and anger these people had toward Paul was because of his influence