The Reproach

By Ana Lanclos

I apprehensively share a very personal, destitute part of my life and fragments thereof, through this book called THE REPROACH, which in turn cultivates in you the realism of Jesus Christ. I used my life situations as illustrations and guides as to how to walk with Jesus Christ even when you are rejected by loved ones or friends for serving Jesus Christ. This book also shares my personal dialogues with God Himself in ways that can teach you to hear from God for yourself. Every person that reads THE REPROACH will be touched by God, in one way or another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499029086

Ana Lanclos

“Ana Lanclos was born and raised on the sun-drenched island of St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. Upon graduation from high school she moved on to North Carolina to continue her education. When Ana is not writing, she enjoys preaching and teaching the gospel of God on a radio program every week. Evangelizing where ever God sends her, Ana aspires to help people avoid the same mistakes she did. Ana says, I come, as it is written of me in this book to do the will of God, for we ought to obey God rather than man. She is gratified by comforting people during their dark moments in life, by bringing hope to them when all else fails, giving God the glory.”

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Copyright © 2015 by Ana Lanclos.

Cover design by Ana Lanclos.

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means including photocopy, electronically, mechanical, recording or by any other—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture references are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version. The King James Version is public domain in the United States.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/02/2015

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: My Meek Beginnings

Chapter 2: In Search Of God

Chapter 3: The Diagnosis

Chapter 4: I Am Sent

Chapter 5: You Are Fired

Chapter 6: Ouch! It Hurts Lord

Chapter 7: The Rejection

Epilogue

DEDICATION

This book, The Reproach, I dedicate with all of my heart and love to my Lord Jesus Christ who challenged me to do His calling. I give Him all of the honor and the glory.

Preface

GIVE THEM WARNING FROM ME

There is a point-in-time in everyone’s life when we question, is there a God? Many of you have entertained the thought or the concept that there must be a God. Yes, undeniably so. There is a God and He is the most merciful, patient, compassionate, loving, Father that one can have. He is genuinely concern about His creation, mankind. Although mankind persist to continually reproach and deny Him, God continues to warn us of our destiny and we continue to reject His invitation to an everlasting life with Him.

Immediately after I accepted the privileged invitation, to write this book, the Lord told me, I have made you a watchman, give them warning from Me. Puzzled by this request, I asked, Lord, who am I to warn about You? I need confirmation on this please. The Lord gave me these scriptures found in the book of Ezekiel 3:17-21 that reads:

Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: Therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.

Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.

God is a good God because He takes time out to make sure He has people out in the world to warn us. Accepting the assignment from God as a watchman, I am like a beacon of light shining from a light house. In my lifetime, I can earnestly say that I had the privilege to meet a man who, to me, exemplifies a beacon because of the way that he inspires many people by living a positive and constructive lifestyle, seeking for ways to help his fellow humans. This person is not born again yet and I say yet because in the name of Jesus I declare that he will serve the Lord soon, but his positive actions shine throughout humanity. Keeping in mind that he is not saved, tell me, how much more should we as God’s beacons (watchmen) be able to outshine any negativity in this world with the power of God’s word?

It is of my reasonable service to shine brightly so that I can help steer someone in the right path with Jesus Christ, just by delivering His every word to them without diminishing a word. I must also, as a watchman, sound the trumpet for those who are blind by the scales on their eyes. When they hear the trumpet blowing they make a choice to follow or not the sound of the trumpet into righteousness with God. I pray we all heed to His words as He warns us of our iniquities to get us on right standing with Him.

On that note, I am so happy to announce that the person I mentioned in the above paragraphs became born again before this book was finished. To God be all the glory!

Introduction

The neighbor’s loud mouth was my alarm clock on this particular morning, in which he woke me from an intense dream where I was admiring and immediately attracted to a brand new package of colorful pens. This morning God made it a point to remind me, through a dream, that in over three instances He had told me to write a book.

Talk about the scales falling off my eyes, in that moment I realized the gravity of my situation. Two things got my undivided attention. First of all, God Himself was telling me, that in more than three occasions, He had told me to write a book. Secondly, now I had less time left to accomplish this treacherous task instead of the original time frame allotted, when He originally commanded me to start the book a year before.

Some of you are probably wondering, why is this situation of such gravity to me? Maybe you are not familiar with the bible stories where it shows that God is God and He does not take disobedience lightly. Take King Saul for an example, he was told by the Prophet Samuel to wait seven days. Prophet Samuel planned to return after the proposed time back to Gilgal where Saul was. When the appointed seven days were almost over and Saul saw no sign of Prophet Samuel, Saul decided to take matters in his own hands. Saul disobeyed a direct order straight from God through Prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 13:11-13). Permit me to continue to another time in the bible when Saul was again commanded by God to go smite Amalek and to destroy absolutely everything they owned. This time King Saul spares King Agag of Amalek and the best of the sheep and all that was good Saul did not destroy it, as he was commanded to do (1 Samuel 15:2,3,8,9). He was not King for too long after this disobedience, because God rejected him as King (1 Samuel 15:26). Have you been obedient to God? Always remember that "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" (1 Samuel 15:22).

Knowing how God can react when you repeatedly chose to disobey Him, persuaded me to start writing this book in obedience. Thank God that our Lord is such a wonderful, loving God who patiently watches over us. By the way, we are now living under the dispensation of grace which is why our God is so merciful and patient with us.

This day, with certainty, I am of the opinion that God has something He wants to personally tell you or believe me, you would not have this book in your hands today.

When I finally made up my mind to obey my Lord, I then had another dilemma. God, what on earth I am going to write about? I do not want to hang my dirty laundry out for the world to see it.

Chapter 1

MY MEEK BEGINNINGS

I come not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, is my mission from the Lord but I never imagined that my calling would personally affect my life, as well as my husband’s life, in the way it did. Let me take you into the past of my long, draining journey as I attempted to accomplish my assigned mission from God. I did not know at that time that by faithfully answering my calling in life, I would also become a reproached daughter of God.

Life for me in my earlier years was great, exceptional, wonderful, to put it mildly. I was born and raised on an island where everywhere you turn to, you see God’s creative hand. You are mystified by the beauty of the terrain as it is caressed by the crystal clear ocean that surrounds the coast line of this island.

During my high school years I became born again, which simply means that I give my heart to God and I chose to live according to His word. Going to church for me at that time was a routine. I went every Sunday morning and night, Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights, Thursday nights and an occasional Friday night. Unfortunately for me, I had backslidden before I graduated from high school.

I admit, I regret that I backslid and walked out on God during those years. I abandoned my God and for what? Looking back over my life reinforces what a grievous mistake that was for me. By denying God at that time, I denied myself of walking my life as a light for God and shinning ever so brightly in people’s lives as well as mine. This would have given me a huge jumpstart of the abundant life God wants us to live. Instead I am a late bloomer and time on earth is so short. While we are on earth God wants us to live life abundantly as our soul also prospers (3 John 1:2). The sooner we get with God’s program, the sooner we live life abundantly. If this relates to you and at this moment you are backslidden, I plead with you turn your heart back to Jesus now, yes right now. He is right there waiting on you. Tell Him, God forgive me, please take me back. Come live in my heart forever. God loves you and He just wants to embrace you with His powerful love.

I went on to college, joined a sorority and enjoyed my college life. I left the states and went back home to face the world as a working woman, ready to accomplish all of my goals and aspirations. There was no time to waste so I immediately joined the work force on the island. After a year, I received a phone call about a job offer but the job was in the United States. I gave my job a three months notice and after only a year and a half, I left my island again, to head back to the United States, where I lived for many years. My new job was very demanding, I worked many hours, plenty overtime and had no personal time for myself. My social life during those years was restricted by the lack of resting hours available before returning back to work. I worked so many hours that quite often I would feel the shaking on the steering wheel waking me up because the car steered off the road on the side tracks. Sometimes I would be going to work and falling asleep in the slow moving traffic. The road that I traveled on frequently when I went home from work was a two lane road with trees on both sides of the road. I am very grateful to my mother, father, brother and grandparents for their prayers to God on my behalf during those years. Their prayers to God, Almighty were what kept me from being killed on those roads. There must have been a great reward for my head in satan’s under world because my life on those roads is a testimony of how God protected me every single day from the plan of the enemy to kill me, although I was not serving Him at that time in my life.

Prayer works and because my parents never ceased to pray for me, it kept me during my separation from God. What I am about to share with you happened because God honored my parent’s prayers, so God responded, by warning me. The event I am about to reveal to you I experienced personally, believe it or not.

This event took place during the month of February, at which time I was still living in the United States. The government agency I was working for was having a Black History Month Extravaganza for all its employees. This was a big deal for us to get an employee party, so the excitement was thick in the air. We ladies were all acquiring new formal wear and shoes for this grandioso occasion. Every one of us, especially me, was looking forward to spending some quality time socializing and pretending, even if just for a couple of hours, to be regular citizens with regular work responsibilities.

The episode I experienced occurred the same week of the Black History party, on a Tuesday night, as I headed home from work. When I got close to the intersection where I needed to exit on the US1, I turned on my left signal light preparing to make the turn as I have done hundreds of times before, at that same intersection. As I approached the signal light, I slowed down to twenty mph and saw that the signal light was green but no green arrow. I observed there were no incoming traffic lights so I proceeded to go across the three lanes and I remember specifically getting across the first lane. Then all of a sudden, I sense a weird change in me and my environment. The change around me felt as though time had stopped. I can better describe what I experienced at that