Meet Me in the Trunk: Volume I

By Yvonne Hilton Bourgeois

Have you ever found yourself in a storm of someone elses making? For author Yvonne Hilton Bourgeois, that storm came in the midst of family difficulties. To get through it and realize she could not depend on herself to fix it, she began to visualize climbing into the trunk of her car, closing the trunk, and letting God drive.

In Meet Me in the Trunk, Yvonne shares important lessons on how she learned to cast aside her own judgment and depend on God alone. Facing day-to-day stresses at work, marriage difficulties, children, grandchildren, and relationships, Yvonne visited the trunk to let God minister to her anxious and wounded spirit. God never failed her, giving her messages to use for each situation.

With wit and wisdom, Yvonne breaks down each of these lessons and shows you how you can survive storms and even witness the rainbows that usually follow. She offers thought-provoking questions that challenge you to look deep inside your heart for the answers. Discussions include overcoming your humanness, setting aside selfishness, discovering the true meaning of the covenant, and much more.

For anyone whose life journey hits a bump every once in a while, Meet Me in the Trunk is an inspirational guide to letting God take control of your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781512700794

Yvonne Hilton Bourgeois

Yvonne Hilton Bourgeois graduated from the University of Southwestern Louisiana with a BS in psychology and a minor in sociology. A lifelong Louisiana resident, she and her husband of thirty-seven years live in Prairieville. They have three children and six grandchildren.

Book preview

MEET ME

IN THE TRUNK

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Volume I

Yvonne Hilton Bourgeois

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Copyright © 2015 Yvonne Hilton Bourgeois.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-0078-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0080-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0079-4 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/17/2015

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

The Trunk

Reclaiming My Power

What? Me a Prodigal?

Do I have mold in my walls?

All Aboard

It is NOT always about me.

The True Meaning of Covenant

Sticks and Stones May Break my Bones…

The Never Ending Story

Just Do It

Bethlehem

Seasonal Fruit

The Funeral

Shipwrecked

Humanness Is No Excuse

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much!!!!!!

Epilogue

About the Author

Citation Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank God for planting the seed for this book in my heart so many years ago. I thank Him for His patience and His relentless pursuit of me. Without Him there would be no book.

I also want to thank all of those who had a part in nurturing the seed, especially my family. You are so precious to me. You are the best family I could ever want. God has truly blessed me through you. I want to thank my husband for his encouragement and for giving me the freedom to follow a dream of my own. I want to thank my children for allowing me to grow up late in my life.

I want to thank my friends who let me be me and love me regardless. I especially want to thank Sherrie May who shared a dream she had about me singing from the stage. She said the sound coming out of my mouth was absolutely beautiful. For someone who is tone deaf I realized that this book is my song of praise to God, because songs do not have to be vocal to be anointed and pleasing to the ear. They just have to be from the heart. Thank you Sherrie for watering this seed and helping it grow.

I want to thank Debbie, Jan, and Claudia for their input and editing expertise. I appreciate you guys more than you know. RAMS forever! I want to thank Stephanie and Pam for always being there and giving me much needed encouragement. I want to thank Kari LeBlanc and Brenda Hodges for their editing assistance. I could not have done this without any of you.

I want to thank my Pastors at Healing Place Church, Dino and DeLynn Rizzo. It truly is a Healing Place for a Hurting World. God brought me to Healing Place Church when I was hurting, and now that I am healing, I want others to experience the same.

I especially want to thank the countless mothers and fathers that God saw fit to weave into my life. I pray for you often. I think of you often. I rejoice with you in your victories and I cry with you when you experience a setback. You guys are the reason I wrote this book. Hang in there, and read the words He spoke to me. Meet Me in the Trunk!

Dedicated to my first teachers,

Joe and Doris Hilton.

I love you and I miss you and

I thank you.

PREFACE

About fifteen years ago I was in a very dark place. One of my children was on a dead end road, quite literally. The life choices that he was making had only three outcomes – death, jail, or recovery. I was doing everything I could to make sure the first two didn’t happen.

I wasn’t searching for God. I was fine with my relationship with Him. He was in my life but He was given only an hour or two a week. That was all that was required. All the other hours I was on my own. Or so I thought.

I got so tired and weary of doing this all by myself. I ran out of words to say to my son, most of which never penetrated the drug-induced fog that was his life at the time. I would play scenarios in my head all the time. He would walk into the house and he would say such and such to which I would reply such and such and voila - instant miracle. He’d be cured never to touch drugs again. I can tell you it never played out in real life the way it played out in my head.

I got to the point where I didn’t want to do this anymore. Oh sure, I could take a lot more but I didn’t want to. When I got to that point – when I quit talking and making plans and trying to fix my son – I began to hear. I heard the gentle whispers of God Himself.

Those gentle whispers came in all forms – songs, sermons, readings, scripture, conversations with a friend. They were such powerful lessons. The lessons weren’t just for navigating life with an addicted child, but lessons for navigating life period. I was amazed how much sense they made. I was amazed at the source of the whispers. I was hearing from God Himself.

I didn’t hear the audible voice of God. I felt the voice of God, in my heart. Something I read, something I heard would stir my heart in such a way that I had to write it down.

Those whispered life lessons burned in my heart. I knew that I had to share them with others. For many years I kept them in my journals to be read by only me. I thought that after I died my children would go through my journals and they would make a book out of them. I wasn’t qualified to write a book. I hadn’t been a Christian long enough – as if there is some magic number of years that qualifies you.