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Dear Diary: My Struggle Is My Testimony pt 1

Dear Diary Testimonies

it's so cooooooooooooooold in the c!!!!!

i'm done apologizing for a lack of updates. i just found out that nobody really even knows i have a blog (for whatever crazy reason) & those that do haven't been pressing me to write anything. but if you never read anything else i write, heed to this.

what i'm gonna do is tell y'all about my life, no smoke & mirrors straight windex. and the reason is because i really feel like God is using my current situation to #1 build my faith in Him & #2 bless others (but isn't that what EVERYTHING He does is about??) anyway...

so i got out the military in august. i got a job the day of my separation so i was cool. my wife had been job hunting since march, we didn't give it much thought cuz we figured since so many different companies had her resume it'd only be a matter of time before she got picked up. plus the fact the military was giving me a couple Gs as a goodbye present AND we were gonna get an extra 2 Gs from them for moving ourselves, we'd be fine to start our new life.

"got on my knees, told God I had a plan, He laughed"- Joe Budden- Hiatus

it seemed like one thing after another put us completely out of our comfort zone. I told God I wanted Him to help me with my faith, but I guess I figured it'd be done under my terms. how stupid was I?? long story short...

-the money I was supposed to get from the military ended up going towards a debt I supposedly had & didn't pay, apparently I owed the US gov't $4000 for something THEY messed up on. the money i was supposed to get covered some of the debt, but i was still very much in the hole with them. the money i was gonna get from moving ourselves covered the rest of the debt
-i went a month without a job, i had all intents & purposes on chilling during August, & using my military payout to support my family. but since i didn't get it i had to use my savings...until there was nothing left i could save
-the calls to hire my wife weren't as fast as we had assumed. honestly she was limiting herself due to her qualifications. one thing we do in a lot of instances is fail to see ourselves through another set of eyes. like some people live & die by my music, i think it's dope but i mean...some of the compliments i get are outrageous, but i don't see it (*end selfish plug...sorry Jesus*). same way with her, her work ethic is amazing, she can do whatever she wants, but back then she didn't see it.

as a result, to this day we are sleeping at a relative's house (on the floor no less), living out of our suitcase. imagine going from a 2 bedroom, 2 bath house with a basement to a 9x11 room & one bathroom. the adjustment is NO joke. but it's like, i can't blame anybody for my lack of preparedness, plus God is going to (and has) shown out on our behalf.

as for my job, i don't get paid nearly as much as I did in the military. as a result i barely make enough to pay my bills. we only get paid once a month (which forces me to be extra resourceful with my money instead of relying on the 1st & 15th), my 1st check was barely enough to cover the bills i HAD to pay. i was literally down to the wire, they were going to repo my car and my wife's wedding ring. my phone was off for a minute, my car insurance bout expired cuz i hadn't paid on it in so long. it's a mess. and to this day i'm not caught up. on top of that my baby needs some things that i'm having difficulty providing her right now. it's rough y'all...

in order to make ourselves feel better, we did a LOT of apartment hunting. we would go see the place & i'd record the tour on my phone. we'd come home & watch the video & pretend we already lived there. or we'd go to furniture stores & look for bedroom sets, not worrying about the price, imagining how it'd look in our room. (i did the same with flat screens, lol) trust me, it helped. it was that positivity and the fact that we planted that future seed in our minds that helped us press on.

HOWEVER, God is good & we see the light. my wife got a MAJOR position at a MAJOR place of business...as a result we can move out in 2 weeks. she stepped out & stopped limiting herself, and as a result God put her at an amazing place to do amazing things. i'm just about out of training & i'm slightly ahead of the curve of where i'm supposed to be (compared to some of the others that trained with me). I can rejoice in the small glimmer i've already seen & look forward to when God busts that door off the hinges.

i've been reading several scriptures on faith, several faith based stories in the Bible (aren't they all pretty much?), but it's funny...the black girl from High School Musical told a story that encouraged me the most...


hilarity.

ANYWAY, so at one point i was really frustrated at my job. my job requires me to step out of my shell, so to speak. those of you that know me personally, you know that i'm very opinionated, i can talk, and i'm funny (that's what they say)...but that's with my friends. with complete strangers??? speak if necessary, other than that i'm very reserved. a reserved rapper, oxymoron. so anyway, i'm on twitter & one of the updates has an interview with her. since i'm bored, i read it. and this part stood out.

Coleman recalls the days of struggling to pay bills and constant auditioning in Los Angeles.

"I was a mess. I came into this movie with a two or three day notice on my door, literally! I hadn't paid bills in I don't even know how long. I got to the point where I was so broke that I would pay my car insurance and my cell phone. The reasoning behind that was I didn't want to get pulled over so I wanted to make sure that I could drive to get to and from auditions. I thought that if it came down to it I could sleep in my car. I paid my phone because I needed to be able to get in touch with people to get to those auditions. That's really all that mattered at the time," the actress shared.

Coleman said she always believed that her circumstances before booking the first 'High School Musical' were just temporary.

"I had absolute faith," she declared. "I'll never forget that even after the movie came out, we went to and I had to get my passport because I didn't have a passport to go on this trip. We got back from this trip and I was on unemployment at the time – even after the movie. I got my unemployment papers in the mail and it was right before the first of the month. I thought, 'God, I really don't have my rent.' I think my unemployment might have been like $800 every two weeks or something like that. I looked at it and said to myself, 'Monique Coleman, is this really what you believe you are worth?' I just got back from staying at the Park Hyatt Sydney looking at the Opera House, traveling the world and promoting a movie. I had no other source of income that was it. I said, 'no, I don't believe that's what I'm worth' and I tore it up. I didn't know that three days later, we would get our first bonus check from Disney and I haven't had to go back to another day job or really struggle financially since. For me, I think that is about inviting abundance. I think that abundance is out there for everyone. Somebody is gonna get it. You have to claim it for yourself and decide that if someone is gonna get it, why shouldn't it be me?"

Yay-man!!! i was literally thinking about walking out & quitting, going back to a warehouse that offered me a job that paid pretty good. along with my wife's income we'd be doing alright for ourselves. HOWEVER, what would I have learned?? I would've been reniging (is that a word) over everything I had prayed to God about in the months prior. i would've been content, living steady, not ABUNDANTLY like He calls His people to do.

so in turn, i will check in with updates until we're in the overflow. until then, be encouraged