Wisdom is the principal thing

Over the last year I have been asked the question, “how have you done it?”, or I've been told, “you're such a strong person, all this would have done anyone else in.” Okay, first of all, I am not Wonder Woman, nor am I Super Girl, or anything else. I'm Melissa. Plain and simple. Daughter of the Most High God, and I am so dependent upon Him!

Oh, I suppose I should explain why the question, why the statement. Well, where do I begin...unquestionably the adventure began a year ago, but do I take a few steps before that? Hum, how to start....

I guess it really began two years ago, not one, and well, I have to say, the devil can slide in so innocuously that before you realize it things are spiraling out of control! So I guess we just go to where I noticed the start...February 2008, my husband called me from work to come get him. He had fallen from a ladder and was on crutches! Ok, here's the first backup...my husband works for a shipyard building ships so when he said he fell from a ladder my heart skipped a beat; then, thank God he's only severely sprained his ankle. Okay, I can handle this, after all he's okay, the ankle will heal and all is well.

Now I promise, I did not make up this next part! I do have pictures to prove it, but it is so outlandish that when I called our insurance company they said if they gave out awards for the strangest events we'd win....hands down. In April of 2008, my husband was on light-duty (still recovering from the ankle), therefore he was parking in the shipyard itself and well, the crane operator that day dropped a barge on his car...and three other cars. Stop laughing....okay, laugh, I do....now. :-) But now you understand our insurance company's response. Again, thank God it didn't flatten his car (unlike two of the other cars that became metal pancakes...which don't go well with syrup...lol), and no one was hurt, but it did smash in the top of his car requiring a whole new top. And again, thank God, the company my husband works for paid it in full.

In June of 2008 my 'other mother' (that is another article for another day) passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly. She was helping me learn how to make homemade jelly and can it one day, and gone the next. I was blessed to know this woman for nearly my whole life, and she really was a member of the family. The loss of this dear, matriarchal friend was devastating to me...and there are still days when I think of her and my heart aches. However, I know she loved Jesus and I imagine her most days singing and smiling with the Lord.

Tamiko Cuellar  St. Louis Evangelical Examiner 

God has been dealing with me since approximately 2005 about my identity in Him through a series of prophetic words from people I didn't even know and also through a dream; so I knew that this was a really important message that God was trying to convey to me. And since the topic of identity is still weighing heavily on my heart, I wanted to impart some of the wisdom and revelation that He has given me. 

The Lord began to reveal to me that there are so many people walking around in the body of Christ who don't know who they are in Him. Until around September of last year, I was one of those people. Identity is defined as: "1) the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another and 2) the exact likeness in nature or qualities." (Dictionary.com) How can you be yourself if you don't really know WHO you are and in what (or Whose) likeness you have been made? Well, I thought I knew who I was when I discovered almost 20 years ago that I was made in God's image, but I only had an idea. So how could I have been so off about my identity?

Well, God began to show me a series of events that take place in a person's life that cause his/her identity to be shaped differently from His original design. Some of these are: environment, wrong teaching, being mistreated (rejected/abondoned) by people, and the building of idols.