Fences

The past two weeks have been very humbling. After my 3rd failure on the North Carolina Real Estate Exam, I was at an emotional low. I was confident that I had passed that time, but as the blaring red letters, FAILED stared back at me on the screen it triggered a downward spiral. I mean like laying in the middle of the floor in the fetal position, personal pity party type of spiral. Yet, my friends, family and mentors would not let me stay there for long. I expressed my doubts about being able to do this yet again to my oldest son and he lovingly responded, “Well NOT with THAT Attitude”! My mom did the math comparing my pending tax refund to the cost of the testing fee to tell me about the bright side in how many more times I could afford to retake the exam. My Auntie refused to let me sit in the house and mope and my spiritual mentor reinforced that everything would happen in God’s perfect timing, not mine. Although all of that was true, at that point I didn’t want to hear any of it. I couldn’t even drown my sorrows in chocolate cake because I am still fasting!

I failed the test on a Friday afternoon February 11th, but early on Saturday morning, what I thought would be a quick walk around the block for Jaxon to handle his business, turned into a spiritual adventure. My neighborhood is very hilly, and I live almost two miles from the entrance of the community. Driving through the neighborhood, I often envy the joggers, kids on their bikes, and people strolling along, thinking I could NEVER do that, due to my mobility limitations post two surgeries a few years back. Walking through the grocery store is still painful so I don’t test the limits often. However, in the year that I’ve lived here the furthest I had walked from home was to the mailbox cove, equivalent to three-city blocks from my front door just before the hill starts to get steep.

On this morning, fueling my pity party with negative self-talk, I began to cross the street to approach the mailbox area (my turn around spot) when God said, “Keep walking straight!” “Hmmm, that’s different”, I thought, but I obeyed. The next thing I knew I was at the stop sign at the top of the hill, which was my absolute line in the sand, never to be crossed. At the corner, I heard “turn left”. The whole time complaining in my head, “Are you kidding? I can’t go all the way up there past the pool.” Then came the next big intersection and I was directed to turn left again, headed in the direction of the main entrance to the community. Yet in all my complaining, I hadn’t realized that I was already almost a mile away from my house and my feet were NOT hurting.

When I realized that, God reminded me that in a journal entry earlier in the month he told me that when I was walking in HIS PERFECT WILL, I would not experience the physical pain that had limited me for the past several years. Low and behold, I looked up and it was as if the scales had fallen from my eyes. The neighborhood was beautiful and peaceful. The passers by were super friendly and Jaxon was in heaven having a sniff fest and needing to pee on every tree and light post that we passed along the way. He’d occasionally look up at me like, “Mom, do we get to keep going?” So, we did! By this time my apple watch recognized that I was exercising and started tracking my activity. The next thing I knew, I was approaching the country club and golf course. I continued to worry, “Lord I am so far away, what will I do if I can’t make it back home?” “Just keep walking,” He directed. Then I found myself at the round about entrance to the community. I stopped to take a photo of the sign, amazed that I had made it so far and was still PAIN FREE.

As we circled around to head back towards home, I began to see everything differently. God said, “the only limitations are the ones that you have placed on yourself”. Then just like that, I discovered that like the imaginary fence at the top of my street, there were many other areas of my life that I had decided what I could or couldn’t do based on some sort of fear or perceived limitation that may not have been real. That revelation made the walk home much more enjoyable. Instead of taking each step anticipating pain, like Jaxon, I decided to stop and smell the roses all along the pathway home. When I arrived home, I had walked 3.4 miles, my feet were not hurting, and I was ready to revisit the real estate materials with a different attitude.

I decided to go back to the beginning and reread the first several chapters and retake each practice test. Reading the material seemed that it was all new information, which wasn’t possible because I had to pass an online test at the end of each unit before I could move on to the next. Yet, clarity to every question that I was unsure of and then some, was all right there! In hindsight, I would have likely retained the information much easier had I been in a formal classroom where I could ask questions and have actual discussions regarding the material with the instructor and my peers. However, my mentor was right, there was a reason that I didn’t pass the first three times I tried.

I learned in this process that I still needed healing and deliverance from both the spirits of pride and rejection. I could dismiss and justify failing once, maybe even twice but by the third time it was embarrassing to say that I had failed yet again and that demon on my shoulder was doing its best to tell me that I wasn’t smart enough and I should just go back to what I already knew. BUT GOD used this whole experience to stretch me outside of my comfort zone, break off the self-imposed limitations and to teach me that I could no longer get by with skimming over details or skipping steps in the process to accomplish whatever goal or task that was ahead of me.

There was a time in my life that charisma, confidence, and the gift of gab could grant me opportunities that I wasn’t otherwise qualified to do, but not anymore. God said, “I love you too much to lead you into a new thing and then allow you to fail because you aren’t prepared.” No more fake it until you make it!

After that, I was much more at peace with the timing of everything that had already happened and I became more patient regarding the things still to come. It was also comforting to know that when something does happen, it is because I am prepared to be successful in that area. God also has quite a sense of humor, as I was later directed to look up the definition of “Palisades”, which is the name of my community.

Definition - a fence of wooden stakes or iron railings forming an enclosure or defense. Really God?

Needless to say, that on 2/22/22 I passed my exam, and I am a licensed broker in North Carolina. What is next, I am not sure, but He has made it clear that He alone is driving this ship and I’m just along for the ride.

Until next time…