Rivers In The Desert

Elena R. Jordan

Description

Obeying and trusting God with your life changes even when it doesn't make sense.

Do you find it difficult to obey God when you don’t understand what He is doing in your life?



Elena R. Jordan tells her own story of reluctantly following God’s instructions to relocate to another state. Having to leave her hometown and family behind to start anew seemed unfathomable. Unforseen circumstances landed her in a homeless shelter. A place she never thought she would end up. Instead of having faith and trusting God in the transition, she finds comfort in a forbidden relationship to escape her lonliness and uncertanties.



What you will take away from Rivers In The Desert is to stay on the path that God has for you and trust the process that He’s taking you through. Having faith and obeying God is the key to all of God’s blessings.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• English articles
• Biography
• Obedience
• Blessing
• Key
• The
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 27 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798385002146
• Langue: English

Extrait

RIVERS IN THE DESERT
Life On The Flip Side
ELENA R. JORDAN


Copyright © 2023 Elena R. Jordan.
 
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.
 
 
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454
 
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.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
 
Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
 
ISBN: 979-8-3850-0213-9 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-3850-0214-6 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023912949
 
 
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 07/14/2023
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
 
New Year, New State, New Life
The Big Crash And Fall
The Hustle
Greenway Park
The Salvation Army
Welcome Home
True Worth Place
Goodwill Industries
Calvary Baptist Church
Calvin Banks
Forbidden Territory
Sick And Tired
The Mysteries Of Men
People Come And Go
All Good Things Must Come To An End
Motel Getaway
Coming Back For More
Woodhaven
Love Peace And Harmony
Happy Holidays
DEDICATION
To my mother Thelma Greene who was the first one to recognize my writing talent. When I brought home my creative writing assignment in the 6 th grade you saw that I had something special. You always made sure that I spoke proper English and never allowed me to use slang. I wish you were still here with me to see my 1 st book to be published. Until I see you again, RIP.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior, thank you for pulling me up out of darkness and for loving me and giving me the gift to write. To my dad Edward for always being there and caring about my wellbeing no matter how old I get and also who I can talk sports with. To my bonus mom Aurelia, you are one of my biggest cheerleaders. You always told me I had it in me to become an author. To my daughter Tyler you know how much I love you and thanks for supporting me in all my endeavors. To my sister Kim Henderson, you know I love girl. To my sister Katie Young, thanks for being my support system and keeping me encouraged through life’s challenges. To my cousin Brenda Palmer, thank you for supporting me and reading everything I have written and thank you for being a part of my table read. To my friend Khai, I want to thank you for pushing me and encouraging me to finally obey God to make the transition to Texas and wanting to except the lead role in my play. And also, for your encouraging words of wisdom. To my friend and fellow author Natalie Smith, you are another one of my supporters. Thank you for encouraging me to go ahead and press play on publishing this book. To my friend Ms. Akanbi, thank you for staying in my corner after all these years and putting up with my complaining lol. Most of all thank you for your support and your encouraging words. To my friend Charlotte Ford, what would I do without you. Thank you for pushing me to want better for myself and to never settle for mediocrity and to never give up when times get tough. To Connie Houston, thank you for supporting my writing and being a listening ear. To my dearest friend Twila Collins, thank you for hanging in with me since the 5 th grade. Thank you for being my friend. Girl you are stuck with me for life lol. To another one of my childhood friends Anthony White, thank you for your support and words of wisdom and for also, encouraging me to trust and obey God for my move to Texas. To my friend Karl Burrell whom I have known since college at Emporia state. Thank you also for your support and being my IRA retirement agent. To Latonia Williams, Pamela Powell, Niki Mccollough and Jabarika Jones, you guys have been my friends and coworkers. Thank you for supporting me also through tough times. I love you guys and all of my friends and family.
NEW YEAR, NEW STATE, NEW LIFE
I arrived in Fort Worth, Texas around 8:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. The trip from Phoenix, Arizona is a fifteen-hour drive, but it took me longer because I stopped and got a motel. I can’t do all that driving across the country nonstop like I used to. I’ll leave that up to the young folks.
I would have flown and had my car sent to Texas until I was quoted $900 for the transport. So, I figured I would just drive instead. That would’ve wiped out most of the money I had saved for the move, which wasn’t much.
Mitchell came out of the house as I was pulling up in the driveway.
“Aye, you finally made it,” he said.
“Yes, that was a long ride,” I said while getting out of the car. “Man, y’all got toll roads!”
“Yeah!” He chuckled.
“I got to stay away from those,” I said.
My car was packed full of my things. I opened the liftgate to start carrying things in the house, but Mitchell told me to go on in the house and he’d bring all my things in. I was grateful because I was too tired to carry anything in at that point anyway.
As I walked in the front door, I smelled fried chicken. I walked past the living room and entered the kitchen where Tracy was preparing dinner. That was right on time because I was starving. I hadn’t eaten anything since I left Odessa, Texas, to fuel up. Tracy looked up from the stove and said, “Hey, you made it!” And then gave me a big hug.
“Girl yes!” I said. “That drive from Phoenix ain’t no joke. I couldn’t drive fifteen hours straight, so I got a motel.”
I tried to get to Fort Worth before the sun dropped out of the sky because my night vision for driving is terrible now. The glare on the oncoming headlights makes it worse.
“Dinner will be ready in a minute,” she said.
As I followed her from the kitchen through the living room to the spare bedroom, I noticed that this was an older house built sometime in the 1950s. Mitchell was still bringing in my things and leaving them up against the wall in the hallway. Then I noticed there was not much space in the room because they didn’t make any space for me. She told me that it was an old house, so there was no extra closet space.
“Sorry I didn’t make any room in the drawers. I didn’t have anywhere else to put my nephew’s clothes. I mean, he’s only six,” she said. She had a nephew who would come over and spend the night sometimes.
I looked around the room and wondered how in the world I was going to organize my things and get comfortable. It was like a bedroom and sort of a storage room. There was a bed and a dresser that I couldn’t use and an old printer table. There were boxes full of clothes and junk, and there were several blankets stacked on top.
Tracy must have noticed the puzzled look on my face. She stated that they have had so many friends and relatives stay with them over the years during their marriage that they hadn’t had time just for themselves. So, therefore, if she doesn’t make much room, then maybe people won’t stay so long. I told her my plan was to get a job and my own apartment within a month, but she just looked at me and gave me no response.
Tracy headed back toward the kitchen to finish dinner. I felt like she thought I came to Texas to freeload off her and Mitchell. I proceeded to line all my boxes up against the wall by the door, making it a narrow path to walk into the room. I was only able to hang up a little bit of my clothes because there were already other clothes in the closet. This was how it was going to be until I got my own place.
“You ready to eat?” I heard Tracy call in from the kitchen. I went to the kitchen and sat down for dinner. She had fixed fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans.
Tracy made Mitchell a plate, but instead of eating with us, he grabbed his plate and headed toward the bedroom to eat. I wasn’t sure what to think of that. Maybe he was giving us time to catch up.
Tracy and I caught up during dinner, and she did not mention why Mitchell decided to eat in the bedroom. She mentioned that they had just bought a German shepherd puppy that they kept outside in the gate on the side of the house. Later on, Mitchell came back to the kitchen to say that he was heading out for a while and would be back later.
“Well, I have been up all day and I’m going to bed. Make yourself at home and I’ll see you in the morning. Not really big on the New Year’s Eve thing. It’s just another year and another day to me,” she said.
I went and sat in the family room to try to watch some TV, but after that long drive I was just too tired to focus. So, I went and took a shower and then just stayed in my room for the rest of the night and thought about my new living situation.
I didn’t want to move to Texas. I was living my life in Arizona and was making plans to buy my third house, but God had other plans for my life. It’s not that I was so in love with Arizona,