WHY ME.....HIV?....What Do I Do Now?

      Why did God let this happen to me and how could He? Why didn't God stop it from happening? You even asked how could God love someone like me?  I should have been more careful, how could I have been so stupid?  Surely, this won't happen to me?  God I am angry with you! You failed me......why did everyone lie to me.........What I'm I suppose to do now?  My family won't talk to me, they are scared they will be infected if I sit at the table with them?  Lord I have no one to turn to and I just don't understand? WHY, WHY WHY......ME?  WHAT DO I DO NOW!!!!

Then your mind shifts again and your wondering about if the man ever really loved you as he said he did?  Did he know that he was HIV positive and why didn't he tell me he was HIV Positive?  I trusted him! How long did he know?  I am so ashamed.  Nobody will ever love me again? I don't want to go through this alone? I might as well die?  I was raped, why should I be punished for what He did to me....it was only one date. I thought I was careful and they didn't look like they were infected, because they come from a wealthy family or Ivy league school, Why should I continue to live? I don't want to take this medication for the rest of my life? Who can I talk to about this in confidence? How long do I have to live? How do I live with HIV as a Christian? Will the Church except me? And so on, and so on.....etc?

These are just some of the primary questions that people living with HIV experience once they have received a diagnosis of HIV. 

Initially when you first learn of your diagnosis, you are flooded and overwhelmed with questions, doubts, worries, and fears.

You find yourself feeling and thinking you are alone. That there is no one else on this earth going through what you are going through.  Trying to grasp all of the medical and clinical genre of language relating to the understanding of test results, CD4 Counts, Viral Load etc.

While this seems overwhelming, it is not the end. You now just have learn to live LIFE differently. This is a NEW BEGINNING in VICTORIOUS WAY.

Second,  you are angry with everyone around you because they do not have it, and then you become angry and even bitter with your ownself for allowing it to happen.  Our flesh is weak and constantly needs to be brought under control and the only way that this can happen is to know who God is in your life and to walk daily with Him seeking His guidance in ALL things.  We have to learn also that we do not belong to ourself as we think we do.  We are connected to the Body of Christ. We are accountable and responsible for every choice that we make. There are consequences to our actions that we have to accept. 
 
This is not the time to rely on our emotions because they can push us into the pit of  making us bitter on the inside and towards others. This causes a greater bondage to manifest inclusive of self-willed isolatation from people.  This opens portals of spiritual warfare in our minds and bodies and is a very deceptive device of the enemy to keep you paralyzed and immobile unable receive your real healing, freedom and peace through JESUS CHRIST. Learn to see yourself though God's eyes. 

Third, Prayer is a powerful key in unlocking the situations which have demonic control of our lives to help bring us into reconciliation to God and making available the receipt of HIS help in our lives.  Most people will never know that you are HIV Positive unless you tell them, Once you find your confidence in disclosure of your status it is o.k. eventhough many may not agree with you on this, you decide.  There are legal laws of counsel that have been set up for to protect you from unnecessary prejudices pretaining to your HIV Status.   

Jesus loosed the woman who had been bowed down for 18 years due to an infirmity.  She had an infirmity caused by a spirit (a demon of sickness) according to the Amplified Bible.  She was bent completely forward and was unable to straighten herself up or to look up. JESUS saw her and would not allow her to remain in that state.  Therefore, God will not ALLOW you to remain in that mindset of defeat and discouragement. Listen for His voice for He is calling to you to come to Him and to receive your healing.   JESUS is the HEALER, it does not matter what it looks like to others or the doubters.  You have been redeemed and set free from the curse of HIV.   

JESUS is LIFE.  We live and move and have our being in Him.  Everyday that we wake up, He gives us brand new mercies and grace.  We just have to operate in them and claim them.  Learn how to speak to HIV and to put it in it's proper place.  It has no power over your life.  God is greater than any sickness or disease. YES, YES, YES even HIV.....Claim your VICTORY through CHRIST JESUS of being made WHOLE and HEAL.

As for people believing whether you are a Christian or not, it does not matter what they think.  If you have repented for your sins and turned away from your sins, sought His forgiveness and accepted it....then it is settled!  He blots out our transgressions from as far as the East is from the West never to remember them again.  Only, people will keep reminding you of your past!  Let them bring it up.....When they do, tell them it's ok if they want to remain there, but, you don't live there anymore and have now moved forward to what God's plans are for your life.

One of the most crippling lies ever told to people living with HIV is that, God can never save you because you are HIV infected.  That is a lie from the pit of Hell.  Jesus does not condemn us.  He came to save us.  Now, what we will received is conviction for our sins, which helps to bring us to correction and that equals protection from the enemy.Conviction gets us back on to the right track and to live our life for Christ and to embrace our salvation.  You can never loose your salvation.  You may experience the lost of "joy" of  your salvation as David did in the Psalm 51.  Once He repented God restored back to him the Joy of his salvation and God will do the same for you.



                        Now you know the "WHY'S" and WHAT TO DO!
                         NOW YOU JUST HAVE TO "LIVE LIFE ON PURPOSE and VICTORIOUSLY!!!!




                                                              ELAINE

STIGMA.....

Webster's Dictionary definition of " Stigma" is:

*A set of negative and often unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something.
*A mark of shame or discredit: STAIN; example: bore the "stigma" of cowardice.
*An identifying mark or characteristic; specifically: A specific diagnostic sign of a disease.

Stigmata plural: Bodily marks or pains resembling the wounds of the crucified Jesus and sometimes accompanying religious ecstasy.

Jesus knew the depth of the "suffering and shame" that he was going to hath to bare on the cross in order to save us from our sins.  Yet He was willing to leave His deity and to come to this Earth and to be born of a virgin, and to take on human flesh in order to fulfill the will of His Father in Heaven. 

Words are very powerful and can change or challenge the perception of someone's character and nature if not wrapped in truth of God. They have the ability to coerce people into making judgmental statements that are irreverent and degrading of who God has called a person to be in spite of past sickness, disease or sin.

The word "stigma" can foster the weight of negative connotations of shame and discredit for a person.  This is especially true as listed in the definition above relating to a diagnostic sign of a disease, for example: HIV.  Many people term it as being "death" or "contagious" even after 30 years and mass improvements of longevity of life, people still struggle with the real truth and do not want to acknowledge that Jesus died for even someone who is HIV Positive. The Bible clearly states that Jesus healed many people, as many as believed on Him. And He is still healing people today of HIV and AIDS.

As Jesus hung on the cross for our sins, the crowd that watched Him hang there began to mock and shame Jesus and doubt who He was as well and even considered Him to be a coward all because he chose not to save His own self and to come down off the cross. Had He done so, we would never have been able to find the hope of having eternal life and to escape the penalty of death.  His mission and purpose was not for to be seen and accepted of men, but to be obedient to the will of the Father to restore us back into fellowship and to provide us a way of escape from eternal death due to us for our own sins and sin nature. The Father's love for us was far greater than our issues.   Isaiah 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4) Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  5) But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed, demonstrates just how precious You and I are to the Body of Christ and the Kingdom of God. Jesus suffering was our example of how to bear our cross.  We must understand that we are not bearing it alone.  He is bearing it right along with us. We just have to walk in faith and let Him show us the way. 

Do not allow anybody to place the "stigma" on you because of HIV or discredit you with the guilt of judgment. You are not an outcast, persecuted, or rejected by God because of a disease. Your Heavenly Father has loving accepted you and you are no longer bound by the association to a sickness that was never your name to start with.   You have been stripped and cleansed of that guilt.  Understand and know that Jesus took care of it on the cross before you even knew about it.  Jesus did not stop for one minute to consider how humiliating or how humiliated he was going to be mocked to have to suffer for the sins of this world.  Why?  Because His love for us far out weighed what he was going to have to face and obedience to God was more important.  His atonement took care of it and He is your advocate, even when others will not believe in God says you are.

Understand and accept that you are more than a conqueror and have been equipped by our Father in Heaven.  Stand on the truth of  His Word that Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.  John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17) For God sent not his Son in to the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.  18) He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son fo God.


                                                    And for this ........You Are Living "Life" On Purpose !!!

                                                                                     
                                                                                              

BORN AGAIN! TO "NEW LIFE"

BORN AGAIN! TO "NEW LIFE"


There was a battle that warred in my spirit for so long to the point that I was blind.  For years, I walked in unbelief, knowing the truth but couldn't believe it for myself and how to apply it to my life.  I struggled with beliving the "truth" of what the Word of God said about me being healed in my body early on in my diagnosis and who I was created to be in Jesus Christ. Why?  Because it was not what I would see in "black and white" when I would go to the doctor's office on paper for my appointment or when I looked in the mirror.  The paper said I was "undectable" by man's standards that there is still a very minimum amount of the virus in my blood .....But yet! as a Christian God had told me I was HEALED the first time!

During the early years I had confessed faith in Jesus Christ, that I was healed in my body of my HIV, yet I was still unsettled in my spirit and in my mind. The battle waged war against me strongly in my mind.  We know that the mind is one of the greatest and easiest places for the enemy to build strongholds and to tear down the truth of God if we are not grounded in our faith in Jesus.  If we are weak in our mind, then we are weak in the body and spirit and sin continues to holds us in shackles of bondage in the valley of darkness and fear. 

I read the truth of God's Word constantly and daily, and even prayed.  Yet still lying to myself and to God I would "try" to convince other's, when I couldnt believe it for myself.  I struggled in the core of my inner being, of my soul just to grasp on to the reality that Jesus Christ had paid the price and purchased my redemption on the cross. His Blood had already cleansed me and made me whole.

Shortly after I had re-committed my life back to Christ in June of 2001, it was a few weeks later I found out I tested positive for HIV.  I had great friends of support around me and rooting for me, loving me and praying for me, but, I was still blind and oblivious not able to see past "feelings" and emotions or wounds. 

My flesh and spirit truly warred with one another.  I held on to bittness, rejection, jealousy, envy and hatred toward me and others or anybody, who was not HIV infected. Negativity and self condemnation became my best friend. I would say to myself, They just don't understand, what I am going through.  I lived in the "high chair of the pity party".   I blamed myself for every issue and problem and believed that everything was my fault, others as well and the person who infected me. I told my sons about it and although they said it did not matter to them, I still felt that they were ashamed of me.

What I needed and did not have was the love of Jesus in my life and to say that I truly know Him personally.  I knew who He was, but I just could not seemed to wrap my mind around the fact that He LOVE ME! How could He love me a person who was HIV Positive? But rather than accepting the love of Christ over my life I was trying to get to God without going through Jesus.  And His Word is true when He says, "that no one comes to Father except through the Son" (THIS YEAR 2014, PRAISE GOD IT IS SETTLED....HE LIVES IN MY HEART AND SOUL and  I AM HEALED AND BEEN MADE WHOLE!)...... Prior to the truth of TODAY, I knew I needed Jesus to surrender EVERYTHING AND ALL to Jesus and for Him to just take over my heart and my life.

Before then, I wanted and  needed the approval of people more so I thought in order to make me better.  All of my affections were set on people and not on Jesus and what He had already done on the cross in the forgiveness of my sins.  I had to learn  that it was not the people that could save me from my sins or to save my life.......I NEEDED JESUS to truly come into my heart to change me from the inside out. I needed JESUS to show me how to love and to love me beyond the pain of my past mistakes and failures.  There were many tears that I cried many times over the years, to the point that they could probably fill an ocean. I helded on to every painful hurt to the point of suffication always promising to let them go and give them up. I had to REPENT for my waywardness and sins. And Then GOD!!!!! showed me how to LIVE through it, and to get through it. I am now FREE! And whom the Son's sets FREE is FREE indeed!!!! Glory!!!!

There are so many people living with HIV, who are "suffering" from many things that they just are too ashamed or overwhelmed to talk about.  This is the ministry that God has now birthed out called TRIUMPHANT LIVING.  It is by and through His grace that I know God will guide me through to helping others or families struggling with the same issues as I was. There are people who are NOT HIV infected that have gone through trial and struggles similar in nature and just need to know that JESUS is REAL and that HE is ALIVE and WELL. People bottle their hurts and hide them thinking and believing within themselves that they are o.k., not realizing that this is a trick of the enemy to paralyze people with fear causing thme to be afraid to reach out and make a true connection to JESUS Christ.

I praise God for His unmerited favor in my life and for second, third and even multiple chances of not giving up on me and always being there for me.  I thank God for the people who He has placed in my life to love, help, support and pray for me through this process.

I am so grateful to God for healing my brokenness and for giving me an opportunity to tell others about Just how good God is!  This is now why I stand on the truth of HIS Word and what it says in Galatians 2:20 and 2 Corinthians 2:14....The bottom line is that I am now living because I am crucified with Christ and therefore it is because of Him that I am "triumphant" in Living Life On Purpose!!!

Welcome!


Many people define "Life" as being an abundance of "things".  Having expensive cars, lots of money, good health, great family and great friends, great job etc.  But what happens when you don't have these things?  Do you think that your life is not "good" or that you are not living an abundantly life?

Enjoying and living "life" is not based on this. So now let's talk about one of the generalities as listed above.  What if you received a diagnosis that you have HIV?  What is the first thing that comes to mind for you?  You immediately start to think that your life is over and that you don't have any options.  Well, guess what???? You Do !!!! Maybe you have the blame game-high chair experience going on?

HIV is not the end of your life.  Let me encourage you.  There is still much life left within you with great purpose.  What you have to learn now is how to get through and to overcome the obstacles associated with it.  HIV is a manageable condition.  Yes, you will have to change how you live your life and your lifestyle.  But, it is completely up to you and requires a conscience and serious decision. 

Do not allow negativity to influence who God created you to be.  You are still precious in God's eyes.  He is right there  loving you and caring for you.  Don't allow the enemy to set you up by thinking that God is angry with you for what you have done.  We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  Give Jesus that burden and let it go!

Our loving Saviour Jesus Christ, sees you exactly where you are and desires for to build a strong foundation and to guide you through every pitfall and snare that would hinder you from believing that God is more for you, than those against you. God wants personal relationship with you!

There are over 1.1 million people 'LIVING' with HIV and still enjoying life.  Don't even fall into the trap of hating yourself and blaming yourself.  You made a some mistakes. Like I said earlier, everyone have sinned and come short of the glory.  HIV is not in controll...God is!  There is nothing to hard for God. You have to stop letting it defeat you!  God says that we are fearfully and wonderfully created and that we are all created in His image. 

As we embark upon this journey of LIVING LIFE ON PURPOSE together God will help you to learn that you are stronger and have been equipped to handle this through trust in Jesus.

Jesus suffered and died for everyone of our sins, and that includes "even HIV or AIDS or any other type of malady.  This is not the time to throw in the towel and quit.  You can live life as a "Christian" and hold your head us as a child of God.  Just be sure to praise God for everyday that He gives to you and LIVE for HIM!

Let Jesus into your life and situation today and allow him to transform your life into something wonderful and beauiful, because He has the plans for your life and knows the beginning from the end. 

                                                                                                 JESUS LOVES YOU! and SO DO I
                                                                                                               YOU ARE BLESS!!!!