Peace has always been a friend of mine. I’ve sought it. Chased it down. Pleaded for it and tried my best to hold on to it for dear life, my own of course.

Few things have rattled me, baffled me, frightened me and lodged a full-fledged attack on my peace like the last few years. I won’t go into details, as they are not needed, and wouldn’t change a thing if I did.

I grew up in the 80s and watched my parents make the serious and difficult sacrifice to get out of debt.  So, post, financial makeover, I was reared to protect my credit like I protected my name because credit and my name were synonymous. Through college I never had credit cards. After college, I had “charge cards” to places like Casual Corner and paid it back to maintain A+ credit. When I went to purchase another car in 2013 after my Lexus of 11 years died, I was told I had credit so good I could by a “private jet”.

Beginning in 2013, things out of my control which should have happened didn’t happen for a very long time. I was also stuck in a home above my single woman’s, non-profit net pay, subject to hundreds of viewing people over the six years it was on the market, dealing with banks, realtors, letters, emails, calls and so on. Then, it happened. My credit dropped lower than a frisky 1990s co-ed in the Citizen Club in Tuscaloosa, Alabama when his/her favorite Uncle Luke, 12 Gauge or 69 Boyz song came on in the small, sweatbox by the cornfield. I was DEVASTATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Beyond DEVASTATED, I was madder than James Evans when the gangbanger, Mad Dog shot JJ on that riveting episode of Good Times. (Check the nose flare, people.)

My peace was under attack, and my ability to respond as Christ would was not too far behind it. That, for me, was no way to be. I don’t know when it happened. I really don’t know how it happened, but for the grace of and good sense from God, however, at some point, after I was turned down for a great job due to bad credit, after a credit card limit was reduced by more than $6000, after I finally received a viable offer on my house but quickly realized at this juncture I wouldn’t be able to purchase another house to own for myself, PEACE prevailed. It took over.

I didn’t fret or panic as much. I prayed more. I asked more people to pray. I started “living” again, enjoying the house I was currently in not counting the costs of tomorrow or ignoring the blessings of today or yesterday. I stopped being frustrated by those who didn’t understand the dyer state of things for me because they’d never been in this situation and didn’t know full details but treated me as if they did (God bless them). I stopped focusing on who wasn’t doing what was supposed to be done and TRULY praised the Lord for what He was doing. And by doing, I mean the fact that my last year in my last home God covered the mortgage all by Himself. Yes, the scary letters and phone calls stopped. The threats of foreclosure or deed in lieu stopped. And, with not a dime paid to my gracious banking lender, I lived. He did that! Yep!

Now granted, I lived knowing each day my credit was dropping lower and lower and knowing that the eventual Short Sale I had to accept would take it lower than an intoxicated passenger in the limbo competition on a Caribbean cruise ship, but I lived through it to meet the most wonderful realtor who took me in figuratively like a young cousin telling me her testimony and working hard for two years to sell my home while also offering to literally allow me to stay with her when it looked like the bad credit was going to prevent me from even being able to rent a house (talk about SCARED out of my mind!) I lived to finally “meet” an amazingly, kind new landlord, who welcomed me to his property with full disclosure of my current credit profile (and we’ve never met face-to-face). I lived through to be able to give away SO MUCH good stuff to people who really needed it from the nine years I enjoyed my previous home. I still have more to give. Any takers? I lived biting my tongue and truly being able to pray God’s best for all involved. I lived to arrive to the most “homey” feeling neighborhood I’ve dwelled in since my days in West End, where I walk in my home that my God, my two jobs (#TitheGoneUp) and I can afford and I feel happy, thankful and full of peace. To God be the Glory!

As I sit and listen to the serenading birds enjoying the natural lighting beaming through my rental home I still don’t know where my already demolished credit will land after the Expedian report shows my April short sale, but I’m not bothered. I trust that a God who can pay a big money mortgage for more than a year and can restore the credit of so many friends who have shared their testimony and can keep me from acting out of who He created me to be can cover my credit like a Vivica A. Fox snug wig straight out of the net. I trust Him.

@AngelaMMoore316