A Taxing Day

At the Easton Market Staples, it’s 9am on a weekday. As I do all my duties as a Cashier (in the check-out area), I wonder what kind of challenges our customers will deliver to me today. I feel morning fresh and ready in my light blue Polo-style shirt and my black pants.

Taking a quick glance at the store, I happen to notice the large multi-colored front-end display for intuit TurboTax sandwiched in between the concession stand and the greeting cards. As April 15, 2016 gets closer, adventurous civilians will seek out programs like this to aid them in reporting their yearly earnings to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Today, I finally notice the intuit TurboTax slogan printed on the stand next to the happy couple doing their taxes. Though “it’s amazing what were capable of” refers to the rigors of tax preparation. I would creatively use part of Quicken Loan’s motto  in my rephrase: “With God’s help, you are ‘engineered to amaze’.”

Philippians 4:13 (MSG) states, “Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.”

We’ve all heard of people who have survived such things as horrendous natural catastrophes, long abductions, extended periods of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, or Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) as a result of war. Many times the only thing that gets these individuals through their trials is their faith in God. It utterly astonishes me how the human spirit can hold tightly onto to hope when their circumstances seem to be a lost cause.

Are you holding onto the rope of life by your split finger nails? Any minute, you feel you could fall into a fiery pit of failure and despair. Let go. This may go against your instincts, but a loving Heavenly Father wishes to catch you. Trust Him.

Have Satan’s lies got you pinned to the wall (of life)? John 10:29-30 (MSG) provides an unchanging promise for God’s child to cling to when their mind (and feelings) falsely scream, “You’re headed straight to Hell for all the wrong you’ve done.” (See Salvation by the Book) Once you’re God’s child, the fallen angel of light, Lucifer, can’t have you back (Isaiah 14:12).

“They are protected from the [Devil] for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is much greater than [Satan]. No one could ever get them away from [God]. I and the Father are one [in] heart and mind.”