Have Obstacles stopped your Determination? Just how determined are you?

The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill was dedicated to Edwin C. Barnes as well as Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie.  Napoleon Hill interviewed a number of successful men before writing the Law of Success.  Here is what he said about Edwin C. Barnes:

…” he rode into West Orange on a freight train (not being able to raise sufficient money for passenger fare) and announced at the Edison offices that he had come to enter into a partnership with Mr. Edison. Nearly everybody around the Edison plant laughed at Barnes, except Edison himself. He saw something in the square jaw and determined face of young Barnes which most of the others did not see, despite the fact that the young man looked more like a tramp than he did a future partner of the greatest inventor on earth. Barnes got his start, sweeping floors in the Edison offices! That was all he sought – just a chance to get a toehold in the Edison organization. From there on he made history that is well worth emulation by other young men who wish to make places for themselves. Barnes has now retired from active business, even though he is still a comparatively young man, and spends most of his time at his two beautiful homes in Bradentown, Florida, and Damariscotta, Maine. He is a multimillionaire, prosperous, and happy.”

My point is that Mr. Barnes was determined to make his dream come true.  He thought about it and concentrated on it.  He didn’t let go of the dream.  Scripture says that as a man thinketh, so is he, (Proverbs 23:7). So, how determined are you?

As I was just listening to the audiobook of The Law of Success: The Master Wealth-Builder’s Complete and Original Lesson Plan for Achieving Your Dreams by Napoleon Hill, he was telling a story about Edwin Barnes who had a deep desire to work with Thomas Edison. Mr. Barnes had to overcome obstacles to get to New Jersey where Edison’s plant was, to be able to fulfill that dream.

One of the ways that he got to New Jersey was to ride in a freight train. As Napoleon Hill said, he looked like a tramp when he got off the train. But his mindset was that he didn’t want to just work for Thomas Edison he wanted to work WITH Thomas Edison.

Do you have a dream to work with someone or to BE someone?  Do you have any personal cheerleaders who are encouraging you in your dreams?  I pray it is a God-given dream.  Because in that, I believe the world will come to your aid to fulfill God’s calling on your life.

I have had many dreams of having a Healing Ministry yet it doesn’t seem to come to pass.  I have had many night dreams and maybe even visions of laying hands on the masses and seeing them healed.  So until I was listening to this audiobook, I had forgotten about keeping that dream alive in my own mind until the time came for the dream to manifest itself. 

One of the things that I see in Mr. Barnes is not only his dream but his determination to do his part to make the dream become a reality.  I want to tell you my story of how I moved to Boise, Idaho through many obstacles that could have made any person want to give up.

How determined are you?

Moving to Boise was quite the feat. To overcome the obstacle of not having the cash in my pocket to write a check and move to Boise when I felt God calling me to move to Boise as a single stay at home mom. So that means I didn’t have extra income to play with. I couldn’t squeeze out extra from a work paycheck.  I was not working.

I did not have savings enough to move or any extra money. I had to rely on God providing all the resources and funds to be able to move to Boise, Idaho.

I believe I heard from God therefore I was determined to follow his leading. When it came to looking for an apartment I made calls inquiring about different rental properties. I would ask about the rent, the amenities in the apartment and let them know that I had children with me. When I started calling, I didn’t have a dime to put down on the deposit.  I eventually settled on one apartment, sight unseen.

I was also packing my home to move in anticipation that this was going to work. It just so happened that my girl’s got a job helping someone to organize their office. They were paid $10 an hour to help a lady in our community.  At the end of the work, they had made $300 each.

My two girls, age 13 and 14,  had made $300 each. My oldest girl decided that she would give her $300 for the move which would help with the deposit. When I have found the apartment, the deposit was $600.  I just needed 300 more dollars.

I pause here, to say that all the times that the Lord has had me move to different states and different cities, that He has never allowed me to save up money for the move. Even though I knew the move was coming up, I really didn’t have enough funds to substantially fund the move.  It was always a matter of faith. I also have to say before this move, all the other moves were stressful to me. They came with many tears and I would say, much crying out to God.  I was dependent upon God’s help to get me to where he would have me to be in a new state and a new home.

So with that in mind, I had half the deposit for this new home in Boise Idaho which I had not seen yet but I liked the landlord and how she sounded on the telephone. Eventually, my youngest girl decided, after a little bit of coercion or persuasion from me and her sister, she would donate her $300 towards the deposit for our new home. So that was one hurdle to get over.

Three weeks before I was to move, I went to Boise, ID for an OSL Healing conference where I had a hard time reaching the landlord to see the apartment and sign the lease. So I started praying.  Within a half-an-hour, the landlord was calling and we were setting up a meeting to sign the lease and pay the $600 for the rental deposit.

The next hurdle was getting a moving truck to move from Yuma, Arizona to Boise, Idaho. I was so astounded at how much the moving trucks cost to go from Yuma to Boise. In the past, the trucks never cost more than $600 to move from one state to another. For instance, to move from Ohio to North Carolina or even to move from North Carolina to California, the trucks didn’t cost more than $600 and definitely not more than $700. So as I looked at prices for rental trucks from Yuma to Boise, the cost was $1700 and more for a moving truck. Again, I was astounded at the cost.

So if I didn’t have $600 for the rental deposit, you know I didn’t have $1,700 for a rental moving truck. So what had happened was, I kept getting these emails about a credit card. It was like I was inundated with these emails for a specific credit card. I had never gotten so many emails for one thing, like that.  And I was a strong believer that if God is calling you to do something that you could do it without credit. That was how I thought. That was what I believed.

When I kept getting the credit card emails, I decided to take it to the Lord and say, Lord, are you speaking to me through this email? And I decided to apply for a credit card.

Being a stay-at-home mom in 2008 meant I hadn’t worked a public job since the beginning of 1996. So it wasn’t like they could look at my job record to see that I could pay the bill back.  Though, I did have relatively good credit.  All I could do was to apply for a credit card. So I did. 

I was given a $2,000 limit on this new credit card. Two thousand dollars would cover $1700 for the truck though I needed about $500 for the gas in the truck. At that time, gas was about $5 a gallon.  I estimated that it would take me about $500 to get to Boise.

So once again I needed to take my plight back to the Lord.  The prayer was, Lord if I heard from you and you want me to move to Boise, then I need more gas money to get to Boise.

That whole time I was packing my home, still in anticipation of moving.  I had already given the $600 for the apartment in Boise. Once I had the reservation for the rental moving truck, I still needed gas to complete the task.

After praying to God about it, I called my bank to see if I could get an increase in my line of credit which was the overdraft for my checking account.  It was approved the day before I was supposed to drive out. So now the gas money was in place for the truck. I had a car for which I rented a full car trailer to put the car on. I didn’t want anything to happen to my car being “pulled” on the ground behind this 20-foot truck.

After the house was all packed and emptied, the current landlord had come to check me out of my old apartment in Yuma.  I thought, “Finally, we are all ready to go.”  The movers, my friends, had all left and gone home. As the inspection was happening, the landlord opened up a closet door and you wouldn’t believe what we saw. You just wouldn’t believe what we saw.

It was a whole closet under the stairs full of boxes that we missed. No one ever opens that closet door under the stairs while we were moving out.  It was unbelievable. That was stressful because my whole car and truck were packed full to the brim. So the landlord left and we had to reschedule the checkout time.  My girls and I got all of those boxes out of the closet and found spots to make those extra boxes fit in my car and the moving truck.  Personally, I wished I could have just pitched it all.  I didn’t, though.  We got every single box tucked somewhere.

I was determined! How determined are you?

Meanwhile, I had a deadline to get to Boise before 4 pm on Friday afternoon.  The plan was to drive all day Thursday and spend the night in Ely, Nevada before continuing on Friday to  Boise.  We needed to get there before the landlord left for the weekend to their mountain cabin.

So back to the boxes.  My girls and I stuffed every nook and cranny to get these boxes in my car, which was on the back of the car trailer by then, and in the truck itself.  Since we had a cat we couldn’t put boxes up under the girls’ feet.  The cat needed to be able to move around even though it was in a kennel part of the time which was also in the cabin of the truck with us. We were really pressed for space to be able to complete this move. What a snafu!

I’m telling you this story to show how my thoughts were to obey God. My thoughts were to get to Boise. My thoughts were to succeed no matter what.  I was choosing to succeed in making this move from Yuma to Boise. This was not a “just around the corner” trip. This was crossing the nation going from the south all the way up to the north of America. This was a major trip.

One good thing was that I was homeschooling the girls, so I didn’t have to pull them out of school. I was also grateful to get out of the heat. From 112 degrees day after day in Yuma to arrive in Boise which was only 92 degrees the day I arrived.  What heat relief!  So back to the story.

We just had to have one more adventure after we were finally checked out of the old apartment in Yuma. 

We started on our trip to Boise with enough gas money to get there.  We stopped in Ely, Nevada. We had a reservation at a hotel.  We arrived during daylight.  We parallel parked this big 20 foot truck with my car on the car trailer on the street in front of the motel. There were hardly any cars on the street which I thought was perfect.  I was able to just pull in along the curb. We walked a few feet to our motel room, probably on the bottom floor of the two-story motel building.

The next morning we came out at 5 or 6 am at the crack of dawn to get in our truck and continue to Boise. But the sight we saw when we wanted to leave!  I don’t think I even took a picture of it. I was just dumbfounded at what I was looking at.

Throughout the night, other guests were checking into the hotel as well.  They had parked parallel right in front and behind our moving truck. It was so tight that I couldn’t just pull out and be on our way to Boise. All I could think was that I had no idea where these people were.  Which rooms were they in so I could knock on their doors. I simply had no idea. It was five or six in the morning.  I had the mind to lean on my horn for the people to come out to move their cars.  What would you have done in that case?

I had the girls stand outside of the truck to help me steer the truck out of that pinch.  With their help, I was able to inch the truck out by going forward and backward until I could get the truck with the full car trailer clear of the car parked in front of me.  Was I determined?  I had no intentions of letting a cramp parking space pin me down keeping me from my destination and getting there on time.

I didn’t have time for the sun to come up fully. I didn’t have time to wait for people to wake up and start moving about. I’m sure the check out time wasn’t until 11 am, if then.  Leaving at 6 am in the morning would just barely get us to Boise by 4 pm to meet my landlord at my new apartment to get the key before she went on her weekend in the mountains.  The date was Friday, August 1, 2008.

Back on the road driving the truck, it was smooth sailing. My girls were such troopers. They kept me alert. Played games with me. They fed me. They were such troopers.

I truly appreciate the fact that my girls were willing to believe that their mother had heard from God. I appreciate the fact that my girls were willing to give the money that they made so that we could place a deposit for our new apartment. I appreciate the fact that my girls were willing to leave our large two-bedroom townhome in Yuma.  Our bedrooms were so large. My bedroom had a door to a full-length balcony on the second floor.  It was so nice.

I could almost guarantee you that in my flesh and mind I would not have chosen to leave that townhome.  In fact, I would say to the LORD that if he did not provide for our trip to Boise, I would just unpack and stay in Yuma.  I was definitely a lot more relaxed with this move to Boise.

And though I had a nice home in Yuma and a good church family, God had more in store for me in Boise. God had more in store for my girls, as well.

So as this story winds down, I’ll let you know that we did make it to Boise in time before 4 p.m., on Friday afternoon. We made it in time to meet the landlord to get the key to our new apartment.

At that point, I was “okay” that we had made it and was alone at our new apartment. The girls and I had packed the boxes heavy enough that we could unload the moving truck ourselves if we needed to.  We hadn’t made friends yet. Though, we did meet a few people the week we went to the healing conference, the same week we secured the new apartment.

Over the years,  I  had a rule that we would only pack the boxes heavy enough for me and my girls to be able to pick them up alone.  I knew if we could not lift the boxes ourselves that meant the box was too heavy. So we would re-pack it.

After seeing God work one miracle after the other for me and my girls to move to Boise, this was the first move that I was not going to stress about getting the truck emptied the day that we got there.  I had a couple of days before I had to return it.

I was resolved that we had done the hard part already. We had moved out of our old apartment after the closet fiasco. We had gotten out of Ely, Nevada after the parallel parking drama. We were in Boise Idaho. Success!  We made it!

I have to tell you that a couple of people did show up from the healing conference that we had attended just a couple of weeks prior.  They help us unload the rental truck. They also called other people to come.  And before we knew it, there were 11 people at my new home that I would have only met at the conference just three weeks prior. Some of them I hadn’t met because they were spouses to the people who had attended the conference.  We had that truck emptied in less than 2 hours.

In fact, in two hours, I was actually back in the truck driving it to turn it into the rental agency. It was quite amazing. Very, very amazing.  I thank God for working that out. And when I was turning that truck in 2 hours later, our beds were set up and we were able to sleep in our very own new home that night with all of our stuff in the home. 

Our cat was kind of freaking out over the move and probably the long trip. So we decided to not accept a new friend’s offer to stay at their place the first night. We could sleep in our own apartment since our beds were up.  And I always packed food to be able to eat right away in our new home. So we stayed in our new home to help our Kitty get adjusted to the new move.

I share this story to express my determination to do something. I share this story to express that this was an all-consuming thought in my mind. In fact, in my mind, the word “failure” was just not even alive.

As far as I was concerned, I couldn’t fail. Not “I couldn’t” but it was more like I would not fail to obey God. And if it was a test kind of like Abraham when he had his son Isaac and God told him to take him up to the mountain to slay him… that was a test of Abraham’s faith before God provided a way out. And Abraham didn’t have to slay his son.

So I thought about that if this was a test of my faith to see if I would even try to move to Boise without knowing anyone in Boise besides the few people I met at the conference just 2 or 3 weeks before I move to Boise, I was okay with that. But in the end, God kept opening the doors.  So I went through those open doors. God did provide where I felt he was guiding me.   I followed those leads.

While this was a higher calling, it did take determination to obey the high calling.  I was determined to obey God and my flesh definitely could have gotten in the way because it seems so impossible. If my daughter had not yielded the second $300 for the deposit I believe God would have provided another way. I am convinced of that. We lived in that Boise apartment for 4 years. 

There was definitely Destiny in my being in Boise. And my girls being in Boise, as well.  I got a lot of healing training. I had multiple opportunities to teach healing. My older daughter had the grand opportunity to introduce President Obama when he came to Boise in 2015. For my daughter who never wanted to go to college, she got an opportunity to go to college on a variety of scholarships, to learn more about her passion to bake. For me, I married the man of my dreams after 9 years of fasting for him. 

Are you ready to succeed? How determined are you?

I met some absolutely fantastic people since moving to Boise. I have a great community in Boise which was a lifelong dream to be able to live life with people. To me, that’s the definition of community to be able to live everyday life with people…where you pick up where you left off the last time you saw them. It’s like living in Boise with 20 best friends. I have so many good friends that are there for me and I’m there for them and we live life together and we help each other live this everyday life.

So if you have enjoyed this story I hope you would clap for it (on Medium.com). If you have enjoyed the story I hope you will share it with someone needing encouragement. If something resonates in the story about determination and you see someone that just seems to be weak at the knees for a situation going on in their life, I hope you will share this story with them. Even if you just take one little bit like the parallel parked moving truck on the side of the road and not waiting for people to wake up to move their cars and that I was able to get that truck out of the parallel parking space little by little. Or, you can share the paragraph on my needing money for a deposit and God miraculously providing a job for my kids.  Or the story of packing my boxes light enough to where the girls could help me move in without outside help if need be.

Thank you for reading.  This has been about a mindset of not giving up and not allowing failure to be in your vocabulary for doing something that you are called to do. I appreciate your reading the story about God’s calling on my life to move and uproot my kids. I would have rather failed to try to obey God than to not have tried because the problems or the situation just seemed insurmountable.  Oh and don’t forget the story of the closet full of boxes after I was thinking, “I’m checking out of an apartment and I have no place to put them”…to send to that friend that is discouraged. 

There was a definite increase in value, increase in activity, increase in responsibility, and increase in stature after moving to Boise.  My life did change dramatically by moving from Yuma. It didn’t stay static.  I know now that I had to stay in Yuma to be humbled before I could come to Boise to be overtaken with such wonderful blessings.  My pride had to be dealt with before I continued my journey to Boise, Idaho.

 Have a great day, everyone!  Read the next article on getting motivated to find your passion, here. 

side note:

Napoleon Hill also wrote the famous book,

Part of my proceeds goes to help Single Parents get their legal will done.

In Christ Name,

Nek’ka Migel, @WealthyNeeka on Social Media

Choose to Succeed

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