You know what?
I'm just going to "spill the beans"...well, some of them, anyway...so that those of you who are praying might better understand exactly what it is that I need or desire (I believe that my desires are godly...you can judge for yourselves).
My trials pretty much began to intensify about 5 years ago when my wife conspired with one of my sisters and they pressed totally false charges against me with the Police (alleged multiple incidents of domestic violence and child abuse...nothing could be further from the truth). I had a temporary restraining order placed against me back then and I was unable to see my own three children for 6 days until after I appeared in court to defend myself (I've been guilty of just about everything in life, but in this instance I was beyond innocent and I therefore refused to appear in court hiding behind a lawyer, but I did consult two lawyers before going to court that day). To make a long story short and avoiding basically all of the gory details, there were 27 cases heard that day, with mine being the 27th, and all 26 defendants who appeared in court before me lost their cases and I won mine by a landslide. In fact, at the end of my trial, the Judge, having seen and heard firsthand what a deceitful woman my wife is, recommended that I divorce my wife (I haven't) and one of the lawyers whom I had consulted wanted me to press criminal charges against my wife and have her arrested in that she lied to Police Officers, the Judge (she perjured herself more than 60 times in just her opening comments...I was making a list) and, more importantly, from my point of view anyway, to her alleged "God" after swearing with her hand upon a Bible. That's all that I have to say about that for now except that if my wife had won her case in court that day, then I would have unjustly had a permanent restraining order (which is what my wife was seeking) placed against me and I would have never been able to see my own three children, whom I love more than my own life, again. I'm not looking for sympathy, friends...I'm just explaining what I'm up against.
Shortly thereafter, my wife and I determined that we needed to move because our original house was purchased (we hadn't paid it all off yet) when we only had one child and we now had three and we simply needed a bigger house. As such, I invested almost all of our savings in remodeling the house (new floors, new bathrooms, etc., etc.) to make it more sellable and my wife was basically hell bent on buying new furniture. I repeatedly insisted that then was not the time to buy new furniture (for starters, we didn't even need it) because we were planning on moving and it made more sense to just wait until we moved before thinking about new furniture. Well, of course, my wife started buying new furniture...and she doesn't work. She does, however, attend college online and being a minority (she's a black woman from Panama), she receives different grants to pay for her schooling and she's basically allowed to spend her money however she wants to. As such, when I asked her where she was getting the money to buy all this new furniture and she told me that she had some money, I initially assumed that she was using her school money...until I got my next credit card bill. Yes, she had been charging everything to my credit card, so that was a financial setback. To make matters worse, she insisted on hiring a man to do the renovations around our house who basically looked like a crack addict. As it turned out, he was on drugs and he not only basically destroyed our house instead of renovating it, but he also made off with about $800.00 that I had paid him in advance for some materials and stuff. Needless to say, that was another setback. When we finally got some people in to actually do the renovations, I noticed a spot of black mold in the ceiling of our downstairs bathroom as I was showering one morning and when looked into, it was discovered that there had apparently been a slow leak in a pipe from our upstairs bathroom which had not only damaged the ceiling of our downstairs bathroom, but which had also apparently leaked under the wall and into the floorboards of our son's bedroom (this was discovered as his carpet was taken up). Again, to make a long story short, we contacted our home owner's insurance company and they in turn brought in a mold remediation company. Well, far from remediating the mold, these people did nothing according to industry guidelines and they wound up spreading three different types of TOXIC MOLD throughout our entire house. In fact, they did no post-testing (we hired another company to do post-testing and there were not only three different types of TOXIC MOLD in our house, but they were at TRIPLE THE LEVEL OF WHAT WILL KILL YOU) and they told us all to move back into the house and my wife had to be taken to the hospital ($25,000.00 in bills) as she had an immediate reaction to the mold and now has respiratory/lung problems as does our son. Anyhow, that house has basically been condemned, along with all of its belongings, so we not only lost everything that we owned in one moment of time, but also all of the money which we had invested in the renovations AND $27,000.00 IN MERCHANDISE WHICH I USED TO RUN/MAINTAIN MY BUSINESS IN THAT MY HOME DOUBLED AS MY WAREHOUSE. IOW, in one moment of time, we lost our past (our savings), our present (everything that we owned except for the clothes on our backs and whatever merchandise I had in my work van) and our future in that I lost the merchandise which I use to generate revenue.
It gets worse...
Our homeowner's insurance company, being the snakes that they are, wrote out a big check for us in BOTH our names AND the name of our mortgage company. IOW, we could only cash the check with our mortgage company's co-signature and the monies had to go into repairing our home WHICH WAS CONDEMNED DUE TO THE TOXIC MOLD. As such, we've never received a dime from them except for the couple of days that they put us up in a hotel when the mold remediation was being done.
How could things get any worse? Well, here's how:
We hired a lawyer, the number one lawyer in this field of dealing with mold cases (he won a case for 4.5 million dollars less than a month before we hired him), and we sought to sue the mold remediation company. Mind you, this process began almost 4 1/2 years ago and there are statutes of limitation involved in such cases. Anyhow, we basically had a two year window in which to notify the mold remediation company that we were going to sue them and our lawyer instructed us to "set all of our ducks in a row", so to speak, or to gather together all of our receipts, photographs, medical bills, etc., etc. so that we could properly present our case. Oh, I forgot to mention that we live in a resort area in the Poconos of Pennsylvania and that we LITERALLY moved every Saturday, for 8 straight months, when we lost our house because we were only able to rent different places for one week at a time at exorbitant rates (anywhere from $800 to $1000 A WEEK) while we looked for another house. I also forgot to mention that two different realtors tried to swindle us during this timeframe of looking for a new home and one of them LITERALLY threatened to kill me (I had to call the Police and press charges against him) after we demanded our deposit back when we found MOLD in the home that we had left a deposit for (they had tried to cover it up, but, again, my wife had a reaction and we had the place tested). Anyhow, after we handed all of our documents over to our lawyer, he ensured us that he had notified the mold remediation company and we regularly had contact with our lawyer via phone and in person at his office...until this past May, that is, WHEN WE READ IN THE NEWSPAPER HOW THAT OUR LAWYER HAD BEEN BANNED FROM PRACTICING LAW FOR 18 MONTHS (friends, you can't make this stuff up) because he apparently hadn't been properly filing paperwork for several different people who then filed complaints against him. Well, needless to say, we immediately began checking up on our lawyer in regard to whether or not he had ever properly filed our own paperwork and, as I type, our new lawyer has still been unable to properly assess the same. As it presently stands, there's a distinct possibility that our case might be dismissed and that we might have to then sue our original lawyer for malpractice instead.
On top of this, although I was able to maintain my family/our finances during the first 2 or 2 1/2 years of this ordeal in that I work in retail sales (I have my own business) and in that I was generating decent revenue daily, a whole host of things have similarly conspired against me and my business has basically tanked.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
lol...that's basically just an introduction. IOW, I could easily add to the list of things which I just described.
Here's the deal:
In the natural, I'm basically in financial ruin as a direct result of these and other things which have come upon me. To make matters worse, I've got an ever growing list of people who are SUING ME. For example, our old house which we lost was in a gated community where we paid yearly dues for maintenance and they're SUING ME for more than $10,000.00. Quite frankly, I'm about a week or so from getting evicted from the house which we're presently renting and I have a wife and three young children (my eldest will be 12 next week, the next is 9 and the last is 7). If these things ONLY involved me, then I would happily live in a cardboard box if I had to and sing praises to God while doing so. However, as a man who loves his children, my heart rends as I think of how all of this might negatively affect them. We have received help from different organizations at times and I've even considered declaring bankruptcy, but, in all honesty, that would only be a band aid of sorts. IOW, I really need to hear from God in relation to what I'm supposed to do with my life from hereon.
In the spiritual?
Well, I'd like to say two things...
1. I'm not Prince Charming. Well, what does that mean? It means that although I've documented how OTHER people and OTHER things have conspired or worked against me, I have had to make some changes of my own throughout this long ordeal. Again, "fiery trials" will expose whatever "dross" is in our own hearts and I've had to deal with quite a few things in relation to MY OWN CHARACTER in the midst of this, but I have dealt with and will continue to deal with the same.
2. I want to live for God.
Seriously, I genuinely gave my life to Christ more than 26 years ago and it's my sole desire to live for Him and His purposes. I've diligently sought the Lord since day one and I genuinely have a heart/burden for the lost and I'm hoping that I can still be useful in the Lord's "vineyard" before my life on earth is through.
Please pray that God shows me what to do next. Again, I've seen/experienced/witnessed THE MIRACULOUS POWER OF GOD, in more ways than one, many, many times over the last 26+ years so I know that God is able to get me out of this "bottomless pit" that I described in my OP. I really need a Word from Him...please continue with me in prayer that I get it.
Thank you and God bless you.