Happy 18th Anniversary!

It was 2002 on Friday, May 31, that I sat at a table long enough to land a plane. I was signing my life away for a dream I never thought would be possible. Raise Your Dreams Farm was something that burned intensely in my heart, at times keeping me awake at night. It never diminished. On a teacher’s salary, it would be an impossibility.

The day a man knocked on my door at my home in Delaware, asking if I would sell him my house. I knew that God was at work. I sold my home, and holding in my hands was enough money to get a farm, the one that I would name after my beloved horse, Raise Your Dreams.

I found it on May 1, the first day that it was on the market. It was made for me. A sweeping tree-lined driveway led to a large home with a wrap-around porch, ten lush acres, and neighbors with horses and cows. I was in heaven.

A lot has happened in those eighteen years. I got married on the front porch. I started my equine therapy/riding business, wrote a book, conquered cancer, and lymphedema, and I have learned more in this period than at any other time in my life.

This farm was a miracle, and I would serve God through it all. I have been blessed with some of the best people that started as lesson students that I now consider good friends. I have witnessed miracles of children talking or walking for the first time. I have seen the smiles of the broken-hearted come with every ride on one of my horses or ponies. I thought I would bless others, but they have blessed me.

Happy 18th year, RAISE YOUR DREAMS FARM!

Smack Down from God

I am a type-A personality.  Heck, I probably do more before 8 AM then most people do all day.   I have each moment of everyday earmarked for specific activities.  After all, I have goals to accomplish.

After I wrote my book, I spent every moment promoting it.  Then God spoke to me and it cut like a knife.

“It is the Jill show.”

I broke out into tears.  The truth was too much to take.  I tried to rationalize it, but who can fight against God?  It was true and I knew it!

Then He gave me scripture- 2 Chronicles 7:14

if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

In His eyes, I was wicked.  My dirty heart was laid open, and it was too much to take.  I have not “arrived” at letting God do it all, but I am learning.

So, here it is God.  It was all yours anyway.  If I cannot use my writing to make you into the star, then I am laying it all down.

Have you ever had a smackdown from God?

GUIDEPOSTS MAGAZINE

Something incredibly awesome happened yesterday! Guideposts magazine asked if I could give them an article. I usually have to submit, beg and plead. Pretty awesome feeling!

 

“JULIE AND FRIENDS”

I am so unbelievably blessed to be given this opportunity to share the greatest hope with 60 million viewers!  My testimony, which is what my book, Fighting for the Finish, is all about.  It transformed my life so completely that I would never be the same.  It wasn’t because I got saved, it was the fight over my soul that I witnessed daily.

I am uncertain as to when it will be broadcasted, but the taping went well.  Funny, it is so nerve-wracking up to the point of filming.  Then once they said, “Action!” I was on fire!

I Got My Uniform and Now I am Ready To Work!

“Mom, I need a t-shirt because I have to be in my uniform!”  Zoe made a statement as if truth was held in this precious shirt. Her mom laughed and grabbed a shirt resigned to the fact that her daughter loved few things better than this farm.

Zoe has been riding here for almost four years. She has “trained” all of our horses and ponies, and she loves each one as only she can.  She proudly tells every new student or instructor all that she knows about each horse.

“Now BRUTUS, he is big!” She pats the big Fresian on the shoulder and her eyes twinkle with pride.  “I trained him too!” She holds her hand on his massive shoulder and gazes into his eyes like a mother with her newborn babe.

Everyday when she walks to her mother’s beautiful car she tells all that one day she will work here. That day is finally coming. Her mother asked me if she thought Zoe could “work” here once school let out. Zoe overheard our conversation and said with pride, “Mom, you can just drop me off and I’ll work here!” Zoe can hardly wait to have the independence that she sees the other helpers have.

I easily have four to five helpers-volunteers everyday that tirelessly assist instructors, tack or untack horses and ponies, clean stalls, leather, tack-shack or sidewalk and lead during lessons. They are an integral part of my farm, and it would be impossible to run this farm without their unwavering support. Zoe has dreamed of the day when she would do what they do.

Last Saturday she got her RAISE YOUR DREAMS FARM t-shirt and it is with great pride that she will wear her uniform to work!  When that day comes I know few who would be prouder to be at this little farm that holds hope.

Jill Mansor, owns RAISE YOUR DREAMS FARM. She is also a motivational speaker and author of FIGHTING FOR THE FINISH (available on Amazon or http://www.jillmansor.com)

Let’s Raise A Praise!

What should one do, when their hope is failing?  Raise a Praise!

It is my first year living at my farm.  As a single woman, operating a farm, opening a business, working full-time as a high school teacher, I was struggling in every aspect of my life.  The original fence at the farm was an electric tape that my ponies loved to push down and climb through.  Though they never went to the road, my neighbors would find them in their backyard, or lounging under my beautiful oak tree in the front yard.  I had to do something.

I took all my money from my savings to buy a wooden fence.  I ordered the fence, never thinking that I would need to calculate two to three feet needed to stabilize the posts that would be buried in the ground.  Because I ordered the fence, it was cut to my specifications.  The fence posts were only five feet in length, not the required eight feet.

The fence installer looked at my devastating miscalculation, shook his head, and said, “This fence won’t hold a horse,” and I did what most would do, I hung my head in complete despair.  I knew that I had just lost the biggest investment I had made at my farm, $12,000 of complete waste.

The fence installer left imploring me to get new fencing, but I knew I did not have the money to re-order new fencing.  In my mind, I had just lost all.   I drug myself into my prayer closet and did what I knew I had to do, praise the Lord.  Initially it was very hard to praise when my heart was like a soaked blanket.  I was determined to get God to work on my behalf.

One hour of praise led to two, then three hours until I felt my heart loosen, and the words of praise rang true in my sorry heart.  I called the lumber yard, just knowing in my heart, God would make a way out of this mess.

When the lumber yard said they would take it back and refund my money, I literally fell to my knees.  They charged me a service and handling fee, but it was minuscule compared to the thousands I had just given to them.  I learned a valuable lesson that only God can teach us when we are in the valley.  Praise Him until you get out of it!

When hope is lost, despair is walking boldly into your heart and mind, that’s when it calls for a mighty praise!

Have you ever praised the LORD when all hope was failing, and He took your despair and turned it into joy?

Please share!  And always, thanks for reading my rambling!  LOVE YOU ALL!

Thread Bare Faith

 

I know I must, then why is it so hard to do it?  What must I do?  Praise the LORD, that’s my mandate, but I am slain in overwhelming disappointment.  I thought that after I battled cancer my life would be restored.  Instead, I lay in destruction.

I am fighting my fear, disappointment, and hopelessness.  You see, I did something the world would say was crazy.  After not being able to work last year, I closed a large account, in anticipation of spending it on my crushing debt.  After an extended fast, God said, “Do you trust me?”

I emphatically answered with a resounding YES!  What He told me to do next, rocked me to my core, “Give me all that you have.”  I had thousands of dollars in my account, earmarked for debt, and God was asking me to give it all to Him.

With shaking hands, I trusted Him, and wrote the check out for everything I had.

I rested in the glorious verses,  Malachi 3:10-11

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure. 11I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your land, and the vine in your field will not fail to produce fruit,” says the LORD of Hosts.…

Luke 6:38

38Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”

Admittedly, I was getting excited with expectation of how He would use this extraordinary gift.  What came next rocked my world and left me spiraling in despair.

First, my sweet aged horse went into a severe colic and double pneumonia.  The vet bill crushed me.  Next, we were hit with a tax bill of $13,000.  Then our two-month-old refrigerator stopped working, and because it is under a warranty, Sears said they can’t come out for nine days.  All our food spoiled.  My tractor stopped working and now it is in the shop.  Everywhere I looked was destruction.

Maybe I will be laugh at these calamities someday, but right now it is raw.  I cried out to God, and proclaimed the verses of hope, prosperity, and all that is afforded to a believer in Jesus.  My faith is faltering, my strength failing, and my hope is thread bare.  Then I thought about it all, God is God of my life.  Even this period of wilderness will bear much fruit.  I am learning that my circumstances are temporary, He is forever.

I got my praise music on and literally laid on the floor, tears streaming down my face.  My big fluffy dogs trying to comfort me.  I did not care, I was going to lay there until He changed my heart from despair to hope.  If He gives me nothing, I am still going to praise Him for saving this sorry soul from the pit of hell.  I will smile in the face of defeat, because God is working it all out for my good, even when I wish His “good” was my kind of good.  My Father is a good God, and He loves me too much to leave me in this wretched place.

I repeat out loud, as if it were a battle cry.  “I am your daughter!  You are my God, and I will serve You no matter how bad it looks!  Have mercy O Great God!”

Immediately, my heart is restored, hope floods in, and I know that He will bring good gifts, I only need to hold onto hope.

Are you in the valley of despair?  Let me pray for you, please just put your name in the comment box.

Take Your Grubby Hands Off Of That…..It is Mine!

“How will they know it is Me, if you keep trying to make something happen?”

A smack down, straight from God Almighty.  I am a bull-in-a-china-shop, a go-getter, stop-at-nothing, million-miles-an-hour woman, type-A, who always wants to be in control.  I get more accomplished before eight o’clock in the morning than most people do all day and in some cases all week.

Written goals organized into steps to be taken each day.  The biggest goal is marketing my book, Fighting for the Finish, and I am constantly weaving a web of purposeful steps to get my book “out there.”  I think about it constantly.

Then I got the smack-down from God.  Do I trust Him with the story He gave me?  I started to laugh to myself, yes, of course.  Who wouldn’t?  Reflecting upon my constant flurry of action, it was leading me to destruction, and in all honesty, I was NOT trusting Him.

Forgive me O Mighty God.  Hands off, I will rest in You!

Have you ever had God tell you to stop, rest in Him, knowing that He is working it all out?  Please share!

Jesus Saves Wretches Like Me

I came to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior, not because I wanted to, but because I had to.  While staying at one of the oldest homes in a quaint little town in southern New Jersey, I was in trouble, spiritual trouble.  I was house sitting this beautiful masterpiece.  But what I did not know was that it was haunted.  Lights going on, chairs moving, banging, thumping, electrical humming sounds, and most disconcerting was the overwhelming fear I had.

That morning, the phone kept ringing, and as soon as I grabbed the phone, all I heard was a dial-tone.  Frustrated, I went to the only thing that could help me, a pastor.  While speaking with him on the phone about what I was experiencing, the phone began to ring.  An impossibility, there was no other line except the one that I was on.

“Pastor, if I accept Jesus Christ, will this phone stop ringing?” I was desperate for answers to questions that I did not know.

“I don’t know, but what you will have is the power inside of you to stop it,” he said the  word that I longed for- power.  I knew deep in my heart that it was essential for me to have that power, without it, I was surely going to be destroyed.

I accepted Jesus Christ that day as my Savior out of desperation.  Little did I know that for one year, I would be harassed by strong demonic forces at my little home in Delaware.  During  that year I learned and understood the significance of the power living inside of me, and my life has never been the same.

It is a fantastic story and available in my book, Fighting for the Finish, on http://www.jillmansor.com or amazon.  I am currently holding a contest on my FIGHTING FOR THE FINISH WRITTEN BY JILL MANSOR FB PAGE to win a free signed copy.

Tell me your testimony!

This is a picture from my farm, Raise Your Dreams, in southern New Jersey.

The Farm That Hope Built

“Miss Jill, you are the luckiest person I know,” Josh held out his hands trying to encompass all of my farm.

“Josh, this has nothing to do with luck,” I stated flatly, for he had no idea how much time, planning, and effort “all” of this luck took.

“Aw, c’mon, Miss Jill, it was all luck,” he laughed awkwardly, as if it were inconceivable to have anything without some luck.

This conversation gave me many flashbacks.  I was thrust into my past with my many friends who became nay-Sayers who discouraged me and sabotaged me.  I saw myself on my knees and recalled the countless hours in prayer.  All the extra jobs I would take no matter how tedious to make extra money.  All the hours in careful planning of how I would get the money to open my own farm.  And after I got my farm, how many times I went without food.  This labor of love, Raise Your Dreams Farm, had nothing to do with luck.  It had everything to do with my relationship with Jesus Christ.

The day I accepted Christ, I felt a tugging on my life, to give it all to Him.  I read His Word, memorized His promises, and I kept mine to Him.

One day I read, “As a man thinks in his heart, so shall he be,” Proverbs 23:7.  I set about immediately casting out negative thoughts.  I am being honest here, I always hated myself.  I grew up in an abusive household, it was ingrained in me that I was a worthless waste of space.

Admittedly, it was a struggle to change my thinking, after-all, I had lived this way for my whole life.  I filled my mind and words with His promises of who I was.  If Jesus knows me, then I MUST be something special I would tell myself.

I would spend hours in the stalls, listening to tapes that I made of promising scripture.  I woke up to these tapes, and then I would fall asleep to them.  I felt God prompting me to write down my goals, make plans to achieve them, and then set about doing something every day that got me a little closer to my goals.  Some days they were big steps, other days they were small steps, but every moment was spent thinking of my goals.

I remember going to a tack store and buying a brass key chain with the name, RAISE YOUR DREAMS FARM, so that each time, I grabbed my keys, I saw the dream and felt the farm.  I could visualize my farm, a yellow house, tree lined driveway that curved, and it all fell into place on May 1, 2002, the day I found my farm.  By May 31, of that year, I was laying in my Jacuzzi tub looking out on my horses at my very own farm.

A single woman buying a farm, sheer craziness, but with God ALL things are possible!

One of my dearest friends gave me a tiny figure of a woman that was on her knees praying, and she wrote in her note to me that she knew that this farm could ONLY be possible by copious hours spent in prayer.  It is not what you show outwardly, but what you do when no one is watching that produces the biggest results.

Do you have a dream?  Go after it with all your heart.  Make a goal, set a plan in action, ask God for His help, and believe in your heart that WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!