This past week i saw someone hurting. I wanted to run to this woman/child and put my arms around her and save her from the pain. I realized that i couldn't. Not only because she would not receive it, but also because pain that deep needs a healing that only God can offer. So, i left a note on her car and told her God loves her. I know, i know, some will think i have overstepped my bounds and perhaps they are right but i had to do something and this is what i felt i should do; share God's love with her in the only way i could.
We all see so much pain these days because of the availability of it in the media. It seems that it is even celebrated in movies, songs, the news and elsewhere, so much so that we have nearly become immune to it. I do not want to be immune to it. I want to stop it. Oh i know i can't. pain is a part of this world until Jesus returns but the bible says in Revelation 12:11 that we overcome the enemy by the Blood of The Lamb and the word of our testimony. So, here is my testimony. Perhaps someone will happen upon it who will read it and call on Jesus because of it. I can only pray it is so.
I know that I have a purpose. After all this time, I finally know that I have always had a purpose. I know this because God's word says so. In Psalm 139, verse 16 I found that “[God] saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in [His] book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” God knew all about me. He knew the mistakes I would make, the character flaws I would have, the lives I would touch, the pain I would endure. And He created me for such a time as this because my purpose however great or small is a part of His plan.
I have been raped, abused, molested, beaten, homeless, hungry, rich, poor, and abandoned. I have been a stepchild, a foster child, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend. I have been promiscuous, worldly, and vain. I have done things that I wish I had not done. I have not done things that I know should have. I have been a gossip, a liar, a cheat, a thief. I have been drunk, high, and I’ve been both very good and very bad. I am telling you all of this because what I have learned is that there is no forgiveness without repentance, we cannot change what we will not acknowledge, and that without a test there is no testimony.
On October 27, 1993, which was the day my divorce was final, I gave my life over to Jesus. It was rainy, cold, and I felt more alone than I’d ever felt in my entire life. There were times when I was younger my mom would just kind of abandon us, and leave us for weeks so I've known loneliness and this was the loneliest time I’d ever known in my life. I was reading a book called Search for Significance. I had hoped to learn how to be good enough for God to love. I’d been contemplating getting closer to God, listening to Christian music and watching “Christian programming”. I do not remember a time that I didn’t know something about God, something about Jesus, but on this night in October, sitting on my front porch, feeling more alone than I ever had in my life, I met God. I cried out “Jesus, if you’re really there please come and save me. Change my heart and change my life because I can’t do this alone. I can't go on like this.” I felt the most enormous love that I’d ever felt in my entire life, ever. I didn't expect that feeling because I'd always seen God as some great task master in the sky that was counting my mistakes, keeping a tally of them and punishing me for them. When I did anything wrong I expected to be punished. I felt for years that I deserved the abuses heaped upon me by the adults in my life. For even the smallest amount of wrong, I felt that I should be punished severely and that God was watching to make sure that happened. Consequently, I felt that there was nothing in me that was good. Not one thing that was inherently good and so how could God love me. To call out to God and have him love me and not completely dissolve me where I sat; that was huge to me. It was more than I could fathom really. But, I felt this love. And even though it may sound silly to some, it was as if there was a physical presence right there with me on that cold front porch. I felt His warmth around me, His loving presence telling me I wasn't alone. He did love me and would never leave me. I didn't understand it, but I accepted it finally because I needed it so badly. I needed to know His love and looking back I realize I needed to know that love so that I could begin to know I mattered simply because I existed and not based on the events or circumstances in my life.
That moment became my birthday. I did not suddenly become wise or even suddenly reconcile the hurt from my past to the promise of my future. However, I knew without any doubt that God loved me exactly as I was. Moreover, I came to know that God had a purpose for me, that all the days that came before, and that all the days to come were a part of that purpose.
So, on that October night when I accepted Jesus, I began this beautiful journey with my savior that has been and remains so amazing and personal and unique. I am thankful now for all of those things that I have been through. Those things that made me think at one time, “how could a loving God allow these things to happen to children, to anyone that he loves?” Perhaps that’s why I felt so unlovable for so long. I mean, if mom couldn’t protect me and God wouldn’t protect me, then I assumed I must be really unlovable. And now I look back and I say thank you God. Thank you for the lessons that I learned. If I hadn't been through these circumstances I may not know how to accept what is while hoping for what may be. Because I was hungry, a meal of peanut butter and jelly tastes like manna from heaven. Because of the abuses, a tender touch, an innocent hug is beautiful. I’m thankful for the things that happened to me, and I haven’t always been. Everyday I’m a little more thankful and I can accept the things that some people may not be able to accept because there was a time when I expected so little. I expected that the best home I would ever have was a shack, expected that I would always be hurt. I don’t expect these things anymore, because I know finally that I'm a daughter of the king. So I can accept little when little is what I have but I can accept blessings as they come. I now know that they will come when I need them. When I accept His blessings and His hope, that is when my life becomes exactly what it needs to be.
So I offer this to you with a purpose; not to celebrate the former things, but instead to celebrate the beauty that God offers; the beauty that can come when we allow Him to make good those things that were meant for evil. I believe that if I do not concern myself with how great or small my purpose is, but instead simply go about living it, then I will accomplish that which I've been made to do. I know God has a purpose for me and for you as well, because in Jeremiah 29:11 He tells me so. “For I know the plans I have for you,” says The Lord, “plans for good and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
In acknowledging this I can finally be free from these chains that have kept me bound and ineffective. Some of them were placed on me by others but some, and the hardest ones to break are the ones that I have placed on myself. So to God be the glory- He deserves it all and more.
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