I am not sure why God is encouraging this testimony but He
knows better than I.
For a trip (pun
completely intended) down memory lane, take your blinders off ......and away we
go.
I was a Sunday school drop off. My parents instilled in me the traditional weekly
obligation for church at an early age.
Whoever was the most likely to be
awake after Saturday night festivities would be the one who drove my little
brother & I to Sunday school during my elementary years. It was years before I knew there was more to
the church building than the linoleum tiled basement where I learned about
Jesus. I was awed with the sanctuary
when I finally did encounter it. It was beautiful and not a place for the likes of me.... finger paint-covered, pig tailed, noisy shoed, drop off me.
My
religious education came to an abrupt end when the pastor, a large, collared,
gruff man, told me that I was not a good fit for the youth group because I was
not willing to conform without question.
, It's not what he said, but what I heard was that I was not even good enough for Jesus to love. so, I easily bought into that lie and began to live
that which was spoken over me.
I was a shell of a person, one who no one noticed, or paid
attention to, or engaged with…. more ammunition for the Enemy when he whispered
his lies. I managed to navigate high school
without major incident. Looking back, there was one event which further
cemented my understanding of a God who loved only the rightest, the beautiful, the best. At 16, my cousin & I were invited to a
very charismatic independent church in the area by a young man from marching band. When we stepped in, there were banners flying
and electric guitars, and an alter call that I went forward for. I knew something was different but I didn’t
have a Bible, I didn’t have a connection, I wasn’t shown the way. I left there knowing that I had experienced the Divine, but I kept doing life the only way I knew how, alone. And no one noticed and no one cared.
It was during my first and
only year away from home at college when I found what I believed to be
freedom. In reality it was the launch of
all out warfare on my life. My life was
a cycle of dysfunction with alcoholism, addiction, abuse, & promiscuity. At 19 a met a man, 19 years my senior, who I
became involved with who further affirmed my lack of worth. I stayed in a relationship, living with him for
years, believing it was all I deserved.
Toward the end of nearly a decade together, I convinced him to have a
baby with me. Her birth was the best
thing to have ever happened in my life yet it did nothing to change the
dynamic of my relationship with her father as I had expected it would. Actually, our relationship did change, for
the worse. I finally had a purpose and I
was unwilling to endure abuse any longer.
I left on her 2nd birthday with a police escort, in the dead
of night and never looked back.
We were homeless. In
rural Western PA homeless looks very different than stereotyped homelessness
but I was 26, she was 2 and we were homeless.
We went to stay with an aunt, and I was still very frightened. This aunt is not the kind who is related by
blood but by love. She loved Jesus and
she loved us. I fully intended to stay
with her only until I could get a place of my own. That temporary arrangement lasted nearly 2
years. Gently, she introduced me to the
love, true love of Jesus. She taught me
daily walking with Him. She modeled obedience,
submission, patience. She showed me with
her life how at times she wrestled with God and His will for her life and
ours. This was not the religion of my
childhood, or the god who condemned my need for answers to tough
questions. I learned how to be
submissive, patient, reliant, how to trust, respond, and accept the grace of
The One True and Holy God.
I was noticed.
I was accepted.
I was loved....
dirty past, messy life, wounds and all. I was loved.
I am loved.... I cannot imagine choosing to return to that life that I once knew. I daily choose to remain in The One who know the number of hairs on my head and loves me anyway. I have been found, healed and delivered from that which I was once enslaved to. And for that I give thanks daily.....
Covered in the dust.....
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