10 years

In my 19th year, I discovered that my father was not the man that reared me. I discovered I would not be able to return to school. I lost my childhood home in a fire. I accepted Christ as my Lord and Saviour. It was not unexpected. I'd been going to church since I was 17. I knew that it made sense. I'd been looking for God since I picked up my first book of "mythology" in the third grade, the Bahgavahdgita. I devoured mythology and I loved bible stories, just not the bible. The bible was a cumbersome tome that stated truths in a way so convoluted, you wondered how anyone could choose it as religion. When I was older, when I started seeing the bible the way the Baptist church taught me to see it, I could sort of make sense of it, better sense than my fellow sunday school classmates.

When I accepted Christ, I couldn't make much better sense of the bible than I could when I was 10. It was almost a year before I didn't dread reading any words and at once, I started on a path different from my contemporaries, because I devoured the old testament and it was probably 3 years before I became as enamoured of the new testament. I especially loved Elijah. I loved the work of God through him, his weakness and his strength. I thought he was funny, a worthy role model for me because he was so strange. I once kept a friend awake and cognizant through a drug overdose (unfortunately, a doctor perscribed one) by telling her the stories of Elijah. I fell in love with Isaiah and Samuel and Daniel and would read these over and over again. Of course, when I read new testament, I gravitated towards Paul, although John was a standout. I was confused by David and he remains, to this day, my biggest example that God doesn't necessarily want what church says He wants from us.

I have been with God for 10 years. It's amazing to me, to look back through my life and see the places where he's touched. I believe some disappointments were scheduled by God into my life for the purpose of making me who I am. I believe some of my failings were to bring me to my knees before Him. I believe that my anger was to show me that I could talk to God in any state, that he would not strike me with lightning for daring to accuse Him of not caring, of not loving, of this all being for nothing. I believe His comfort in those times were purposeful, because I see that comfort extended to others in my testimony, through my words. I have no wisdom but what God has shown me in the life He has let me live. I have no joy but that He has given me the freedom to make choices and He stands behind me through the bad choices as well as the good choices. I knew no love until He showed me His Son and when my little mind had understood all it could, He plucked my husband from his life and dropped him in mine to show me an even more understandable model of His outrageous love. My encouragement is that He is always there, that only my emotions can be far from Him, my feelings can be far from Him, but I never am for He is always with me. He has saved my life and protected me in ways I could not fathom. He has put His angels around me and though I do not see them, I see the results. I would praise God from the heavens, through all joys and tears because He has been good to me. He has not promised ease, and in that, He is clear. I have not had an easy life. I did not come to Him when all was easy. I have suffered ridicule for my stance, I have been misunderstood because of my love, I have been hated when I would not budge, I have been judged for understanding. I also have been wrong, I have been hateful, I have been judgmental, I have not loved. I was not perfected in my salvation, but even in this, I praise God. My humanity still calls to others, to hear what God has done, even if they won't accept, to acknowledge that something happens when I pray, because an answer has always come. God has done this all, the exultation and the heartache and for one end. His glory. I am expendable, but in a good way, because when I am exhausted, then I will be with Him, but while I am here, I will work to exhaustion because God is good. There is so much I have forgotten about His goodness, there is so much I have pushed away because of His care, but I will remember your goodness, oh Lord, and I will sing your praises forever.