Last week I met with 4 other ladies who comprise the 'prayer team' who are pre-praying in preparation for a ladies' retreat of our church. (I just l-o-v-e alliteration!) I suggested we each make a list of various areas we have grappled with and gained victory from through God's intervention in our lives to give to the women so they will know 'they are not alone' in the challenges of their lives, and that their prayer team will pray with them about any of those issues - or others.
God is still in the business of transforming lives through the power of the Holy Spirit. He uses the truth of His Word and His testimony - and the testimonies of others for whom He has intervened - and sharing those testimonies means we have to be transparent when He asks us to.
Being that transparent makes us vulnerable - but over and over I have found that God has taken the wounds of my past and used my story to help someone else. When He brings beauty from the ashes it is like making lemonade from lemons. It thrills my soul. And I feel vindicated!
The thing is: whatever our pasts have been, the issues we have dealt with can isolate us and make us feel we are the only ones going through 'whatever the garbage is', even though that isn't true. What a great poke in the eye we give the enemy of our souls when we become vulnerable in sharing our stories - and, in so doing, find freedom and friendship in the process. Being understood and enveloped in a loving, caring community is a wonderful result!
One of Satan's most frequently flaunted ploys is to divide and conquer. We don't have to participate in his plan! I know that sharing my story can lead to rejection - but that is a small risk for the good it can bring by being a faithful witness to God's amazing grace.
Obviously we aren't going to be completely transparent to everyone at all times. That isn't a mask, it's just wisdom. But - somewhere someone needs to know that God has not given up on them, and I am sharing an abbreviated list and synopsis of what I wrote this morning (to use for the women at the retreat) for that purpose.
Jesus came to bring the Good News of salvation to all who would believe. He takes us as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us that way. Just like the story of the pumpkin, he cleans out everything inside us that doesn't need to be there, then puts His light inside us so we can be a light for others.
I think that sometimes the reason we are reluctant to share our stories is that we are no longer the person we were when Jesus started working on us - but therein our testimony lies. He paid the price for every sin I ever committed, then purified me and made me His own.
So - this is a short list of some of the things I've dealt with. It is not all-inclusive, but it covers some of the major issues:
Child molestation/sexual abuse
Suicide
Miscarriage
Divorce
Rejection
Despair
Conflict
Abbreviated explanation of issues above:
I was molested by my older cousin's husband when I was 11, then told not to tell or he would say I was a liar. It had a huge impact on my life - - both in trust and in being emotionally available for appropriate love. I buried it for a long time - - and finally 'remembered' it in a nightmare 25 years later. My God-directed response to the remembered pain was to do sexual abuse prevention education, and to help others. So - what Satan intended for evil, God transformed and used for His glory!
My mother committed suicide when I was 7. It was a huge loss. I internalized it - - believing that every mother wants a little girl - - and I was her only girl. I have 3 brothers - but I was her only little girl. What I concluded was that if I had been a good enough daughter, she would have stayed. That one was a tough one to get over. Added to that I had a challenging stepmother. But God taught me a lot about compassion and forgiveness through relating to her.
I married the wrong person the first time. It is a long story - but he was an interim pastor at the time I had a miscarriage.... I asked him if we could please get out of the ministry for long enough for me to be O K again, and he said there was nothing I could say or do that would get him to leave the ministry - - so I told him we needed to separate for awhile. There were other issues intertwined - - and I needed a huge readjustment in my life. I was trying too hard to be everything to everyone, and after the miscarriage I had nothing left to give.... I made some HUGE mistakes during that time.... (They're called sin!) Generally when people ask me why we divorced, I just tell them we were guilty of being 22. But - - living in an apartment attached to the church, with our living room and bedroom used weekly as Sunday School classrooms also placed us in a fishbowl. Hindsight is 20/20. Even had we been right for each other, we would have had some enormous challenges to overcome.
I was devastated by my failure. I had spent so long focused on doing the right thing that failure was unacceptable. I not only felt the impact of others' rejection - - but felt abandoned by God when I was at the very lowest place possible.
The only thing that kept me from committing suicide at that point was having a toddler who needed his mommy. After losing a parent to suicide, I knew how devastating that was - - and knew that, even though I felt no emotion at the time because I was so damaged and devastated, no one else would love or care for my son like I would. Sadly, at that juncture, my journey included abandoning God, because I was very angry with Him for letting me make a mistake.
I had originally vowed never to marry again - - but then I met Al. He was highly respected by his peers. That was my first attraction to him. We married 5 weeks after our first date. When I started bleeding and feared I was going to lose our first baby, I prayed this prayer, "God, I don't even know if you really exist, but if you do, and if you will save this baby, I will recommit my life to You." He did, and I did.
I live with my mistakes in the tension of fragmented relationships. There are family conflict issues still to be resolved - - but I see God's amazing grace every day of my life. I long for my husband to know Him, and I live daily with the conspicuous chasm between our beliefs - - but being firmly grounded in my faith while being loving and caring for my husband makes me a stronger Christian.
Many times I have heard people say that God will never give you more than you can handle. That isn't true for me. He has given me more than I could handle several times - - but He has never given me more than He could handle. For that I am eternally grateful. And - - even when I was faithless, He was faithful.
I am a child of God's grace. He not only took away my sin, after the mountain of sins I committed after my divorce, but He forgave the guilt of my sin. I know God changes lives, and I see the results of that every day. Praise the Lord!
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