Let me tell you this story that God has shown me I need to “pay forward”… that someone else who reads may be encouraged. Sometimes answered prayer comes after many petitions and arduous struggles.

God claimed me many, many years ago. I can’t name a date, but, I can name a place. In our little home in Lincoln Park, MI, on Washington Street, where the children and I lived with their father. I never had a single doubt about this experience. I knew instantly this was God’s hand dealing with me. I was fearful. I was thankful. I was His. I knew that to be a fact … not a supposition.

I’ve written before that the joie de vie of that moment can still be recalled. The angst that preceded my “rebirth” was followed by the most calming, cleansing breeze that blew through my very soul. All the uglies felt, suffered, experienced in my lifetime, left my heart. To borrow a line from a gospel hymn, I felt this healing “way down deep in my soul”. Most wonderful heart crunch ever.

Contrary to my preconceived belief system, I was not home free with God’s stamp on my soul. But, rather, just beginning a journey that has taken me places, allowed me to see, feel things I never believed possible. That road has been seriously steep, twisting, turning, with few “rest areas” along the way. I’ve gone through muddy places and slid backwards to the beginning many heartbreaking times. I wallowed there a while, then at my Savior’s silent, loving, but forceful urgings, I picked my self up and started off again. I didn’t get a lot of cheering from the bandstands. This was a solitary sojourn. Oh, there were “kindred”, met along the way, who walked with me occasionally, but, I knew they couldn’t make this trek for me. I couldn’t ask them to carry me. I had to walk. I had to keep my eye on the prize and oh, my, at times, it seemed to move further and further from my grasp.

There were seasons, beautiful restorative, healing, rejuvenating occasions where I felt I’d finally “passed” the test and my remaining miles would not be as difficult. Thank God for those respites. I wonder how different this expedition would’ve turned out if I HAD been given the Free Ride pass I often prayed for. Just for a little space, Father. Tote me. I am so tired. I am so weak. I am so afraid.

That hasn’t been my Lords’ intent. I am a soldier in His army. I won’t be carried on “flowery beds of ease while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas” [Am I A Soldier of the Cross from The Old School Hymnal] to those mansions in the sky. We must walk. We must stumble. We must falter and fall, many times. In these most extreme conditions, we develop our spiritual “muscles” and grow stronger for the next mile. I think God measures our strength with this testing. He knows when to relax the pressure and when to increase.

There have been times, during my “life events” that I have questioned if I was indeed His child. It’s very hard, sometimes, for me to accept that He loves me but suffers these traumas to enter into my life. I look about at other “christian” acquaintances and their trials aren’t visible. I wonder if I am such a BRICK that I (poor me), only I, have to go through such a hard knock school to be “prepared” for His service.

I’ve tried to wave a white flag, cry UNCLE. I give, Lord. I am not strong enough for this. I know You know my heart but, Father, I think I have something seriously wrong with mine and I need a IV F classification. I am not qualified. Look at all the stories I read in Thy Word of the men who served you so valiantly; who martyred themselves in their service to you. They were burned, they were crucified, they were stoned. And, counted it all joy when they suffered persecution in their service to You, Lord. Look at ME! The Apostle Paul, in I Timothy 1:15, declared he was the CHIEF of sinners. Boy! What a gross understatement to me! To possess a 1/1,000,000th part of Paul’s courage would’ve looked like more than I could ever hope to attain.

The past few years have been a serious conflict. Things … I won’t bore with details but those of you to whom I have “bled” throughout this siege … know what has been on my heart so heavily for so long. You have read my attempts to go around this hurdle. I’ve told how I was going to stop going to church. I had worked this all out…with myself…that church wasn’t always right for some folks. Sometimes God uses people in other venues. I was probably right in that assumption. I don’t believe ALL GOD’S chillun are in a church setting. I presumed to know God’s “other way” for me. I branched out. I kept grasping for this new way and upon inspection, found emptiness, nothingness in my hands. The flame that is my Spirit sputtered and what darkness and isolation I wore about me.

My “harbor” was open for vessels to come and drop anchor. WELCOME to my haven. At times, a ship anchored that I would’ve not wanted. Various persons, in my walk, who have behaved badly (in my opinion) and didn’t deserve to come in and rest in my safe haven. My resentment toward these freights grew and festered. I ignored. I entreated. I bargained. Plaintively, I would voice my dislike for their being in my “harbor/heart”. They were just making the waters toxic. The stench was horrid. They remained. My pleas went unheard.

Day by day, for YEARS, my beloved, they remained there, hooked up to my “landing”, pilfering, molesting, draining me of my lifes’ blood. My joy. My peace. Methodically leeching any semblance of goodness from my heart. No matter how LARGE my service to others, no matter how great my sacrifice, these “cankers”, parasites continued to take from me my very light and air. I walked the shores in mourning. I cried. I spent so many hours on my knees, begging God to make them leave. Take them from me, God. Surely YOU know how black a place they occupy. Doubtless YOU know this will destroy me. God, I haven’t been able to make them leave. God PLEASE send them away. They stayed.

One morning, recently, (December 18, 2008) I prayed that God would divinely excise from my heart these three vessels. I was literally bowed down under the weight. My joy was far from me. My peace long since left. I was of “all men most miserable”. No one to turn to. No place to go. I drug this “body of death” around with me. I felt if He didn’t take it, I would have no life left. I rose from that prayer time, on that morning, feeling no different than the thousands of other times I had prayed for His help in this. I drove to work, opened the office. Something was missing. I didn’t feel like Atlas with the world on my shoulders.

Like the V-8 commercial of old, I had an epiphany. I purposefully thought of those three “ships” that had violated my “space”. Nothing black nor scary rose up. I played with this newness. I repeated their names. I mentally recalled some of the hurtful things done by these “perpetrators”. Nothing. No bitterness. No bile taste.

God moved my heart to sit down NOW and make amends. To do what HE would have ME do to be rid of this ugliness. I sat down. I wrote cards to all three. I stated my intent to “bury the hatchet” because I was given a  “rebirth” and as when He first revealed himself to me long ago on Washington Street in Lincoln Park, MI, I was clean. Bright sun washed through me, windows were thrown up, fresh, spring-like breezes blew in billows around the darkened areas of my heart and dispelled all hurt and ugly and wrongness.

I began to weep that day.  I wept for days following at each recounting of the weight lifted. I have made my amends to all these three “vessels”. I have pleased my God in this. I know that, also. And, again, He has found me worthy to continue in this warfare. Where once ugly scars marred my heart, now is new flesh.

Did you ever, as a child, have a dream…too wonderful…you were afraid that in the telling of the dream, it would dissipate and you would know it WAS only your imagination or your dream? That’s how I’ve been for the eleven days since my restoration. Should I say it out loud?

I played that game, letting “spill” to only a handful of people who had watched my warfare and had prayed for me. Now, God has given me the words to tell the “whole wide world”. I know this is too wonderful to keep.

At the end of any arduous journey, we rest and reflect and go forth, changed. Life. Attitude. God never gave us an itinerary of what our sojourn will be like. If He did, we’d probably balk and stall and never embark. What I have learned, once again (I joke that I’m not the brightest light in the harbor and I feel God must think that in the lessons I’ve sat through but took such a long time in learning) is that He still sees something worthwhile in me and He still exercises me to cause me to grow stronger in Him.

Today my prayer is? God, I haven’t a clue what there is about me that you can use. But, how thankful I am, You chose me, adopted me into your family. I want to make you proud. I want to serve well. And, for that, I need my armor strengthened in Thee. And, each battle fought and “won” in You, is more layers added to my armor. When I come to the end of this walk, Lord, let my “protection” be so strong that the adversary’s slights, insults, hurts, “fiery darts”, real or imagined, were unable to penetrate but deflect off and fall by the wayside, never acknowledged.

Thank you, Kind Folks, for hearing this out. I needed to say it. I needed to tell you of the amazing grace that is to be found in our service to our God. Nowhere else will you receive such wondrous gifts than through Him.

In Him alone is my worth.

Popularity: 1%