Titus 2 Men And Women

JUST GOD AND ME
"...for Thou Lord, has not forsaken those who seek Thee."
by Sharon Merhalski

Two years ago I heard a religious psychiatrist on a radio call-in program tell a distraught, hopeless, sobbing, Christian lady there was no hope for victory over her yesterdays of abuse unless she received professional help. She sobbed her way through the words, "I have no money." She was again assured that there was no hope without professional help.

I remembered myself at that exact state of being one early autumn morning several years before.

I wanted so badly to tell that lady on the radio the truth. That day the Lord seeded in my heart an

overwhelming burden for others---others, who as children were not nurtured with love.

I write this today to testify that God is able and enough for all things. God alone brought me to victory over my yesterdays---victory in Jesus Christ. When I turned to and surrendered my will to my Lord and fully trusted God with Sharon Jehovah-Rapha, (this name of God means the God who heals His children) touched the cross of Christ to the bitter waters of my life and made them sweet in His will for me---palatable---able to be assimilated for healing and growth.

In the fall of 1984 I felt totally alone and unloved. I knew that I stood just beyond the shadow of God’s all encompassing wings. I ached to understand why I was unable to believe that God loved me as much as He loved everyone else. I wanted so desperately to know what was preventing me from totally surrendering my life to Jesus Christ. For weeks I had begged for answers and had refused God’s urging to seek counsel from my pastor. I had never shared my yesterdays of hurt with anyone and unexplainable fear kept me from starting then.

In the wee hours of an autumn morning I slipped to the bottom of a deep pit of personal hopelessness. I sat in that pit distraught beyond comprehension. I was a thirty-six year old woman who loved her family and had been entrusted with the privilege of serving her Lord in so many ways in the local church. I sat there completely confused and utterly determined to never enter a church again unless the Lord showed me why I could not fully trust the God who had saved me and had kept me alive through all manner and degrees of illness and traumas---even when my mother tried to murder me.

Through the early hours of that autumn morning the Lord so sweetly held my sobbing heart in His hands as He opened the door to a long forgotten and tightly locked room of my heart. As I slowly entered that dark room I ‘saw’ a very large safe in the corner. The Lord had already opened it for me. When I saw what it contained the anguish that flooded my heart made me try to turn and run away. But God...held my heart in His hands and assured me that He was sufficient to enable me to finally bear the pain---the pain I had buried so deep so many years before.

Inside of that long forgotten room of my heart I finally faced in Christ the wrong childhood thoughts that had pervaded my life and the memories that brought again the anguish from a childhood of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse from my mother.

I had long ago let the hatred for my mother out of my heart when I knelt at Calvary to be saved. I was only fourteen years old then and a root of bitterness and a great deal of anger remained repressed. It remained buried just deep enough below the surface to allow me to lead nearly a normal life but shallow enough to keep me personally miserable without knowing why.

That autumn night was the longest and hardest night of my life. I am still thanking God as I write this that before daybreak came He enabled me to finally surrender my life to Jesus Christ. That moment I became fully determined (stubbornness turned to steadfastness) to trust God in all that He is with all that I was. Precious was the reality of the promise that the Lord gave to me when I first began seeking Him for answers: "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me. Thy mercy, O LORD, endureth forever: forsake not the work of thine own hands." (Psalms 138:8)

The LORD has done just as He promised to do. Step by step He has continually made right those areas of my life that were so damaged by a mother who too often verbalized and then proved her hatred of me. With His Words and answered prayer God gradually changed a lifetime of wrong childhood thinking until I no longer had a doubt that everything I had always believed and was taught about the LORD was also true for Sharon. The LORD helped me to face each bad memory in His perfect time. This was a methodical process for I had to deal with the pain, the anger, and the bitterness that each one surfaced. I had to confront them with the LORD and deal with them in the light of God’s Words. The process removed all of the waking and sleeping nightmares from my life and changed the pain in my heart to a dull ache and enabled me to put my past behind me in Christ.

I remember a very special day---the day that I accepted and finally believed that God my Heavenly Father unconditionally loved me as much as He had ever loved anyone else. My heart took wings and my spirit soared---until I realized to my horror that buried deep inside I had always felt abused by God Himself. I had felt "punished" with a mother who did not love me and a father who did not protect me. I felt punished with illness after illness, accidents, surgeries, and a very scarred and degenerating body. With tears streaming down my face I sat at my kitchen table and pleadedwith God for a reason for all of the painful times of my life. I wanted God to help me to understand His purpose for allowing so much hurt in my life.

The Lord forever changed my heart with II Corinthians 1: 8-9 "For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life; But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raiseth the dead." I then remembered what I had stubbornly done at six years of age---I had determined to NEVER trust anyone with Sharon ever again. I had faithfully kept that promise to myself for thirty long years. Then the Lord impressed upon my heart a verse of scripture that I could not doubt was mine: "Behond, I have refined thee, but not with silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." (Isaiah 48:10)

Oh how I realized then and will never forget that God my Heavenly Father always wanted the very best for me. I understood that the paths He allowed in my life were used to refine me so that He could one day give to me the once believed unattainable desire of my heart---my desire to be a vessel fit for the Master’s use. The truth of Romans 8:28 finally applied to me!!! God had used the "all things" of my life to break the tremendously stubborn and pervasive decision of a six year old hurting child so that I might not trust in myself but only in God who raiseth the dead.

I understood that before I was born God knew the very day when I would be able to look back on my life and see that a merciful, gracious, and completely loving God had not abused me---rather He had lovingly kept me. God kept me time after time when the physicians had given up. God kept me when my mother wanted me dead. God kept me by saving my husband’s soul to full surrender. God kept me and took care of me ! How could I doubt the love of God or love my Lord with any less than my whole heart? God had never forsaken me!

God always wants the very best for His children---whether we think He does so or not. God is waiting to give all of His children who feel forgotten, hopeless, or are in pain, "...to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified." (Isaiah 61:3)

I have been asked many times if the "old things" ever bother me now. My answer is always, "yes, sometimes they do". I learned several years ago when I was groping for never-to-be-bothered-again recovery that there is a part of me that will always be somewhat bothered and tender to the touch.

Several years ago I spent a week asking God for a Bible example of my kind of hurt---of abuse. I had read and heard that my problems were shared by many others but I wanted a Bible example. On Sunday morning my pastor told us that he did not know why he felt compelled to change his Sunday School lesson. When he finished reading II Samuel 13:20 I understood perfectly that it was my answer to prayer. "...so Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absolom’s house." Tamar was abused and a part of her remained desolate forever.

There have been many times since then when I again began wanting perfectness in all of this...times when even the now dull ache seemed too much to bear. But I now understand that desolate part of my life and I know that it will be with me until I am promoted to Heaven. I have learned over and over these past few years that the degree of desolation that I have in my heart is directly dependent upon how cultivated and productive that I have kept the rest of my life: cultivated by the Word of God and prayer---watered with the Holy Spirit---producing harvest by my obedience and faithfulness to love and serve my Lord and with all of my heart.

I understand and I have experienced that there is hope and victory in Jesus Christ.

"Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost

dwelt in silence." (Psalms 94:17

"He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their

wounds..." (Psalms 9:10)

"WILLING"

I can’t live a Christian life

My Father-I’ve nothing to offer Thee;

But oh I’m willing---oh so willing

For You to live Your life through me.

With never a moment’s hesitation

I yield myself to Thy control;

Unreservedly into Thy hands----

I submit my body and my soul!!!

Willing to do what’ere You desire

Willing to be what You want me to be;

Willing to go where’ere You may send

Willing to accept Thy will for me.!!!

               - lula b. claycomb

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