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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.

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