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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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