God's Story through My Life


This is the testimony of how God drew me to Him.  I know this is long.  It is also not for the faint of heart.  It is His story through my life.  How I ended up where I am today.  It did not start out pretty, but now my story is beautiful.  If you would like to know more, please read on.

I have been with by husband for nine and a half years now.  Our daughter is 6 and is named Grace because I believe God put her in our lives to wake us up, pull us out of our pit of darkness and draw us closer to Him.  When I met my husband I was living a life of darkness, anger and bitterness.  The combination of verbal and mental abuse in many relationships in my life, along with a bad first marriage, very split family, the fact that I believed I was barren and cursed with a monthly reminder of what should have been and many failed attempts to find God in the wrong places left me broken and jaded.  I had no self respect, no confidence in anything, especially myself, and no direction or hope.  I made one last try at living a "good" life that left me even more broken - physically and mentally.

So I woke up one day and decided to go with "Plan B."  I began to relive the years I felt I had missed.  I started drinking, doing drugs and then found less than desirable ways to make money.  My goal was to make as much money as I could as fast as I could so that I could leave my first husband and my life as I knew it quickly and completely, never to look back.  I was as far from God as I can ever imagine someone being.

That is where I was when I met the love of my life.  He was in his own dark place and we gravitated toward each other.  I saw in him an oasis.  A place I had once dreamed of as a girl but had come to believe did not exist.  This is not to romanticize the choices we made.  Both of us being in such bad places in our lives, we started out headed full bore toward self destruction in an effort to make the most of what we thought was a hateful, evil and despicable world.  If no one else cared, why should we.  If this was all life had to offer, we were going to make our time in it as crazy and fun as we could, at least enjoying each other and the light we found in our love.  More drinking, more drugs, more bad choices.  After knowing each other for about 2 months, we both hit our fracture points.  At 2 a.m. in the morning we packed all we could into his 2 door Saturn, took the few hundred dollars we had and left.  Not a word to anyone except an apology note to my roommate.

We lived a vagabond life, doing what we wanted, when we wanted and leaving where ever we were if things got too tough.  We would find a great place and get "bored."  We called it having "ants in our pants" and would pack up and go.  When I discovered I was pregnant, we were in one of the worst situations yet.  Between the people around us and the 1971 travel trailer we lived in, we knew something had to change if we were bringing a child into our world.  We both wanted children badly, and I believe God knew that our desire to give her a better life than we had would draw us up and out.  He was right, as usual!  We went home.  Made amends with family.  And started again.  We cleaned up and worked hard to turn our lives around.  We did not succeed completely at that point but it was a good start.

Over the next couple of years, God worked in our lives, drawing us closer to Him, kneading our hearts.  When the time was right, He placed people in each of our lives to minister to us on a level that we would listen to.  No brow beating, just words of love, encouragement and hope.  During this same time, our marriage was failing.  Everything was catching up.  When you start something as passionately and intensely as we did, you hit a wall at some point.  You either push past it or you give up.  We thought we were ready to give up.  We could not raise our daughter in the midst of so much anger and fighting.  Not if we wanted her to have better than us.  The night before we went to church together for the first time, we had decided to split.  But we would both go to church together because we had promised our friends we would.

That Sunday, our world, life and hearts were rocked.  God had us in the right place, at the right time.  In front of a Pastor that is so in tune with the Holy Spirit that he spoke straight to our hearts that day.  By the end of that day, we were both changed, still hesitant.  When we got home that day, we both actually forgot of our plans to split.  I know that sounds weird, but such a warm and bright light shone into our darkness that it was all we could or wanted to focus on.

We both accepted God into our lives and hearts.  God began His good work in each of us and is continually working it.  I know that He will finish what He has started and that He has so much more in store for us.  We still have a long way to go.  We still struggle with some things.  We still stumble some days.  But God is always there to pick us back up, wrap His arms around us and set us back on His path.

Gods everlasting love, new mercies every day, unwavering grace and the incredible sacrifice he made, for us and all, are why I started this blog.  I want to reach out to those that are in the pit of darkness, that feel too wrong, broken, far from God.  I am hear to tell you that no matter where you are or what you have done - all you have to do is turn around.  God is right there, His Love spans any distance.  The sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus covers all.  There is nothing you have done, or thought, or felt that His Victory does not redeem.  


Jesus is the Light.  "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." John 1:5 NIV

2 comments:

  1. Jamie, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Yes indeed Jesus is the light....we just have to let Him in - in our life. May God continue to bless you and your family.

    All good things,
    Charina

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  2. to all that read this page... Thank you. For taking the time and for allowing yourself to put on my shoes for a moment. There are many things and details I left out. But I believe my story is not so different than any other. To truly seek and find God, we have to reach a breaking point. The point where we finally realize that we cannot go even an inch further without help. Without God. I pray that your life is blessed, eyes opened, heart softened and future full of peace, love and joy!

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