Deep Void

I was so sure that life would be better after we moved. I for one was happy to be away from the day to day of dealing with my mom. She had become quite a handful.

Culture shock to say the least. We moved to a town of 1000 people and there had been 1100 in my graduating class. I was used to stores being open 24/7 and I learned the store, well the whole town except for the bars closed at 6 pm.

We moved in the fall of 1976 and by early 1977, I had great news, I was pregnant. I was thrilled and so was Mark. Now, I will say that this did kinda fill that deep void, not completely, but I had something wonderful to think about. While I was preparing for baby, Mark was getting into riding motorcycles and his friends were bikers.

This time of peace would end the day I gave birth. My son died 3 hours after he was born. To look at him no one would have known there was anything wrong with him. I had him on his due date. The only thing that got me through was I wanted to be strong for Mark and knowing that my son went on to be with his heavenly Father. I know now that God held me in his arms through this tragedy. At that time I was numb. That deep void swallowed me.

Well, bikers like to party and I had a black hole to fill, so the parties started. I didn't party very long at this point, because I ended up being sick and then discovering I was pregnant again. Was I happy? Yes and no. I was scared to death. It had only been a few months since my son's death. Emotionally I was a wreck. Then I ended up having to have surgery. I was only about 8 weeks along. The Dr. said I could lose the baby during surgery. I didn't and I had a daughter 8 days shy of my son's birthday. My daughter was a gift from God. But, the deep void, black hole was still there and the parties began. We only partied on the weekends, and that is what I lived for. Now I was a good mom. My daughter was well cared for. She stayed with her grandma most weekends. Mark worked out of town all week and was only home on the weekends. So, party we did.This went on for the next 5 years.

When my daughter turned 3, I sent her to Sunday School, mainly because my mother-in-law, thought I should and my friends sent their kids. One Sunday she asked why she had to go if I didn't have to go. So, I started going to church. Now, the partying hadn't stopped, in fact it was worse than ever. I was on a one way trip to the deepest darkest pit of my life. During this time I had another baby. A boy another gift from God . It was at this time some wonderful women at that church, invited me to a Bible study. I started going. What was being said at church and at Bible study started making sense to me. At this point I was on the verge of a divorce and losing my kids. The Bible study we were doing was called "Know the Truth" I accepted Christ at that Bible study.Jesus pulled me from the pit. I had no where else to go,but up to his loving arms.
Now, this was scary for me and yet easy. And guess what, that deep black void, started closing.

Now, here I would like to say the rest is history, but this is where my life begins anew. Now of course there was a lot of other stuff, I just hit the highlights for back ground.

I would like to say my journey began here, but it actually began, before I was born Psalm 139: 13-16. "For you created my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. I praise you, because I am fearfully an wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth. your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. This scripture brings me a peace and joy, just to know that God knew me before I was ever born. He knew everyone of us.

To summarize I have been verbally and sexually abused, a battered wife, a divorcee, I have lost a child and have done things that I am totally ashamed of. I have survived it all because of God's grace. Because his son Jesus died, to save me and others.

The only thing left of the deep black void, is a small crack and I seek God to fill that.

I will continue to share how God has changed my life.

Part Two

One thing I want to say here, is that the stuff that happens to us, helps shape who we become. Those things should never become excuses, for who we become, because we always have a choice. I know God uses even the bad in our lives, for good.

I have learned that no matter how far we bury things, they have a way of working their way up to the surface. I was sexually molested, by an uncle and my brother when I was very young. I kept those memories buried, and from time to time they would surface. I never told my family until I was 40 years old. I only share because this has had an impact on my life.

By the time I was in high school my mother was addicted to prescription drugs. If she were diagnosed today, it would be bi-polar and manic depressive. But, according to her the world was screwed up, not her. My dad just went along with everything she did.

So, of course I took the first way out, when I graduated from high school. I married. Only to find out that I had jumped out of the frying pan right into the fire. The moment I said I do, I learned that the guy I thought was so terrific, wasn't. I became his property and the physical and mental abuse started. Fortunately, my sister and my dad were very supportive and I only remained in that marriage for 4 months. By this time at the ripe old age of 19, I realized that there was a deep dark whole inside of me, a black void. No matter what I did, it was always there.

I met my husband Mark, that same summer. It was a miracle that he stuck by me. During the time we were dating, my sister tried to commit suicide. Then my mother followed that up with her own attempt. My mom's behaviors only got worse.

Mark and I dated for a year then married. During the second year of our marriage we moved to Nebraska. I really thought, that everything would be better. It wasn't, 'cause the deep void moved right along with me.

More to come.

In Faith,
Deb

Beginnings

"The world doesn't need to see how perfect we are: it needs to see how powerful God is. People don't need to see how Christians never have any problems and never make any mistakes; they need to see how God is bigger than our problems and more powerful than our mistakes." -Donna Partow

I really like this statement that Donna Partow made, because before I knew Christ I thought Christians were such perfect people. Oh, how wrong was I.

I grew up in a non-Christian home. My parents did send us kids to Sunday School, but they only went on Christmas and Easter. I quit going to church when I was 12. At that time the adults I knew that went to church, did one thing on Sunday and were different rest of the week. So, I decided I didn't want to be like them. I will say that I always believed in God and believed that Christ was his son. As I look back at my life I see God was always there even during the bad times.

Now, I won't say that my life was all bad growing up because it wasn't. But, life was a roller coaster ride. Never knew from day to day what would or could set off my mom and her temper. If things didn't go her way or us kids did something that would set her off, she didn't spank, and sometimes I thought that would have been better, than her tongue lashings. I learned very young to be as good as possible, but I was labeled as a bad child, so it seemed that no matter how good I tried to be, somehow I still got into trouble.(some of which a younger sister provoked). My dad was pretty even tempered, but even he never stopped my mom's tirades. I thought this was going to be easy to write about , but it is a little tougher than I thought, it would be.

I think I need to back up a little. Some back ground. Was raised by my mom and stepdad(he was & still is a good dad). My stepdad was husband number 3 for my mom. She had my half brothers in her first marriage, then her and my dad had me and my sister. No children from third marriage. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago.

This is only the beginning.

In Faith,
Deb

Direction

God, has given me clear direction on what I should be putting on my blog. At the beginning, I said that I thought God was telling to me to share my life and he was. He made it clear that I needed to start with my background and how and why he is my Lord and Savior. I have been praying about this. I am glad that he answers prayer.
In Faith,
Deb

Too many directions!!

After I made my last post, I checked out some other blogs. Came back to mine. I think the reason I haven't been inspired to write here, is because I am going in too many directions. I need to stay focused on the direction that God has for me. A saying I heard some time ago. If satan can't get ya to sin, he'll make ya busy or at least distract ya. Now I am not saying that the devil made me do it. I just think that sometimes he screws with us like he did with Job. Sometimes we think God wants us to do it all. We can't. I have found that if I get too busy, I only half do things and everything suffers. So, I have been trying to really focus my attention on what I hear God telling me. Not what the world would have me doing.

If we are running in too many directions, do we do justice to what we are doing? Is it not better to do one thing really well, than try to do a lot of things that will only get half done, or not done very well? Only asking?

The first and foremost important thing we can do is find a quiet time. A time to spend with God. Jesus did find time to spend with the Father. I know that when I am spending time with God, I learn, I am less harried, I get refreshed. Joy builds in my heart. Then I can go on, to the next task.

I know I haven't logged anything new for several days. Just haven't been inspired. Been looking back and thinking about what God has done in my life and where I want to go.

Lost Sheep

I wrote the following for a sermon I gave at church. Was led to put it here.

Lost Sheep
As I studied the scriptures Jeremiah 18:1-11, Luke 15:1-10, I looked to see what they had in common, what would link them all together. I saw in Jeremiah that God’s chosen people once again have went their own way, they are worshiping idols, and pretty much doing as they please. They are not living as God would have them live. God is frustrated with them because he had done so much for their fathers and now the kids that are living in the promise land are doing the same things their father’s did. In fact at this time there has even been a split in Israel. Israel has become 2 nations Israel in the north and Judah to the south and God sends Jeremiah to Judah with a message for his people. Repent and I will be merciful “God says” .

Now I went on to read Luke 15: 1-10, it is the parable about the lost sheep. Jesus tells this story about a Shepard that leaves 99 sheep to go in search of his lost sheep. What does lost sheep have to do with the nation of Judah, well Judah just happens to be a lost sheep. Judah went her own way and she got lost. And just as a sheep gets lost, the Shepard goes to look for that lost sheep, God sent a Shepard to Judah to bring them home.

Now moving on to I Timothy 1: 12-17 we hear Paul being thankful that Jesus had given him strength and considered him faithful, and because of his faithfulness Paul was appointed to serve Christ. Some may say so what does Paul have to do with lost sheep? Paul was a lost sheep.

What ties these scriptures together is that they refer to the same thing, going your own way and getting lost, but also about being found.

As I read these scriptures I thought about my own life. I thought about how I have been a lost sheep at different times. How I have allowed everyday life get me off the path. How I have woke up and wondered where my Shepard is? I am so happy that my Shepard Jesus doesn’t quit looking for me till he finds me and brings me back to the flock. How does one become a lost sheep? It is so easy to get lost. Sheep are followers, and a lot of us are followers. We don’t even realize we are following someone or something until we wake up one day and realize we don’t know where we are. We wonder how did I get here.
So, many of us may say I am not lost. But some of us don’t even realize we are lost.

We think we have good lives. We may have a few troubles here and there, but for the most part life is ok. So how did we get lost?

We got lost because of our circumstances, society, family, friends, hobbies, greed, selfishness and this list is endless. Our lives are busy doing stuff, is it necessary stuff, well most of us need to work, but we can even let work get us lost. And what of all the other things that we cram into our life. For each of us it is different.

These scriptures we have heard today are talking to those who are lost, lost sheep. Those that live day by day, on their own strength, that do what they want, when they want, without any consideration for God. Those that don’t truly have a walk with God. There are people that can talk the talk, but not walk the walk.


Paul was lost, he persecuted Christians, he was a tax collector, he was a bad person, but God had plans for him. He didn’t want him to stay lost. God brought Paul back to the flock. God sent Jeremiah to bring Judah back to the flock. God has sent us a Shepard to bring us back to the flock.

For me theses scriptures are not so much about being lost as they are about hope, hope for the lost. We have hope in Jesus. We have hope because God does not want us to be lost. If he wasn’t a caring Shepard he never would have sent his only son to be the Shepard that would look for the lost and bring them home. We can see by these scriptures that God sent Shepard’s to bring the lost home.

He sent Jeremiah to Judah, He sent his son Jesus to the world, He sent Paul to many places and he even uses people today to be Shepards to bring the lost back to the flock. These scriptures also say that there are celebrations in heaven when one lost sheep is brought back to the flock. How exciting! We get excited to, when we see a person that seemed to be lost, turn their life around.


Yes, we have hope. The lost have hope. God’s word shows us that God never gives up on the lost. He keeps looking for them. He wants to find them and bring them home.


So if you don’t want to get lost or you want to be found, just pick up God’s living word and go to God in prayer. Talk to him every day. Read his word every day. He will be there for you. Follow God and you won’t be lost.

A New Year: Moving Forward

Happy New Year!! I am looking forward to 2008, not because 2007 was bad or anything. I just like moving forward. A friend said to me today that if we are not moving forward, we go backward. There is no staying where we are. I do not want to move backward. I have been moving forward in Christ ever since, I asked him to save me. Sometimes I have felt that I haven't done much moving forward and then I look back at where I have been. There has been a lot of forward movement. I have realized God moves us at a pace that we can handle. Change is not always easy and the old creatures in us don't realize that they were put to death,(like the bad guys from horror movies, they get killed off and keep coming back)so do some of the old creatures in us.(yes, there are more than one.) But, fortunately we have God that can help us get rid of the old creatures.Some of mine have left forever(are completely dead) and some, are harder to get rid of, because sometimes I think we keep them around. We shove them into dark corners and pretend they are not there and then when we least expect it, they jump out and we are like I thought I had gotten the best of that creature, so why is he still here, because we really did not get rid of him. God so graciously helps us to get rid of those unwanted creatures, when he knows that we are ready to face them and when we acknowledge them, they are goners. The creatures are different for all of us. But God is the same. He never changes. He is always there waiting for us to ask him into every aspect of our lives. Revelation 3:20 says"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." So, invite God to help you get rid of those pesky creatures.

On another note, I am asking for prayers for my children, they have both just made some major moves in their lives and I am just praying that God will move in their lives.

Would like to hear from anyone reading this.