I believe that one day I will stand before Jesus Christ and give an account for my life. When that day comes I want to have a clear conscience that I did my very best to serve my Lord. I told God I was afraid to put myself out there…people are mean. He replied, “Trying to please people proves to be a snare, trusting in me will keep you safe.  Do not be afraid.  I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you.” I remembered, God does not call the equipped, he equips those he calls.On my 39th birthday God clearly spoke to me. He told me to stop looking back over all that had happened in my life with regret. Instead, God pointed to how he had in fact been restoring and strengthening me. He set me on my feet faced me forward, encouraged me to go into the world and tell of the love, mercy and grace of Jesus Christ! Up till that point I had been hyper-focused on all of the devastating losses I had incurred.  A lot of the loss was through no fault of my own. I was a victim of circumstance. I didn’t choose for my parents to divorce. I didn’t choose for my mother to die of cancer or to be put in a children’s home. I didn’t choose to be raped in a shed when I was 13, or to be molested that same year by a family friend. I would never have chosen to be on the receiving end of violence in my marriage, but that’s where I found myself. I grieved the loss of my father who shot himself in the head. Some things in life we just don’t choose and yet that’s precisely where we find ourselves.The loss that grieved me even more than the things that I didn’t choose were the things that I did. The devastating choices I had made haunted me and I daily lashed out at myself for those poor decisions. I knew God had forgiven me yet I couldn’t forgive myself. I was miserable and weighted down by guilt.Let me get to the point. I aborted my first two children, which happens to also be called murder. I’ve committed adultery and been divorced twice. I mismanaged money so much so that I lost my house and was still left $60,000+ in debt. I made a desperate attempt to fix my financial problems by becoming a stripper. Yes I danced naked on a stage for money. By the time I got to this place I started to self medicate to keep from feeling the pain that was my life.God has rescued me from the hell that was my life. I still feel my chest constrict when I take myself back there in my mind. I only speak out now out of an obedience to my Lord. My very nature is to keep my sins hidden and believe the lie that because it’s in the past I can keep it hidden.The part I like about writing and speaking is when I get to tell you about God and his awesome love. He loves me despite the ugliness of who I am without Him. He has loved me with an everlasting love an undeserved love and because of his mercy I find myself here in this moment trying to explain why I need to speak out. 
 
When I was 27 I found myself literally pulling out my hair, crying and screaming guttural screams. I was banging my head against the wall. I was done. I was trying to figure out the best way for me to go about killing myself. I knew my life was a mess. Harm had been done to me and I had harmed myself and others.Tears streaming down my face, hyperventilating and drowning in anxiety, I stretched my arms up to God and screamed at him. My life is worth nothing. I cannot fix it, you are God….so you do something with my life. I give up!That was a turning point in my life. In that moment God reached down from his throne and answered my call. He set to work immediately straightening out the mess of my life and world. I was so far down that I didn’t even understand what was happening. I was stuck in the role of “victim” and had no comprehension that I had experienced a Divine encounter.Over the next few weeks, months and years God provided for me in supernatural ways. He took me out of my hopelessness and set me on my feet. I was homeless, broke, jobless and completely busted out. I watched God provide. Within a week God caused a man to rent me an apartment in Chicago, despite that I had bad credit, zero dollars, no job, and a lot of debt. God sheltered me and my kids. He put a roof over our heads and food in our mouths. He caused people to move on my behalf for no other reason than to bless me and ultimately it is glorifying Jesus Christ!I am innately selfish by nature. I like to use “my time” and “my life” the way that I want. But the truth is, this isn’t my time or my life. Everything I have has been given to me by the one true God.People who should have protected, nurtured and provided for me did the exact opposite leaving me feeling abandoned, utterly alone and incapable of trust.Today I blog because God connected my love for him, my love for people and my love for writing. Healing comes in the light. I believe God is persuing his children so they can say, “I once was an orphan, but now I’ve been found. Praise the LORD!”Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him.Genesis 26:12Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.Psalm 126:5
 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Galatians 6:7-8