Reflecting back on my journey to this present day, I can’t help but give God glory. Oh the headaches I have must have caused God, the inconsistency, the doubt and cries for help only to discover that I was really not ready to pay the price. The years of being filled with so much anger and hate. A young lady in her early twenties searching for answers that no one seemed to care enough to help me find. Surrounded by people but feeling lost. Going to clubs but hearing the same small voice say, “You don’t belong here”. Going to work but wanting to drive to the ends of the earth to see if there was something better, something different. Why couldn’t somebody see that I needed help?
Then it happened….after about my 1000th time crying out to God to become real to me, I found myself laying prostrate on the floor in my bedroom tired from what seemed like hours of weeping. A feeling came over me that I am still unable to describe to this day. It was as if God himself, came down to see about me that night.
That was the turning point in my life. I wanted to be used up by God. I was on fire for God and I was not looking back. In my excitement also came naivety. I thought everyone else would just as excited for me, boy was I wrong. God called me into a time of separation and preparation, I shared this with my family and friends because I really wanted them to understand that this was something that I really needed to do and I just knew they would understand. I found myself alone, friends walked away and I seemed to always be explaining. It would not be long before I was back before the Lord, crying about the lonliness, the sense of feeling misunderstood, begging Him to help others see that I am just trying to live for Him, the challenges with my health, the loss of my dad….my dad was the one that I could call and just talk to about the isolation and He would always manage to impart divine wisdom to make me feel better and then he was gone….little did I know, it was a divine setup.
God was slowly stripping me of PEOPLE. If I was going to be truly used by God, I had be delivered from PEOPLE so that I could serve His people. It would be years before I would truly understand that. Years before I was able to stand tall, stand alone and wait on God to send me new supportive relationships. God gently but sternly called me out of my comfort zone. He called me up a little higher and the very thing that made me sad was the very thing that God used to make me stronger and wiser.
Give me a heart for your people Lord
Funny how you can relate more intimately with the servants in the Bible when you have picked up your own cross daily and faced some of the same struggles. I can understand the jealousy of Saul, I can relate to the boldness of David, I can feel Peter as he denied Christ, I can cry with Mary as she watched her loved one die; I can connect with the suffering of Lot; I can only imagine the struggle of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
To all my brothers and sisters feeling the tug of God on your heart to come up a little higher, to take a stand, to walk in your purpose. Don’t be afraid of what you might lose but rather think about all that you will gain. Take it from me, it is soooo worth it.
Take Up Your Cross Daily and Follow Me
Mark 10-29-31 NIV
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
