I FOUND GOD

I FOUND GOD 
(but He Wasn't Hiding!)

by Brenda L. Agee

          You've heard the phrase, "Well to make a long story short"?  Quite the opposite, I have a reputation for making a short story long.  This blog will not be as long as the last two.  It won't take long to tell it and it won't take long for you to understand.  

          If you've read my first two blogs, you may remember that after a time of seeking God and experiencing an emotional healing, I prayed that I would have gone through all that I had and more, if I could then help even one woman know there was hope.   God has often brought about an answer to that prayer and I have talked to many, many women who have gone through unthinkable experiences.  I simply shared with them the hope and peace that God has given me.

          I turned 30 years old in 1980 and it was a momentous decade.  My husband and I had a small son and daughter to raise.  I also had my third miscarriage.  We moved four times.  He started school and pastored three small churches.   All seemed well and I started school at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas.   However, during my second semester, I became tragically depressed and started to commit suicide but I was caught.  That led to a three year long commitment to counseling which I completed also in the 80's.  My children each had at least one hospital stay.  My son had surgery.  My daughter had a bicycle accident which resulted in a bad break in her left shoulder.   I had another surgery, my 11th at that time.  I was divorced in the mid-80s and had to raise my two children alone.  Two months before the divorce, I had a hysterectomy.  It was the morning after the surgery and while I was still in the hospital that I experienced the first problem with my heart.  That was my 1980's decade, short version, and yes, there was even more.

          However, the 1980's also brought about a greater social awareness of both physical and sexual abuse, because for the first time in their lives, many women and men were talking and seeking help.  I was one of those women.

          For 32 years I told no one what had happened to me when I was four years old at the hands of seven neighborhood boys.  They ranged from ages seven years old up to 16 years old and it happened for several years.  I am grateful that it wasn't a family member.   At four, I was afraid to tell and didn't think anyone would believe me.   I was so afraid that I tried to pretend nothing had happened.  But inside, I felt torn into two parts.  
          One part of me was joyous and lived happily with my family.  I knew God loved me - remember my prayer I told you about in my first blog? - and I knew my family loved me.  I loved being with my family and in church: I loved every moment of being there where I felt whole.  However, the other part of me was tortured and afraid.  As I got older the fear increased in many areas.  If I was asked to try something new I often just laughed and said, "No", but more simply put, I was afraid.  Occasionally I would tell someone I didn't want to do something because I was afraid but rather than accepting my response, I would be asked over and over why I was afraid, but I couldn't explain why.  Yes, I was torn in two.  But oh!  How skilled I was at hiding the pain. 

          After a lot of tears, and lot more prayers, and then realizing that if I ever got close to it again, I would complete the act of suicide and become its' victim, and not just one who had attempted it.  I didn't want that to happen so I slowly began to tell my counselor what had happened all those years ago when I was a child.  It was at times a torment to talk about, other times it was a relief.  But always - always - I was still afraid that I wouldn't be believed.  For me, the final part of the painful puzzle was admitting that I was so afraid that if anyone really knew, they wouldn't like me and that in fact, they might even hate me.  With that realization, I opened up even more and after a long time, I began to heal. 

          With the healing I found out the difference between worthless and unworthy.  Yes, we are unworthy of God's mercy, but He does not find us worthless.  If He had found us worthless, Jesus would not have died for us. 

          I realized that it was okay to love myself.  Even Jesus said to love our neighbors as ourselves.  So, wasn't He trying to tell us to love ourselves?  Not pride, not arrogance, not haughtiness, but simply love.

          I realized that what had happened to me was not who I was.  I know that through the healing God brought, I became more and more the person He wanted me to be in the first place. 

          I realized that God had always been my healing and that He always will be.

          I found out that the children of suicide victims often commit suicide themselves.  I was horrified.  I never, never wanted that to happen to my own children.

          I realized I had hope and that I wanted to live and to tell others there is hope for them!

          I titled this blog "I Found God" but it wasn't God who was hiding.  It was me.  I hid in shame.  I discovered that the shame and guilt I carried was almost the same for all abuse survivors.  I had been made to feel that all of it had been my fault and yet the fault had been that of my abusers.  I learned through Jesus Christ that I could forgive them and I did!  The shame and guilt were no longer a part of me.

          That tiny little four year old had no words to describe what had happened to her and she was scared.  That tiny child was told over and over, and believed, that she wasn't right.  That little girl . . .  the one I tried to hide,  the one I didn't want to love . . . finally became a part of me and we are one.  I cradle her in my heart, I love her and now I love even myself.

          I'm closing with a poem I wrote several years ago and it, too, is titled "I Found God."  It is my expression of what we can learn of God through all things.  May God Bless You!

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I FOUND GOD
Poem by Brenda Agee

They cheated and I found that 

        God is steadfast . . .

They lied and I found that 

        God is truth . . .

They hated and I found that 

        God is love . . .

They caused harm and I found that 

        God heals . . .

They had no place for me and I found that 

        God holds me in His hand . . .

They left me and I found that 

        God drew me unto Himself . . .

They caused me to cry and I found that 

        God wiped away my tears . . .

They said I was nobody and I found that 

        God said I am His child forever . . .

They gave me no shelter and I found that 

        God gave me a mansion . . .

They gave me no food and I found that 

        God is the Bread of Life . . .

They robbed me of all things and in doing so I found that 

        God is all I ever need!

(Written by Brenda Agee, January 2011)

This is me - Brenda - once a little girl scared of so much

and yet, still joyful because she knew Jesus loved her.  

           

           

JUST LIKE MOSES . . . HUH?

JUST LIKE MOSES . . . HUH?

by Brenda L. Agee

            I spent a lot of time with my two youngest grandchildren this past week and it was absolutely wonderful and the most perfect week a grandmother could ask for!

            Okay, let me start again.

            I spent a lot of time with my two youngest grandchildren this past week and I am exhausted!  They are great, smart, fun, and funny, but I'm not always able to keep up with them either physically or, well to be honest, in any way.  My son lives in the apartment downstairs and he helped tremendously - especially when I needed a nap.  It's rather a joint venture.  In fact, he and I are in the only two apartments in the building so the grandchildren run up and down the stairs like it's one big house.  But right now I am alone and relaxing and it seems all I can remember is just how great and easy the week was and I am excited about their coming again soon to stay all night.

            However, sitting here in gentle thought my mind has turned to last Sunday morning, the 10th of August, and how I thought my week was going to start.  There I was minding my own business, comfortably sitting on the pew at church and trying to listen to the sermon but my Pastor's words kept interrupting me.  You know, words like "faith", "obedience",  and - wait until you hear this one! - "every time you fail to do what you know God wants you to do, your faith weakens".   He may have said our faith is less, or something else like that but it still meant the same.  Well!  That was not what I'd expected to hear.  And even if I do go to church expecting to hear those words, they don't always pierce my heart as they did last week.  On top of all that, it had only been a few minutes before Pastor's sermon that I had admitted to the whole congregation that God had called me nearly 18 years ago to do something for Him and how I've struggled with it, ignored it, tried to argue with God about it, and finally admitted to God that I was simply afraid that I would fail at what He wanted.  I guess my faith had been getting less and less in that area over the years.

            Last week, as many of you know, I started this God, Me, and a Blog Makes 3.  It was the beginning of an end.  My struggle over writing had ended and my new surrender to do so has begun.  Almost 18 years ago I first knew God wanted me to write and it has never been out of my mind for even a day since that time.  I am not proud of my having waited so long.  In fact, I am horrified that I waited to do what the only living, righteous, Holy God wanted me to do.  I can't go back in my mind and think of how things might have been if I had written like He wanted, but I do know that today, I am thankful for His never letting me go and His never washing His hands of me, so to speak.

            I promised God, myself, and any who would read this blog that I would be honest in what and how I wrote and so I'm telling you now that I've wrestled with God, like Jacob did.  You may never struggle with surrendering to God and if so, I do wish you could tell me how you manage because even though I love God with all of my heart and I believe that He loves me beyond all understanding, I know that I was in a battle all those years.  I resisted, then I said to myself "I can do this", then I tried to ignore it all, and then I would say again, "I can do this."

            It was during one of my lesser struggling moments that I decided I was just like Moses.  I knew God understood what I meant when I said I was like Moses, but when I thought about telling my Christian friends, I tried in my mind to hear them respond with a supportive, "Why yes!  I see what you mean.", but instead I saw their faces go from shock to disbelief, curiosity, and even amusement.  In fact, I'm quite sure I actually heard them laugh aloud.  So I decided to tell the one friend who had always understood me.

            I was in one of those places where I thought I could write so I went to my friend and tried to make light of the whole situation that I believed God wanted me to write and how I had put it off.  As an aside, let me suggest that you never make light of God wanting you to do something because it just doesn't work out.  Now, let's go back to my friend.  I hinted to her that I had decided I was a lot like Moses.  I didn't tell her at first what I meant but mere seconds after my statement, she turned her gaze away from me and looked around the room.  I waited, but no response.  She looked at the ceiling, she looked from wall to wall, she looked at the floor.  I waited even longer, but still no response.  I wanted to tell her that her carpet wasn't going to part like the Red Sea and that there would be no lice, frogs, flies, or locusts showing up but before I could do so, she looked at me.  Then, she burst out laughing!  She laughed!

            Before she fell out of her chair from laughing so hard, I reminded her that there was a before-and-after Moses and that I was like the "before" Moses.  I was like the Moses who stayed in the wilderness for 40 years and who, I believed, was content to stay in the wilderness for 40 years.  Maybe Moses was just being comfortable in the wilderness when he had his burning bush moment, or maybe he wasn't.  Or maybe yet, that is just the perception I got from all of the times I've watched my favorite movie, Cecile B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments.  I just don't know.  Neither do I know how long Moses' burning bush moment lasted, by mine lasted nearly 18 years.

            Not that Moses was ignoring God during his 40 years.  On the contrary, I believe Moses was learning about God and becoming comfortable in who he, Moses, was.  That's also where I was when God let me know He wanted me to write.  I was becoming more and more comfortable with who I was.  I had already gone through great pain and unspeakable experiences in my life while simultaneously knowing remarkable joy because of my faith in God.  I had even gone through a long period of counseling, which God used as a part of His healing me from my pain.  So having gone through much pain and then great healing, I was becoming comfortable with myself. 

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            In the book of Exodus, chapters 3 and 4 in the New International Version of the Bible, we Moses find tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, at Mount Horeb.  Often called "The Mountain of God", Mount Horeb is where Moses encountered God in the burning bush.  God quickly let Moses know that He, God, was the God of Moses' ancestry: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Moses bowed himself before the only Almighty God.  God doesn't waste words, and He got right to the point.  “So now, go.  I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”  But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

            That is point number one (1).  Moses asked, "Why me . . . ?"

            God gave Moses a lengthy but perfect answer but even then Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

            To paraphrase, Moses said, "Oh yeah? Well, they are going to ask just who sent me and what am I to say then?"  Point two (2)

            But that wasn't enough.  Moses, again questioning God, said, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” 

            We know what that means.  Sometimes we are actually making a statement but we try to deflect what we are saying by using a question.  Again paraphrasing, Moses was saying, "They won't listen and they won't believe it was you who sent me."  Here we are at point three (3).

            I love the next part because God had told Moses to get up and go but again Moses had to say something.  Ever known anyone like that?  It can be frustrating!  You give them all of the answers but they still have to question you again and again?  "But what about this?  But what about that?  Oh yeah?  But what about . . . ?"   I may have done that from time to time.  Okay, well yes, I have done that.

            At least Moses tried to be polite and said, 'Excuse me, but . . ."   In fact, the Bible tells us that Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”  The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute?  Who gives them sight or makes them blind?  Is it not I, the Lord?  Now go I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

            Point four (4).  "I just don't know what to say.  I know I'll stutter and mess it up." 

            However, it all came down to what Moses really wanted to say, all along, "Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

            And there we have it, point five (5).  "I don't want to do it.  Can't you send someone else?"

            I went through all of the excuses that Moses went through.  Over the years I said them all and added a few of my own but God's answer was always the same. I said . . .
1.       Why me? After all, there are others who could write much better than me.  But God said ,"It doesn't matter, just write."    
2.      I really don't know what to say God. But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write."
3.      Well, no one is going to believe me because I hid things for so long.  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write."
4.      When I think about writing, there are too many people who will know everything I've wanted to hide.  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write."
5.      But no one will understand!  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write." 
6.      It's too personal.  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write."
7.      I don't want my family to read what I'll write.  I can just imagine what they will say and how they won't believe me.  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write." 
8.      But my children or later, my grandchildren . . .  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write."
9.      I then told God I had always remembered what J. I. Willard, my Pastor from 40 years ago, told me "When all else is said and done, it's just me and God."   And God said, "Now you are beginning to understand."
10.   I admitted to God that I was scared and that I can't do it on my own but that I am willing because He wanted me to do so.  And God said to me, "Go on . . . "
11.    Lastly, I said okay, I would write simply because God asked me to.  And God said, "Whew!  It sure took you long enough!

            Well okay, maybe God didn't exactly say that last line, but I do know once I said yes, no matter what, I'll do it only for Him, I felt God's peace that passes all understanding.  I could still use all of those excuses over and over again, but I realize now that I would be living in self-doubt and fear.  I know what my Pastor meant last week when he said that our faith weakens every time we say no to God.  I lived it for too long.  For me, giving up and giving in to God will always come down to that one statement from J. I. Willard, "When all else is said and done, it's just me and God."

            You may ask what all of this has to do with my opening statements about my grandchildren but that's easy to answer.  It has everything to do with them.  I have five grandchildren.  I want them to know the truth about God and I feel a great responsibility to teach them the things of God.  But how can I teach them about God if I, myself, have not listened or been faithful?  Grandchildren are a legacy of love from God.  I know mine will remember times when I was less patient, less understanding.  The older ones will remember when they had to stay downstairs with their dad (my son) when I was ill and the younger ones will remember when I had to send them downstairs to be with their uncle (my son) for the same reason.  They will remember the times when I couldn't do the things with them that their other grandmothers could do because of my ill health.  They will all remember when my heart was weak and they were the ones who cleaned my apartment.   
            And although my health is poor and I am weak, will I be strong enough and faithful enough to teach them about our Lord, about His loving salvation, about praying and listening to Him?  I want my grandchildren - oh how I desire for them - to know God above all and that His love is what they need most.  I pray they remember that I tried to teach them and that I have surrendered to Him.

            Despite my shortcomings, failings, weaknesses, fears, doubts, I know there is only one living God and that He is my absolute.  God is my Answer . . . Jesus Christ is my Absolute.  Those are the two sayings I have repeated over and over again throughout my life.  
          God has healed me of much and given me much.  He has been my protector, my provider, my greatest desire, and to Him I owe my life, my love, my obedience, my surrender.  These are the things I pray my grandchildren will remember most. 

            Oh God, I will do as You ask.  I know You will do with these words what You want.  I surrender them and myself to You!

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"The Ten Commandments" is my all-time favorite movie.  

What better movie to reference since I wrote about Moses and me?

REMEMBERING GOD

REMEMBERING GOD

by Brenda L. Agee

^"Then they remembered that God was their rock,

And the Most High God their Redeemer."

Psalm 78:35 (NKJV)

          I've often had people ask me, "What is your earliest memory?"  I don't think I could answer that question exactly.  I remember a lot of things about my early childhood, but my earliest memory?  A lot of my memories have nothing to do with age - like getting to church early enough on a Sunday morning to run down the center aisle to the front rows where sat the little ladies, all grandmothers, with their deeply wrinkled faces; freshly applied rouge; and silver hair either pulled back in a bun at the nape of their neck, or freshly coiffed into curls, and brushed away from their faces.  They were beautiful to me and I loved them.  They showered me with hugs and smiles and always asked if I was going to Sunday school to learn about Jesus.  They knew I was and yet their weekly question made me even more excited to be there.  I knew they loved me and because of it, I knew Jesus loved me, too.   It was a weekly ritual of love from both sides which continued for years and my age didn't matter.

          I also remember seeing Aunt Rose after church on Sunday mornings.  She was the perfect depiction of a handsome woman and seemed quite ancient, although I'm sure she wasn't.  She was both mysterious and proud with her very-erect posture, proper smile, the fox fur which draped around her shoulders, and her occasional gentle pats on the top of my head.  To my young mind, that fox seemed to watch me with mild amusement as it held its' own tail in its' mouth.  I gingerly reached out to pet the fur upon occasion, but more often I held back not knowing what the seemingly well-behaved little fox would do.  I think I felt the same about both the fox fur and Aunt Rose.  But she was wonderful.

          My age didn't matter then, either.

          Oh, and if I'm going to remember and write about Aunt Rose, I really have to tell you about Aunt Ocie.  I seem to remember someone once telling me that her name was "Ocia" but I only remember her as Aunt Ocie.  Her name was pronounced Oh'-see.  It was an appropriate pronunciation because everything she ever talked about or did, should have ended with a hearty laugh as though she were saying, "Oh, see!"  She was the kind of person who went about doing everything like a little tornado.  She rushed from one room to the next.  She rushed to cook or clean.  She rushed around the church doing this and that, but I didn't quite know what she did.  She definitely rushed when she talked and at times, it even seemed like she rushed to start laughing.  I held Aunt Ocie in awe even though I wanted to laugh at everything she did.     

          However, when I left her after a visit it felt like half of my brain was out of place with the other half of my brain.  Was that just the way I saw her or was it her?  If she was so serious about what she did or said, why did she also seem so silly?  Which was she?  Finally I realized she was both.  Full of zeal, always funny, a bit trying, with a remarkable memory for detail, and a heart of gold. Aunt Ocie is worth remembering.  I still smile and say, "Oh, see!"

          Other memories are clear only because I remember the ages of my brothers or sisters.  I suppose one of my first memories was of the awful screeching noise coming from that baby who, I was told, was my new sister.  She had been placed in the crib just moments before the screeching began.  I remember having wondered where the crib had come from and why it was in my parent's bedroom.  Yet there I was, looking through the crib rails, watching that curious little thing with her scrunched up face and chubby rear-end peeking out of the diaper.  Not realizing it would hurt her I simply reached inside the crib and pinched her on the bottom.  I was probably just as shocked at her reaction as she was to the cause of her quivering new-born wail.  I didn't understand why she cried, but I instinctively knew to back away from the crib.  I know exactly how old I was.  I was three and a half years old when she was born and when my parents came running to see what had happened.

          That same sister, years later and still three and a half years younger than me, came to visit after I'd been in the hospital due to my heart.  We had lived a distance apart for too many years and events made us realize we needed each other and needed to be together.  We hugged and talked and laughed like little school girls, and not the older, mature women that society would have dictated because of our ages.  I couldn't tell you how many times we started a new sentence with the words "remember the time . . . ".  Our daughters sat and listened and laughed with us at all of our antics, and love, and silliness.  That night she slept in my bedroom and we talked and laughed until about 1:30 a.m. when there was a knock on the door.  Without hesitation, our daughters entered and teasingly chastised us, telling us it was time for all little girls to go to sleep.  I'm sure, the way I remember it, we were in the middle of a giggle when we both finally fell asleep.

          One curious realization was that although we talked about the same situations, there were times when our memories differed somewhat.  There were a few details here or there or words we were sure someone had said and yet, there would be something different for one than what was remembered by the other.  Nothing was so different that it changed the story or the meaning or the emotion we shared through it all.  Yet there were differences. 

          How important are those differences?  Were the differences or were the shared occurrences, what helped shape or make the relationship she and I have today?  I don't know.  Everything before today is gone in one sense, and yet all has brought me to this day in my life.  And I don't believe my age matters at all except for a few events, maybe.  Today I can say it is exciting to remember.  Today there is an amazement of peace and joy that has resulted from all of the things God's brought me through.  This also means that the events, good or bad, which created my memories are part of the amazement. 

          It wasn’t always like that, I know.  And too many times I've let memories flood over me as though I would drown in what I had tried to forget.  Just like Peter walking on the water toward Jesus, when he looked at the waves caused by the wind and remembered what he had already learned about the treachery of the sea, and the impossibility of a mere human conquering the water and walking on top of it, he sank and proved his memory of those lessons to be correct.  But Peter, who stopped believing for those brief seconds, suddenly remembered that Jesus was still there.  It was Peter's memory of who Jesus was that caused him to call out to our Lord and Peter was rescued. 

          He remembered.  It was at first only an event.  However, the event turned dramatic and would become a memory so vivid that Peter, and all of those in the boat, would never forget.

          We have memories of our human, worldly existence but we also have memories of experiences with God.  Is there a difference?  We can be paralyzed by a memory and still feel we are captives or we can soar in a memory that causes us to rise above everything.  We can stop where we are and continue to live in a memory with perpetual pain or at times we dance and play like children in our memories.  In the midst of a memory we can lose ourselves in either pain or joy.  Yet, God never wants us to live only in what we remember, but rather to be alive in Him every moment.      

          That's why I think there are memories of experiences with God which stay alive and vital as though they are happening again at the very moment we remember.  God is.  He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He always is.  Even when I say He was, He actually is..  You know, "I Am . . .", He said to Moses.  The experiences which stay alive are those events in which God always is.     With other types of memories I can choose how long to remember or when to move on.  But the words of God - what He has spoken - are true every moment, every second, every day of my life.  They are not words that I can choose to forget, they are not words from which I can or want to move away.  They are God, again this moment, as they were when I first heard them or had the experience with Him.  If I hadn't gone through all of this with God myself, I would think it certainly sounds confusing but it really isn't.

          Let me tell you about the first experience I had that is still my most vivid memory.  It is what I call my "today" memory because every time I remember, it is just as vivid today and it was then; it's like living the experience all over again.

          No one ever told me about what was happening when I was nearly four years old.  I spoke about it a few times with my mother when I was much older and she affirmed that it had happened but that was all and she never coached me to remember things her way.  I still see it all clearly but at the time knew very little about the danger we were in.  My parents laid a mattress on the floor in the corner of the living room, all the while saying the words "hurry" and "tornado".  They had us children lie down on the mattress but it was only when they brought in my sister who was almost eight years older than me that I began to realize something was wrong.  My sister was an invalid with hydrocephalus and couldn't walk nor even talk very much.  She knew very little and she was always in the bedroom being tended to by our mother.  But with her beside me and then daddy bringing a second mattress into the living room, I very simply but seriously asked him, "Daddy, can I ask Jesus to make the tornado go away?"  I didn't know what a tornado was, but I knew Jesus could fix it.  Daddy in his faith in and his love for God answered just as simply, "Brenda, you can ask Jesus for anything, anytime."  And as daddy laid the second mattress on top of all of us, hoping to keep us safe, I did just that.  I asked Jesus to make the tornado go away and I knew He heard me.  It was the faith of a little child. 

          A few minutes later daddy lifted the top mattress.  Talking to our mother, with tears running down his face, Daddy held my four or five month old sister, and motioned for me to come to him.  He told mama how he had stood on the front porch and watched the tornado wind its' way toward town, and that at the edge of town it lifted, tore its' path above us, and then descend again on the other side.  He knew my prayer had been answered.  For me, though, what I still remember most were the words deep within my little, faith believing heart, "I did this for you.  Remember Me!"  And I knew it was God.

          Well, I still remember, Lord!  That day my faith was set in You and I've always remembered.  I've never forgotten.  Those words, the words You spoke to me when I was not yet four years old, have resounded within me every moment of every day.  You knew that day that there would soon be events in my life that would bruise and tear my body, torture my mind, rip through my soul, and cause me agony in my spirit.  And yet, even when those things began and kept happening to me, I would run down the center aisle at church early on a Sunday morning to witness the love of Jesus Christ through the lovely little ladies.  I would sing the song "Praise Him, Praise Him, All Ye Little Children" and I knew that You heard me sing.  I would listen to my parents and grandparents talk about Jesus Christ our Lord, or pray to You because they loved You and knew You, and I would remember and know You loved me, too, God.

          Yes, all of the events of our lives shape who we are.  And yes, we can have difficulty moving away from the memories that still cause despair or worry.  But the boisterous winds and waves in our memories that may cause us to sink are only there to take our eyes off of our Lord. 

          God, You who knew that the pain of this world would be too much for us to bear, You who knew we would experience situations that our own minds couldn't comprehend, You who knew disease would destroy our bodies and our hope, also provided a way to escape that we may be able to bear it (I Cor. 10:13) through Jesus Christ, your Son.  Your Word tells us that our way to escape the pain of this world is Jesus because as He said, He is " . . . the way, the truth, and the life . . . " (John 14:6). 

          Oh, God! I look at my past and I remember all that has caused me pain; and yet through everything, even when I felt no hope, I've said, "God is my Answer."  From the time I looked up at my Daddy's tear stained face and heard You whisper to my tiny heart that I was to always remember You, I knew that somehow and some day You would bring me through all things.  Every day - every day! - You are still my only hope and my only Answer!

          And You know, God, that I still pray that I would go through all of that and more just to help one other person, one woman, know there is hope in Jesus Christ!  Please, God, give me one more to tell and then, give me another and another and another! 

          I love you, my Lord and my God!

           My sister, on the left, is STILL three and a half years younger than me!