Well, first a few tidbits so that you know a little bit
about me. I am just your simple, run of the mill, woman. I am a mother,
daughter, friend, and teacher, lover of paper crafting, TV and movies. I am the
mother of five beautiful children who range in age from 10 to 22 years old. I
have been a homeschooling mom since 1998….wow, has it been that long?! And I
have spent the last 18 years as a stay at home mom raising my family and
schooling my children. Most of all, and above all, I am a child of God. I came
to know Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior at the age of 23.
The last five to six years of my life have been a season of
suffering. As most of you, I am not unfamiliar with loss. As a Christian woman,
married to what I believed to be a Christian man, stay at home, homeschooling
mom, I never dreamed I would find myself where I am today….I am divorced. I
won’t bore you with all of the happenings and the circumstances, other than to
say this was not my heart and not what I wanted. It’s a painful, painful thing
to sit and watch your family be torn apart because you can’t do a darn thing
about another person.
Anyway, the past three years, especially, have been a time
of pain and suffering….not only my own, but my children’s. It’s a mom’s heart,
right? To see them suffer, hurt and be angry and you can’t take it away….ugh!
It’s the worst! And at the same time, I am hurting so badly myself and trying
to deal with my own pain and loss. Needless to say, there were days I didn’t
think I could even get out of bed. My life turned upside down, overnight it
seemed, and all I could think of was, “Where was God?”
I couldn’t believe that God was allowing this to happen to
me. I was hurt and angry and couldn’t understand why He wouldn’t fix it. I cannot
even begin to count the hours that I spent in prayer just begging and pleading,
crying out for Him to change my circumstances. Well, through some pretty
amazing people that He put in my life, I began to finally see that His plan was
not to change my circumstances, it was to change me.
The truths of His Word had not changed just because my life
was. What was happening in my life wasn’t a shock to Him. In no way, shape or
form had it taken Him off guard. He wasn’t stumbling around trying to react to
the events taking place in my life. Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my
unformed substance, in your book were written, every one of them, the days that
were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” How comforting it was to
know that He isn’t surprised by the things that happen to me. The long and
short of it is that God has used these trials to change me, draw me closer to
Him, trust Him in ways that I never did before, and He has produced a faith in
me that didn’t even exist before all of this. I know Him in a way that I never
would have any other way. The truth is that when my life is going great and
things are good, I don’t lean on God. I hate to say it, but it’s true. When
things are calm I don’t cling to Him, during trials I do. Simple as that. It’s
during the trials and tribulations of life that I am changed and grown. My
heart never comes through the trials looking the same as it did in the
beginning of them.
Our trials are not purposeless. The hurt and pain are not
meaningless. There’s no better comfort than hearing from someone who has been
through similar circumstances and how God has used them in their life. It gives
hope and a feeling that you are not alone. My hope and prayer is that by
sharing how God has and is working in my life, through the struggles and the
triumphs, will give encouragement and comfort to even one person. He has used
so many people, whether friends, mentors, pastors, my children or authors, to
help and encourage me during the past few years. Humbly, I pray He will use me
in the same way.
May God bless you today!
