Category: Redemption

And God Showed Up!

Posted on by Debbie

Hello Friends.  After the death of my son I spiraled. For almost five years. Then one day I met my future and sill is, husband. In a bar. Where I worked. Sounds like the beginning of a wonderful Christian testimony huh? But God does work in mysterious ways and even when we don’t know Him He is making a way for us to find Him. My husband Mike and I were two really different people. But he was kind, soft-spoken, and he treated me well. This was a first. I did not trust anyone, least of all men. So after dating a while we were married. He had a son who was five, and I had an eight year old daughter.

So now, I had a husband who was a good man and he was very patient with me. But living with me with all my issues must have been like living in the eye of a tornado. I love him and wanted to trust him but didn’t know how. This was the exact same way I felt about God. So after a few months of marriage we began to have problems. My first reaction was to take my daughter and flee but something (like the Holy Spirit duh) told me to stay and that we could call a pastor to counsel us. The next trick was finding a pastor. Once we began counseling we began to go to church. One Sunday as we were singing praise and worship (which was REALLY uncomfortable when I first started out) and I heard this voice say “I love you my child.” Startled I looked around to see who said it and nobody was looking at me. Then I heard it again. “I love you my child and you can trust me.” I remembered what my son had said about his conversation with Jesus and I knew at that moment that God was really real and that He was talking to me.

That day my heart was opened to God and all of His goodness. I began to worship Him with my whole heart. But there were still a lot of ugly things in my life. Smoking, drinking, occasionally pot. Mike and I would go to bars and party still. Until God told me to stop and the very same moment He said that I was delivered. From all of it. I quit smoking, cold turkey with no withdrawal. I quit pot and alcohol the same way. I took a step of faith with the Lord and have never gone back to any of those things. Clean and sober for 28 years now to the Glory of God. This revealed a lot about the Father to me because I hadn’t even asked for these things and He had given them to me.

Yesterday Mike who is a teacher came home and told me that one of his high school kids had asked him how he and I met. I looked at him in horror hoping he hadn’t told the truth, in a bar. But he had and also told her how my son had led me to the Lord and I had led him and our children followed. I have always been embarrassed by the story of how we met. Mike’s students response to it was “that is a great love story.” The difference in the story was the perspective. When we put God in the story it changes everything.

My only problem is that He had not addressed the brokenness inside of me. The wounded child who was trying to change but just couldn’t let go of the pain.  But that story is for the next post. Until then I will leave you with this…..

Psalm 68:20 Amplified Bible (AMP)

God is to us a God of deliverances and salvation; and to God the Lord belongs escape from death [setting us free].

My Story Part Two

Posted on by Debbie

My last post, Daniel Christopher Day, December 18, 1972 – May 5, 1982, told the story of my son’s death and my redemption. I wish I could tell you that once he led me to the Lord things got easier – but that would not be the truth. Yes, I now had peace residing inside me but I still did not know how to access it. You see, Danny led me to the Lord but then he died and I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to do. I had no previous exposure or understanding of God or who He was. To me, He had always been this big, scary, mysterious being up somewhere called Heaven who had His finger on the button and was ready to zap me at any moment. Because I was bad. I had done bad things.

The first thing I did after Danny died was drink like never before. I was 28 years old and my son had just died and I was alone with a 5 year old daughter. I kept trying to pray but it was hard as I didn’t know the person I was praying to and was sure He wouldn’t listen to me anyway. But somehow (the still small voice I wasn’t alert to listening to) I started watching church services on TV on Sundays. I saw this one young pastor and thought, oh my gosh could what he is saying be true? When I found out he was local I started going to his church. It was strange and scary. All the people there seemed happy and for lack of a better word, good. I felt really out of place but everyone welcomed me and treated me well. The only problem was, that I was still in the throws of grief so bad I didn’t even want to get out of bed each day.

After about 6 months of attending this church I asked to meet with the pastor to discuss my grief. What he said to me during that meeting would affect my life for the next five years. He told me “if you had enough faith you would not be struggling like this.” Now I can’t tell you the words that came before or after those. I am sure that they were kind and not intended for harm. But this young preacher did not realized what those twelve words mentioned here would do to my life. I walked out of his office and did not think about God again for the next five years. Once again I was not good enough. Once again I had failed.

The only reason I mention this is because everyone, not just pastors, need to weigh their words carefully. Words have power. The other reason is because people need to know that if someone says something to them that makes them feel bad, they have the power to not accept it. I didn’t know that then, but I would learn that lesson later.

The next five years were a blur of partying and despair. That is until the day Jesus showed up in a mighty way. I will talk about that in my next entry. For now, I thank God everyday that He saved me and that He has given me a story and a voice to share it.

Blessings, Deb