I have yet to reach the end of this thread. I’m about to hit post 2,300, after spending more than a few minutes every day for almost a week on it.
What becomes clear, after diligently reading each post and sincerely trying to understand each person’s position, is that perhaps God, in His time, has not touched the souls of some.
Hopefully, someone who is seeking his or her way may find something written on this thread to help on the journey to Him.
I can say that in my own case, I think I was aware of God always, but not “called” until I was in my mid-thirties. Or, IOW, I did not feel that God had touched me personally until then. Further, it was nothing that I did on my part. I was drawn. There was a particular moment in time that I got on my knees in my dining room, alone, in the dark (in more ways than one), and asked God to please help me.
Now, to anyone looking from the outside, I would have seemed to have had a good life. I had a good job, everything I needed (not very much on top of that, but all I needed and some of what I wanted, materially), blessed with a good family, reasonably (questionably?) intelligent (although not educated by any formal system), my looks still held up pretty well, and I didn’t lack for good friendships. But. But, I had a hurt that nothing on earth and no person could take away. I hurt terribly. I ached on the inside with so much pain and, looking back, I think I just constantly wept silently inside all the while keeping up appearances and walking around smiling and appearing happy, and getting on with life.
In truth, I was miserable. More than miserable, but there’s not a word sufficient to describe it.
I saw what I thought was happiness in others. I saw that they got happiness from relationships, from things, from the world but, I could not grasp it no matter how hard I tried. And I tried just about everything there was to try only to find that everything failed me. And miserably so. I could not have joy; it was beyond my reach for some reason that I couldn’t figure out.
When I was a child I attended church. As an adult, I did again from time to time. I liked the atmosphere and the worship services but, again, I just couldn’t get hold of the happiness. It was like I was forever barred from what everybody else seemed to be getting. I couldn’t work for it, I couldn’t pay for it ... I was just not ever going to get hold of it.
I would start new things, new friendships, new learning, new hobbies. Always something new with me. I looked in all the places anyone else would look. Admittedly, I looked also into things that weren’t quite clean and wholesome. A lot of them. I think people who thought that they knew me would have been shocked and repulsed to have known the real me. Heck, I know they would have been. I repulsed myself.
As I sit writing this, I’m forced to look back on my life then as opposed to now. It ain’t pretty. I hid a lot of stuff from a lot of people ... worst of all, myself. Truth being, I would not have told you a lie if my life depended on it, but I lived nothing but a lie every single day.
Um. Did I tell you that I hurt very deeply? Gnawing, never-go-away, deep agony. “Agony.” That’s the word I need.
Deep despair and great agony. A ton of bricks on my shoulders when life was what it was supposed to be according to the world and I was supposed to be happy, and yet ...
And yet, nothing. Just deep, deep pain.
So, what did I do? I ran.
I went overseas thinking that my life was to be found elsewhere. I felt that I needed to meet some different people, and hear and see some different things.
It worked! I was so happy that I thought I would move to the place forever and live in complete bliss.
Until I awoke two days later with the worst hangover of my life. I wanted to die. Not only because of the pain of the hangover, but for what I was doing.
I came back home and tried again. I was still walking the walk, but that ton of bricks was still firmly in place. The dark clouds were still in their proper place: over my head.
A year later, I decided that foreign land really was calling me back so off I go again. Once there again, I thought, “This is all wrong. I’m not supposed to be here.”
Soon back home again.
My daughter at university and me home alone. I hit the kitchen light switch off, heading to bed, and then, right there in my dining room in the dark, alone, I had a sudden urge to hit my knees and just pray and cry. It slammed me like a ton of bricks.
I asked something like, “God. If You can really hear me ... If You are there ... Will You, please ... Please, Lord. Please... can You ... will You help ... me?” I was just so ... dead. I was dead inside and there was no life. I had everything I should have wanted, but I had no life in me. Inexpressible anguish.
(Typos should start about here because my eyes are welling tears.)
I am sobbing. Sorry.
So. I get up off my knees and I head to bed. I feel a little easier. I assumed from all of the crying.
I go to bed. I go to sleep.
I awake a short while later to my name being audibly called. Audibly. Not once, not twice, but three times. My first and second names. Three times. I say nothing in response... I just listen.
I received the greatest peace I’ve ever known in my life flooding the room, flooding me, from inside out and outside in. What did I do? I said nothing. I did not cry. I simply went back to sleep.
From that moment on, I have never looked back. I gave my life to Him and I have failed many ways and many times, but I am assured of His grace because of one second in time in my life that struck me like nothing ever had nor ever will again. Can I describe it? No. There are no words for it. There are no words for what He does in a person.
This is not written very well, I know. But it flows from my heart directly to my keyboard to you. It’s to say that HE is my Happiness. HE is my Joy. There are no books, no scholarly debates, no science that can convince a person; He alone does it. He has the power and He puts something in you that no science can define.
Each person must come to Him on their own.
As I sit here with five slipped discs and arthritis in my spine and hips on top of trigeminal neuralgia (now, there’s a disease for you), lupus and a host of other physical ailments, I look at my crutches and I thank Him ... so gratefully and with so many tears running down my face. And I pray. I pray for each and every one of you seeking Him. Keep on knocking because He hears you. He knows.
It’s like I sit with angels around me. I can feel His presence and I know that I am not alone; that He cares and loves me enough to guide and watch over me. What I don’t understand, and probably never will, is why. There is no love equal to His. Science will never get there.
That hole ... that empty place. It is there for a purpose and it is there to be filled.
God’s words are true. If a person seeks Him, He will not fail them. I bear witness to it. I am not ashamed on account of Him, because He is my life. He gave me a joy that I cannot put into words.
All the debate in the world won’t change the fact that only He could and did give me life. This is I know. And with that life, an abundance of peace, joy and assurance.
So, Kosta & JCB, I’m saying that I was once apart from God and can understand from where you both are coming in your points of view. But, and finally, I don’t think a person will ever find God without having looked for Him first.
Best Regards Always,
SouthernClaire
Beautiful.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
THX THX.
True.
What a testimony. Thank you for sharing that.
And until you’ve been there, there is simply know way of knowing how true and how real something like that is and can be. It is eerily similar to my own. Change some of the details, such as life circumstances, and the story is basically the same.
God’s love, His forgiveness, His peace, His restoration, are all facts and are all real and cannot be reduced to a formula or set of data points. They cannot be *proved* to anyone else, despite the fact that they are true and are real. It will only be experienced by someone who wants it.
God will not force Himself on anyone. People will get what they want, even though it isn’t necessarily what they expect.
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I am so sorry, Claire. May God bless and protect you.
Thank you for your honest testimony, to the glory of God in Christ.