Wow! I can hardly see for the tears. God is working through you to get to me. No doubt! Thank you. Reading that prayer was like an arrow to the heart. I WILL pray that. Every day. Every hour if I need to. Thank you so much for that.
I think it IS time to surrender to God and to a lot of things that are completely beyond my control. I’ve been fighting God and )one) man for so long now; it’s been so HARD to see why God would put someone like this in my life when I deserve so much BETTER, but there is bound to be a reason why he did this, and I am going to figure it out!
Glad God could use me to help. When asked to pray on FR or elsewhere on the internet, He pricked my heart not just to say “I’ll pray for you” but to find a prayer or let Him direct what to pray and then send it or post it. I’ve attempted to be obedient.
God Bless you . . . I learned years ago that “God puts His desires in our hearts” he doesn’t give us “our” desires . . . He plants His desires in our hearts so that His desires become our desires.
A lifetime ago, I was on the cusp of suicide having convinced myself that I had made too many mistakes to continue to live. All was black.
God intervened and showed me that the reason I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel was because the tunnel wasn’t straight . . . it was curved. How many times or how large the curve was, I would not know until I followed the tunnel to the end. If I’d put my hand out and feel the side of the tunnel, I’d feel the grooves of others who had passed through that same tunnel. All I had to do was reach out and touch and keep going. And when I got out of that tunnel, I knew that any future tunnel would be “a piece of cake.”
I also learned that every day, I make good decisions. THOUSANDS of good decisions. The alarm goes off. I open my eyes [good], stretch [good], throw off the covers [good], sit up on the side of the bed [good], slip on my slippers [good], stand up [good], walk into the bathroom [good], turn on the bathroom light [good] . . . you get the picture. I dress [very good]. I eat [very good]. I get in the car [good] start the car [good] put it in drive [good] push the gas pedal [good] stop at the end of the driveway to check for traffic [very good] etc. I stop at stop signs [very good], stop lights [very good] etc etc.
THOUSANDS of GOOD and VERY GOOD decisions EVERY DAY and I’m berating myself over maybe 200 BAD decisions IN MY ENTIRE LIFETIME? And NONE OF THEM VERY BAD or worse! [Murder, Grand Theft, etc.] God’s forgiven me for the bad ones so why am I saying I won’t forgive myself? God is greater than I and if I don’t forgive myself, I’m breaking the First Commandment.
A few months ago, I was talking with friends about my BAD mistake of marrying my ex-the-Lutheran-pastor. I said a prayer as I went to sleep wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t said “yes.” And God gave me a dream. I would have become an unmarried Lutheran Deaconess. I would not have had my two kids or six grandkids. I would have not been available for my BFF who needed “someone like me” to toss a credit card in her lap and say “here, go fix your car” and KNOW that God would take care of paying off the bill. [My BFF paid me back for that and for using my credit card to purchase a washing machine when hers broke down. Yet, I wasn’t worried about being repaid. I had a peace that surpasses understanding in my heart/soul/spirit.]
I would not have been a Social Worker in Alabama to help the “little old lady” who was on her way to commit suicide because she was being hounded by a sleazy-store-owner whose usury had her owing him her entire SSI check every month. Or the lady I could not assist financially but who I met later at a gasoline station and, recognizing me, said she’d meant to thank me because I’d given her hope that she could locate a job. And she had.
So, yes, I made a really really stupid, dumb, wrong, bad decision when I was 20 years old. But in the aftermath, I’ve been blessed to know tens of thousands of people I’d never have met, if I’d said “no.” And God’s been able to use me in places and areas I’d never had known if I’d just been a Lutheran Deaconess.
[Not to disparage any Lutheran Deaconesses. I know I would have been content but who’d have helped those people I was able to help because of what I’d been through?]
God bless us, everyone.