I never used drugs or drank. I often
think about what kept me from going down that path that so many take to stop
their pain. I certainly had all the emotional qualifications to become an
addict. I don’t believe that anyone wakes up one day and says, “You know what I
think I’ll do with my life? I think I’ll get addicted to drugs, lose all my
friends and family, break hearts—including my own—lose my health, break laws,
get arrested and possibly one day be found in an ally dying from an overdose.”
Where does it start? Usually, something
triggers the need to soothe a hurt. An emotional pain or even physical pain
needs to STOP. The problem with dealing with any pain or hurt in that way
brings on a deadly probem that soon wraps its tentacles around a person’s life
and they end up with a hurt that owns them—helpless to the point of death.
Like me, you might say but I never went
that far but I still reached for something to stop the pain.
Sometimes a person is bored and just
looking for a ‘fun time’ the night or day, it begins. It’s like going to a
carnival that promises a rush beyond normal life, excitement full of lights and
cotton candy. Nothing destructive or painful sends them off on this path. They
would say that it wasn’t some deep emotional scar they wanted to get free of
that brought them down to the place they find themselves. Whether triggered by a
curious or sad longing that sends us seeking the quick fix both can take us to
a place we wish we'd never gone.
If we live long enough we all have
something come into our lives that could open us up to one or the other reason
to look for something outside of ourselves for momentary comfort. So many
different things drive us.
Is there any other choice? Is there
anything that can stop the hurt, help me with things I can’t do and even offer
me more contentment than I’m experiencing?
YES
But you probably don’t want to hear what
it is. Neither did I. I’m glad, though, that the Lord kept me long enough to
listen to what He had to say in the beginning of my walk with Him. If you will
allow me a little of your time I have something I think you might find
interesting and hopefully, useful.
I knew nothing. All I knew was that there
was a GOD. I knew nothing of Jesus or the Holy Spirit. In a way, I was
fortunate because I had no religious doctrine that the Lord had to undo. I
started with a blank page.
Oh, my, there were so many things I
didn’t know back then. I had so much to learn. I started reading a Living Bible
that one of my customers gave me as a gift. She had no reason to do this. She
just brought it to me one day and said that she thought I would like it seeing
that I had just become a Christian. That moment was one of the most valuable
pieces of knowing God I’d ever have handed to me. Not just that Bible itself,
but how He would begin giving me exactly what’s needed through so many sources
that I would never dream possible. She was the first of many the Lord would use
in my life.
You want to know what hit me in an even
greater way that day? God was talking to someone about ME! He spoke MY name to
this woman and impressed on her to buy me that Bible.
Amazing….
I devoured that book! I still have it and
it’s tattered and torn. I read it as if my life depended on it and—it did. I
read the Word like a starving person. Soon I’d read so much that I was stuffed!
I’d read how the Lord taught in parables
and I guess even back then with my creative writing mind I could see, taste and
feel in those parables what the people were going through.
Then something happened.
The first time I realized that I had come
into the world with something that was all mine and no one had told me about
for the first 22 years of being alive was when the Lord told me about my—God
Given Square.
This is how I started to learn, by the
Lord giving me my very own personal parable. Let me share some of my early walk
with you.
My God-Given Square, parable
A man knocks on my door one day and he
says that he has the deed to a piece of property that belongs to me. I’ve never
known about this property or who would have given it to me. But he’s persistent
so I agree to go look at it. We pull up to this property and get out to take a
look. While he fumbles in his briefcase for the deed, I’m left staring at this
large piece of property—puzzled.
It's covered with piles of black garbage
bags, rusting discarded items, littered trash, piles of fallen limbs, and some
things I can’t recognize for the flies buzzing around them.
Finding the deed, he smiles, hands it to
me, wishes me good luck and disappears. I’m now left alone standing by this
property, my mouth hanging open and at a total loss. Who gave me this property
and who did all this? Furthermore, what in the world am I going to do with it
now?
I spent a few days seeing this plot of
land in my mind and wondering why.
Quietly, one day the Lord stood beside me
surveying this property with his hands clasped behind his back—smiling.
I thought, “What is he smiling about?”
I certainly didn’t see anything to smile
about—so of course, I had to ask.
“Lord, what is all this? I thought I’d
been given something good. This is a mess.”
“It's beautiful.”
My second piece of learning was that the
Lord always backed up what He said to me with the Word. Unbeknownst to me,
while I was devouring the Bible that I’d been given, all that Word was being
laid up for me so the Holy Spirit could bring it back to my remembrance as
needed. Some I didn’t even remember reading but it had been deposited IN me
while I read.
Isaiah 61:3
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion,
to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of
praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.
I was dumbstruck. Hearing the Word with
so much promise while staring at a mess that somehow represented my life was
incomprehensible. There was no way those Words were being spoken about THIS
property.
Little did I know right then that it
would become true.
Within all those bags were Beauty, Joy,
Praise, and
Righteousness prepared for me so that MY
life might give God Glory!
To be continued.
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