Category: Forgiveness

Rainy with a Chance of Life

Somehow my despairing mind had allowed me to fall asleep on Saturday night, February 19th back in the first year of the new millenium, 2000. My plan had been rehearsed out in my numb mind and the stage was set to ensure that only my husband and our 1 year old son would be at home with me on Sunday morning. My 17 year old son at the time was up on a local mountain attending his winter Christian youth camp, his older sister had left the nest in an unprepared, angered hurry a couple months earlier and we were not on speaking terms. I went to sleep believing that this second time around at single parenthood would be a much easier scenario than before.

My first divorce in 1982 came on the heels of being a victim of domestic violence in a life of crime on the run with my first husband and toddler daughter. I was 7 months pregnant with my second child, with a rock bottom self esteem and maybe only two loyal friends who still decided to stand by my side afterward, besides my parents who took me back in under their nurturing wings. This time, eighteen years later, as I was prepared to ask my 2nd husband for a divorce the next day, I rationalized that I was a strong woman, self-built from the dungeon up, with a solid career who was valued in the company; loved and respected by many. I justified that our 1 year old son, James needed a mom who felt the value she deserved by her man instead of witnessing the recurring wounded broken heart of a neglected marital relationship that was growing in its indifference rather than in love.

I was ready to start a new life. A life with true love as a part of it.

As the dawn broke on that Sunday, it was pouring down a hard, fast rain that is infrequently experienced in our region of Southern California. As I lay there with an empty place in the bed next to me (my husband being a pre-dawn riser even on his day off work), my darkened mind came to a break in the clouds and an overwhelmingly urge came upon me with such positive clarity. I felt that I needed to go to church that day before confronting my husband with the divorce talk.

Church had not previously been any part of our 11 year marriage, except for Christmas and Easter traditional services with my parents at my grandmother’s church an hour drive away.

I found myself declaring to my husband Jeff that I was going to take myself and baby James to church that morning without talking about anything else. To my surprise, Jeff said he would come along also and so we decided to attend the same church that our teenage son Bryan had already been very involved with for two years, Calvary Chapel Menifee. I had been pondering and admiring his consistent peace and joy in our home, even in the midst of some stressful tension there, for a few months. I reasoned that he must’ve gotten it from that church.

We dressed in our “nice, church” clothes, since all we had known before was Christmas and Easter services at a traditional United Methodist church. Much to our surprise upon exiting our car at the High School gymnasium-turned-into-a-Sunday-holy-place was to find most everyone in casual jeans, sweatshirts and rain boots. We likely stood out in the large crowd and was greeted by a former boss friend of mine who did not hold back her welcoming shock that we were even there. After she kindly helped us get our baby to the nursery, we thought it best to sit toward the back for an easy escape. The contemporary worship band started and the room quickly turned very uncomfortable with uninhibited arm raising, hollering and dancing in place that seemed to me like maybe this supposed “gymnasium-turned-holy-place” was instead actually the High School dance venue. I was conflicted in my spirit and I wanted to run out, but then a lyric grabbed my heart and held me in its grip. It talked about God loving me even though He knew my broken and wandering heart.

I could not comprehend my hot tears on my face. “Why am I crying?!”, I wondered.

The young pastor began his sermon and as me being a member of the Spellbinders Speaking Club at my company, I was very impressed by his skillful delivery. I wasn’t paying attention much to the content of his eloquent speech, but he was a master at public speaking and so I was gleaning from him…until I actually heard some of the words of his message…the only ones I can recall to this day so clearly. He started listing off some of the very behaviors that my husband was engaging in at home and I was shocked at that exposure out loud…and then I began to recognize some of my own behaviors in that list…and then came the punchline. “When you stand before Your maker at the end of your life, will you be confident or ashamed?” The full gospel message was shared.

I learned for the first time, with an understanding like never before that day, what true love is and where it is found…and I learned what forgiveness really was all about and why it was necessary. I was broken and humbled.

The pastor invited those who wanted to receive Jesus Christ into their hearts and accept His forgiveness to come forward. My heart made the leap across many laps into the aisle running with arms open to be in God’s embrace, but my feet felt glued to the ground and paralyzed, unable to make a move. I couldn’t pick up my cement block feet even as the second call to come forward came…and then the unthinkable happened. The pastor actually proclaimed, “someone in here feels glued to the floor and yet needs to come. Pick up your feet and come now!” I was freed!! I could move! I actually did climb over feet and laps at that moment and I made it to where all the others stood in broken, awe at what Jesus had done for us. As my swollen, tear-filled eyes were closed to imagine my embrace with God, I felt a very real arm come around my waist. I looked to find my husband, sobbing too, as he too responded to the call. I hadn’t even looked at him or taken any notice of him during any of the worship or the message…and so I was alarmed that when I looked at him right then, at the altar of the Lord, bowed together in such broken humility…all I could see was true love and forgiveness within his soul. I forgave him. In that moment, the slate of every wrong that I had been tracking against him and that was being shamed against me was wiped clean.

A new life indeed was started. An eternal one. Together with my husband. True love lives in us. We are forgiven.

Radical transformation has taken place once we made the choice to obediently follow God’s lead and make some needed, radical changes. Some of those changes were difficult and they hurt, such as cutting off some long-standing friendships or walking away from hobbies and habits that would hinder rather than help our new life. The road of transformation in Christ is long, winding and lifelong, with many obstacles to overcome, but it is the free way!! The toll price has been paid for us by the blood of Jesus Christ and His resurrection buries the cost of every obstacle in its own grave forevermore. We can live victoriously no matter the pain, sorrow or celebratory circumstances. Love covers all. Gratitude uncovers grace.

In keeping with God’s goodness and compassion, after certain segments of His working masterpiece of us was ready to His liking, He has loosened the hold on some areas and given us back some desires that we had initially had to let go of, but now are able to manage well in the freedom that He allows and this time with a pure motive and heart.

Life in Christ is the best! God never gives up pursuing after us to reach the next level of the race to the Prize. His Holy Spirit urges us forward just as He did me on that Sunday morning of doom dawned to light.

From Life to Legacy

It took me half a lifetime to discover that I was born to write. Add a baker’s dozen years of mental paralysis from the fear, insecurity/inferiority and vulnerability to criticism sure to come with the territory…and so here I am just now launching a blog to glorify God and the gift He has given me. “It’s about time, but what about that book you’ve been writing?” I hear some of you thinking with a dramatic (SMH). BUT, good thing that in God’s economy there is no late offering. His timing operates in the eternal realm and so to Him this is right on time for the purpose He plans to use it for. Hallelujah! Nothing in His economy is ever wasted for those who love God and have accepted His call to come to Him (Romans 8:28).
The vision for this blog is to encourage and inspire people to grow in their relationship with Christ Jesus by way of using His Story/Word of God to be seen throughout His work in writing my personal story of life. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6) in each one of our life stories. It is through an active faith in Him that we can know how to live victoriously through every season and pathway, whether it is on a peak or in a valley or navigating a treacherous turn. He guides us along the stepping stone pathways of varied terrain and direction…and we can see and know the next right step to take if only we remain teachable by God, keeping Him in the proper position in relation to ourselves (Proverbs 3:5-6). Life lessons are often most effective to shape and build our intended character when they are learned through grievous sorrow and suffering. It is within those times that we are most likely to recognize that we are vulnerable and have a need for dependence; a dependent need for God who can fulfill every need to the point of lacking nothing (Psalm 23:1). You see, the next right step may not be the one that appears logical in our finite minds or that which fulfills what WE want or what feels good. The more we come to know God intimately through His Son Jesus, the ONE AND ONLY way to our Heavenly Father, the more we realize what we don’t know about God and His ways and thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). I implore you to get to know the One who is the Way and then to keep on knowing the way of victorious living.
Will you allow me to now humbly start showing you how God has chosen to use the story of my life to bring testimony and witness to HIS story that is the GOOD NEWS of all time?
The best place to start is at the beginning; the root of life. The scriptures tell us that the very root of life is that before we were ever born or even in the womb at all, we were LOVED, thought about and planned for exactly the era and vicinities that our life would occupy and whom our earthly family would be (Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:13:17). We were CHOSEN by the Master Designer, God to make a masterpiece out of us over our ordained lifespan here on earth (Ephesians 2:10). It is during that time in the eternal realm, outside of our earthly timeline, that God gave us every spiritual blessing and gift that He uniquely planned for us to use for His Kingdom purposes (Ephesians 1:3). We all were called to be holy as He is holy. Holiness is simply being set apart for the purposes of God. What we do with our life and how we choose to use it becomes our legacy for our loved ones and future generations. These spiritual blessings, gifts, talents, abilities and capacities are presented to us by God as He deems is the perfect time for whomever He chooses to carry them, but it is up to us to RECEIVE them by faith. A gift is given to be received. Have you ever not accepted or received a gift from a giver? Or taken it to be returned? Receiving and keeping is always a choice we have to make. That act of receiving what He had set apart to give us individually is obedient faith and trust in God; believing that He indeed is our personal Master (Lord) and that what He says in His Word is true…about Himself, His work, His promises and who HE says we are to Him…and believing that He cares for us with the utmost of having our best interest in mind in alignment with His Kingdom plan.
I was the first-born of three children to my parents, yet I was raised as an only child ever since I can remember. My younger brother and sister, each born a year apart respectively and two years after my birth, would each be born with a rare-for-that-time disease and would eventually succumb to it; each before they could celebrate their first birthday. The loss of a child, let alone two in a family, is devastatingly incomprehensible and mystifying, given what we know from the root of life as expressed in the Word of God as summarized above. However, my parents can testify that there is a peace and comfort that they both learned in these two statements of faith: 1.) That as life began in the womb and is sustained by God for however long He ordains it to be, whether inside the womb or outside the womb, there is a purpose served for the greater good. In their case, many doctors literally from around the world came to observe and examine their children, during the time God had sustained their life, with the intent to gather research and receive vision for future medical breakthroughs that perhaps has led to save a multitude of other lives afflicted in similar ways. Sacrificial lives for the saving of even more. 2.) Young children and people not yet able to be held accountable for their own informed, free-will decision to either say yes or no to God’s invitation of adoption into His family, continue to remain a child of God until that age of accountability/maturity to know that THEN requires them at that point to be held to that responsibility of acceptance for themselves. We believe my siblings are in the arms of the Father, whole and healed; having fulfilled their purpose and the workmanship perfected in the making of the intended masterpiece much quicker than most.
My young life was impacted by these circumstances in both positive and negative ways that I will share over time, but the first to mention is that I was cherished, protected and coddled more than the average only child, most likely. Our family is very close-knit and small. If you are thinking “spoiled rotten”, then add steroids to that…because I was also my grandmother’s ONLY grandchild ever, so those precious and powerful prayers to God from a faith-filled, praying grandma were all directed toward me! I was the central focus in my family. (ahh…is this a lightbulb moment for you that explains so much LOL?) God pursued me very hard to answer those prayers of my grandma. Her legacy of faith, worshipful lifestyle and persistent prayers finally paid off…but she had to wait until the year 2000 when I made the wisest decision of my life to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and Lord at the age of 39. Hallelujah! Right on time (add sarcasm)…when she was the age of 91. But God graciously allowed her to see me begin to grow in my relationship with my Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ and be used by Him in varying ways right out of the gate…before she went home to Jesus. I have set out to carry on her legacy and build on that even more. You will learn in future blogs more about God’s pursuit of me over three decades and all that it took to finally get me to lay down my stubbornness and intrigue for passionate fun rooted in my own desires and yield to His extended arms of rescue and security. Furthermore, you will hear and see how He continues to pursue me and us all no matter how far along the journey we are in our walk with Christ.
I leave you today with this to ponder: What life, opportunity, blessing or gift is being missed out on and left on the table as a result of your disobedience, lack of acceptance/trust in God or cutting short what God intended to enable, empower and use UNIQUELY through your life for His glory? Is your choice better than God’s best?
The beautiful thing is that He is merciful and always has more grace to give. His mercies are new each day (Lamentations 3:22-23). So it is not too late to turn from your former ways/choices and start now to seek God’s way. Those who receive and believe in God through His Son Jesus’ story are forgiven already (Acts 13:38-39). It was the finished work on the cross of Jesus Christ…once and for all.

By His grace,

Julie