Fighting back tears, I shared, "I was 13 and I remember being the bathroom with a razor in my hand, looking at my arm and wondering if cutting myself would make the pain go away".
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Recently, the Lord brought me into this moment and I was overwhelmed with emotion at the weight of it all and the weight of the way Jesus rescued me. This young friend of mine had been looking at Psalm 139 and how we are fearfully and wonderfully made but my friend didn't feel that way. My friend didn't know that in Psalm 139, David also writes that all of our days are ordained or planned for a purpose.
When I shared the moment of my own breaking point, it was like the last 20 years of my life rolled in my mind of a highlight reel of God's blessing. I would have never met one of my best friends, Alicia. I would have never gone to Johnson, I would have never planned one Sunday, retreat or camp.
I would have never fallen in love with Sully and I would have never held my miracle babies. All of my amazingly ordained days would have been stolen from me.
"The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have LIFE and have it abundantly." - John 10:10
"Just hold on, it's worth it.", I said.
The now my friend is living in is dark and hard and not at all what would you hope for someone you love. But praise God for the then.
The Israelites were facing the Red Sea and front of them and Pharaoh's army behind them but then God split the sea. The three Hebrew boys were thrown into the fire but then there was a fourth. There was a woman that was sick for years but then, with a touch, she was healed. There was a Savior who was dead in a grave but then, He rose.
I was 13, living in so much disobedience and darkness but then God saved me. I felt broken, lonely and forgotten while we waited for children but then God changed my faith. I was depressed, anxious and hopeless and then God healed me.
You see, God is in the business of taking our dark now and turn it into something amazing because then.
And after God stops the storm in your life...and He will, after God moves on your behalf, after the then, your dark now will become light.
I was blind but now I see.
I was lost but now I am found.
I was dead and now I am alive.
When I shared the moment of my own breaking point, it was like the last 20 years of my life rolled in my mind of a highlight reel of God's blessing. I would have never met one of my best friends, Alicia. I would have never gone to Johnson, I would have never planned one Sunday, retreat or camp.
I would have never fallen in love with Sully and I would have never held my miracle babies. All of my amazingly ordained days would have been stolen from me.
"The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have LIFE and have it abundantly." - John 10:10
"Just hold on, it's worth it.", I said.
The now my friend is living in is dark and hard and not at all what would you hope for someone you love. But praise God for the then.
The Israelites were facing the Red Sea and front of them and Pharaoh's army behind them but then God split the sea. The three Hebrew boys were thrown into the fire but then there was a fourth. There was a woman that was sick for years but then, with a touch, she was healed. There was a Savior who was dead in a grave but then, He rose.
I was 13, living in so much disobedience and darkness but then God saved me. I felt broken, lonely and forgotten while we waited for children but then God changed my faith. I was depressed, anxious and hopeless and then God healed me.
You see, God is in the business of taking our dark now and turn it into something amazing because then.
And after God stops the storm in your life...and He will, after God moves on your behalf, after the then, your dark now will become light.
I was blind but now I see.
I was lost but now I am found.
I was dead and now I am alive.
