I woke up early today. I had a headache. My sinuses were blocked when I lay prone, so I didn't sleep well. My alarm was going to ring in 30 minutes anyway, so I decided to get up. I had 30 minutes to kill before my morning meeting with God, so I peed and made coffee, still had time.
I turned on some worship music. (I'm so grateful my husband enjoys it just as much as I do. Most days I turn it on and we listen to it all day or until we decide to watch a movie. It helps keep our focus on our Father.) I sat down and read my daily devotional.
When we were asked to stay home during the pandemic, I asked God to show me opportunities to share His love and He nudged me to use my Facebook for good rather than harm. I'm not educated in Bible Studies and didn't start digging into my Bible until 5 years ago when I surrendered to Almighty God. I pray every day about what to say and to keep the focus on God not me. I figure I can't go too far astray if I quote Holy Scripture and sometimes explain how it speaks to me. Some days it is a struggle to write. I want to keep it short, so people read it. I want to be honest without oversharing because I'm making them public. (I think most of my friends are Christians.) It's hard to think coherently some days. It's emotionally draining because I'm passionate about sharing God's crazy love. Jesus died for me... I started with the Romans road to salvation. Then I shared some about how being a Christian changes us. Then I noticed a lot of people I was chatting with were expressing a lot of confusion over negative emotions to include anger. I was experiencing a lot of anger too. My anger was stealing time and energy away from more positive and fulfilling activities. I've been posting about anger.
Now back up 5 years ago, when I surrendered my will to the LORD's for the first time in my life and put my asinine pride aside. I have a relationship with God now. He's as real to me as any person in my life. Granted, I can't see Him yet, but I will. Oh, I will. While I'm waiting for that day; I love spending time talking to Him and listening to Him and singing to Him. His timing is perfect. His plan is perfect. He surprises me again and again. I started a habit of writing verses that spoke to me down on colorful post-its and sticking them on my dresser mirror. Later, I transferred the stickies into photo albums categorized into themes for my personal use. I've been using them as I write my daily posts. Today, I chose the following verse; planning to post it without comment.
"For where envy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every kind of evil." James 3:16
Then it was time to meet with God to talk for an hour. Whew! It was quite the conversation!
I realized I wanted a "normal" childhood like everyone else. I didn't want to take it from someone else; I just wanted it for me too. I was angry and hurt God didn't give me what I wanted. What was wrong with me? Why wasn't I worthy of God's love? What was I being punished for? It didn't make sense to me. I couldn't tell anyone about it. Every time I tried, it seemed to make it worse. When I became a mother, I wanted to create a "normal" childhood for my sons. I didn't want them to emerge from childhood damaged. I failed. In trying to force their step-father to be the man I wanted him to be, I lost sight of the mother I wanted to be for my children. I screamed at him regularly in front of them and one of my precious sons has been entangled in several abusive relationships. The last one ended in her kidnapping the children and running from women's shelter to women's shelter while he desperately fought to get his children legally returned to him. My other son has no respect for women. I taught him that. On one hand he seems to be impressed by my intelligence and abilities and on the other he seems to despise me. He seems to think the bullying tactics I used will get him a better result.
I'm praying for wisdom because I have no idea how to rectify the damage I did. I'd love to be able to talk freely with this man I birthed. I love him so much. His brother and I have no problem conversing with each other respectfully. I think the difference is that he remembers what I was like before I married his step-father and lost myself.
Which brings us back to the verse. I didn't ask God if it was a good idea to marry their step-father. I didn't care. He fit my plan. Of course, I was angry at God when "I had done everything right and it didn't work out". Wow! What a load of crap! I was in such deep denial!
I chose their step-father because I thought I was better than him. I didn't think he was too horrible though. I figured I could fix him. My girlfriends thought he was cute. If I could fix him, I could prove I was worthy, God would have to accept me. Pride is a sin! I was full of it!
A week or so ago, I was talking to my mom about the increase in grocery prices and venting my anger and this verse popped into my head (that's why I write them down!) and I said maybe I need to ask myself if I'm envious of them. I think that was God preparing me for this morning. I wept like a child. It felt horrible. If felt cleansing. I didn't realize I hadn't asked God to forgive me specifically for my selfish attitude and behavior that resulted in so much disorder, chaos, pain, and EVIL in that home. I tried so hard and got exactly the opposite of what I was striving to achieve. It felt liberating because my Father forgives freely without condemnation! Woohoo! I think I can forgive myself now, so I can move on. If I find myself taking the guilt back, I'll pray about it again. I did the best I could with the tools I had then. I have better ones now! God can RESTORE this, just LOOK at what the LORD has done in 5 short years!!!
