I accepted the dinner invitation of the kind young man
I'd met at church through my sister and her family. His
name was Kim and I thought that was such a cute name
for a man but he hated it and says to this day he wonders
why his mother gave him a girl's name. It is actually
quite a common man's name in Scotland and being
of Scottish descent I told him to embrace his name.
No go. He still wishes his name was Jim, Tim, or
anything but Kim.
I was so nervous on our first date that I could only
manage to eat one piece of the fabulous pizza from
Frank's Roman Pizza here in Asheville. Kim ate the
remainder of it, yes, all seven pieces. He didn't have
first date jitters at all. Still, it was great fun talking and
getting to know him. We went out for a few months
enjoying our time together but making no effort to
create any kind of relationship other than purely
platonic. It was so nice to just enjoy someone's
company and not feel pressured to have to define
the relationship.
After dating for two years we were married and have
been married for nearly twenty-seven years and have
two wonderful sons, Shaun and Seth. Shaun was
diagnosed with autism at eighteen months but is a
good and precious gift from God as is Seth. Seth has
always been a light in this family causing us to be
able to laugh at times when we thought we had no
laughter left in us due to the daily struggles of autism.
Shaun is twenty-four and Seth twenty-one.
The rest of my testimony just consists of living life
one day at a time and trusting God to give us the
strength needed to take care of our sons, though
Seth needs little care at this point and is in fact
going to be married in August. Of course we all
need love and never outgrow our need for it and
I have been accused of loving my sons too, too
much but I don't think that's possible.
Tomorrow I will end my testimony with what
the Lord has taught me and brought our family
through these last twenty-six years.
God is good.
Sandy
Monday, February 28, 2011
Troubles
Hello, dear Scarf Sisters.
I managed to wreck my computer as I came home from the most wonderful trip to England late yesterday.
I shall probably have to take a month sabbatical while the machine is hopefully being restored to its old self.
Any prayer for a repair angel is highly appreciated.
I have no one but myself to blame for the crash, and maybe I just deserve a slap over the fingers for being both arrogant and sloppy (and ungodly as well, the words I used were not nice at all.)
Anyway, this is how my status is just now. Tomorrow I'm heading for a beach walk with the hiker ladies. bringing all m warmest winter equipped, a thermos of hot coffee and sandwiches. Life has its bright sides, even with icy roads and a cat who is so big, she will soon be bursting. if the kittens aren't coming soon.
God bless you all, dear sisters. I will try reading, even if I do not comment.
And I'll never stop praying.
Yours felisol
I managed to wreck my computer as I came home from the most wonderful trip to England late yesterday.
I shall probably have to take a month sabbatical while the machine is hopefully being restored to its old self.
Any prayer for a repair angel is highly appreciated.
I have no one but myself to blame for the crash, and maybe I just deserve a slap over the fingers for being both arrogant and sloppy (and ungodly as well, the words I used were not nice at all.)
Anyway, this is how my status is just now. Tomorrow I'm heading for a beach walk with the hiker ladies. bringing all m warmest winter equipped, a thermos of hot coffee and sandwiches. Life has its bright sides, even with icy roads and a cat who is so big, she will soon be bursting. if the kittens aren't coming soon.
God bless you all, dear sisters. I will try reading, even if I do not comment.
And I'll never stop praying.
Yours felisol
Sunday, February 27, 2011
My Wanderings - Part II
I wish I could say that from the time I accepted Jesus as
my Savior that I remained a faithful follower, however, I
did not. From the time I was twenty-five until I turned
thirty my life was up and down and back and forth in my
walk. My relationship with the Lord was bumpy, to say
the least. I was never satisfied with any job I held going
from one to another and it was the same with the men
in my life. I was always searching for something to
fulfill me, not realizing that if I would simply fully
surrender my life to Christ He would fill me through
and through and everything else would fall into place.
To seek His kingdom first was not even in my thoughts.
I always thought I had a better plan.
I admit I am the type of person who tries too hard
to make things happen and be as I think they should
be. I am still learning that God does everything in His
own time and way. I am the follower, not the leader.
It is His job to lead and mine to follow and daily
surrender my will to His.
When I finally fully surrendered and actually made
Jesus my Lord, and not just my Savior, things began
to change in my life. I had just ended a tumultuous
relationship with a man I was so deeply in love with
that I made the horrible mistake of putting him before
God in my life, not that He had much of a place in
my life anyway. The young man was a preacher's son
and was very rebellious. I had followed him into a life
of sin that I am glad my parents never learned about.
When we broke up I wanted to end my life. I thought
I had nothing to live for without this troubled man's love.
I was so overjoyed to hear many years later that he
had given his life to the Lord and was a happily married
man with a little daughter who had the same name that
we were going to name our daughter if we had one.
My older sister, Linda, now living in heaven with our Lord,
invited me to come to church with her one Sunday but I
declined. I wasn't sure I ever wanted to go back to church
at that time in my life. It just wasn't all it was supposed to be.
She was ever so persist though and finally, just to get her off
my case, I agreed to meet her there. As I stated earlier, I
was raised a Baptist and so were all my siblings. When Linda
had married and moved to California many years earlier, she
had started attending an Assembly of God church where
she had surrendered her life to the Lord and had received
the baptism of the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking
in an unknown prayer language. I remember how that had
totally upset my parents at the time. They thought she had
surely joined a cult out there in wacky California!
As I entered the church that morning and found my sister's
sweet face in the crowd I was aware that nearly everyone
was smiling and so friendly. Then the music started and I
couldn't believe it! I almost felt like I was at a party! All
the people were dancing and clapping and raising their
hands. It was so loud! I looked over at my sweet and
quiet sister and she looked like someone else. Her eyes
were all lit up as she sang and clapped and almost jumped
up and down. What was going on here? I just wanted
to go home. This was not the quiet and reverent church
to which I'd been accustomed. I suddenly developed
such a headache and vowed I would not be returning
to that church!
The preacher gave what I thought was a very good
message and then something strange happened. He
asked if anyone was sick and if they were to come
forward for their healing. Many people went up to
the front of the church and apparently most of them
were healed as I heard the testimonies of pain going
and peace coming and issues resolved. My sister
saw one woman's gnarled fingers and hands become
completely straighten out as she was instantly healed
of rheumatoid arthritis. This was not like anything I'd
ever witnessed in any church I'd ever attended. I didn't
even really know that Jesus had been beaten within an
inch of His precious life so that whosoever believed
could receive the miracle of divine healing in their
physical body. In the years to come I would be a
partaker of this grace many times over as would
my family.
Though I was now meeting my sister and her family
every week for church at the Assembly of God, and
had walked that seemingly mile-long carpet to the
altar to once again give my heart to Jesus, I was still
holding on to the hope that I would get back together
with my former boyfriend. My sister had her eyes on
a young man in the church that she wanted me to meet
and pointed him out to me one Sunday. I watched him
as he stood in the back of the church holding a baby
girl of about six months. His tenderness with her and
sweet shy smile definitely touched my heart but I was
not yet ready for another relationship.
As the weeks went by I learned that my former
boyfriend was having an affair with a new woman
and seemed very serious about her. At the same
time he came to visit me and seemed to be asking
to see both of us at the same time. I refused to
even talk about it with him and I think that was
the day I decided I was over him.
My sister's daughter was getting married soon
and I was going to be her maid of honor. I was
excited and happy for her yet so sad that I
myself, nearly ten years older than her, had
no love in my life. We had some of the same
friends in the church and one day, to my great
surprise, the young man that my sister wanted
me to go out with called me on the phone. He
wanted to know if I'd give him an idea of what
he might get my niece and her future husband
as a wedding gift. I learned he had been asked
to be an usher in the wedding too. I gave some
suggestions as to a present and we ended up
talking for quiet a while with him asking him out
to dinner and me hearing myself accepting his
sweet invitation. Life can be wonderful when
we let God be God and lead us.
More tomorrow...
It's all about Jesus,
Sandy
my Savior that I remained a faithful follower, however, I
did not. From the time I was twenty-five until I turned
thirty my life was up and down and back and forth in my
walk. My relationship with the Lord was bumpy, to say
the least. I was never satisfied with any job I held going
from one to another and it was the same with the men
in my life. I was always searching for something to
fulfill me, not realizing that if I would simply fully
surrender my life to Christ He would fill me through
and through and everything else would fall into place.
To seek His kingdom first was not even in my thoughts.
I always thought I had a better plan.
I admit I am the type of person who tries too hard
to make things happen and be as I think they should
be. I am still learning that God does everything in His
own time and way. I am the follower, not the leader.
It is His job to lead and mine to follow and daily
surrender my will to His.
When I finally fully surrendered and actually made
Jesus my Lord, and not just my Savior, things began
to change in my life. I had just ended a tumultuous
relationship with a man I was so deeply in love with
that I made the horrible mistake of putting him before
God in my life, not that He had much of a place in
my life anyway. The young man was a preacher's son
and was very rebellious. I had followed him into a life
of sin that I am glad my parents never learned about.
When we broke up I wanted to end my life. I thought
I had nothing to live for without this troubled man's love.
I was so overjoyed to hear many years later that he
had given his life to the Lord and was a happily married
man with a little daughter who had the same name that
we were going to name our daughter if we had one.
My older sister, Linda, now living in heaven with our Lord,
invited me to come to church with her one Sunday but I
declined. I wasn't sure I ever wanted to go back to church
at that time in my life. It just wasn't all it was supposed to be.
She was ever so persist though and finally, just to get her off
my case, I agreed to meet her there. As I stated earlier, I
was raised a Baptist and so were all my siblings. When Linda
had married and moved to California many years earlier, she
had started attending an Assembly of God church where
she had surrendered her life to the Lord and had received
the baptism of the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking
in an unknown prayer language. I remember how that had
totally upset my parents at the time. They thought she had
surely joined a cult out there in wacky California!
As I entered the church that morning and found my sister's
sweet face in the crowd I was aware that nearly everyone
was smiling and so friendly. Then the music started and I
couldn't believe it! I almost felt like I was at a party! All
the people were dancing and clapping and raising their
hands. It was so loud! I looked over at my sweet and
quiet sister and she looked like someone else. Her eyes
were all lit up as she sang and clapped and almost jumped
up and down. What was going on here? I just wanted
to go home. This was not the quiet and reverent church
to which I'd been accustomed. I suddenly developed
such a headache and vowed I would not be returning
to that church!
The preacher gave what I thought was a very good
message and then something strange happened. He
asked if anyone was sick and if they were to come
forward for their healing. Many people went up to
the front of the church and apparently most of them
were healed as I heard the testimonies of pain going
and peace coming and issues resolved. My sister
saw one woman's gnarled fingers and hands become
completely straighten out as she was instantly healed
of rheumatoid arthritis. This was not like anything I'd
ever witnessed in any church I'd ever attended. I didn't
even really know that Jesus had been beaten within an
inch of His precious life so that whosoever believed
could receive the miracle of divine healing in their
physical body. In the years to come I would be a
partaker of this grace many times over as would
my family.
Though I was now meeting my sister and her family
every week for church at the Assembly of God, and
had walked that seemingly mile-long carpet to the
altar to once again give my heart to Jesus, I was still
holding on to the hope that I would get back together
with my former boyfriend. My sister had her eyes on
a young man in the church that she wanted me to meet
and pointed him out to me one Sunday. I watched him
as he stood in the back of the church holding a baby
girl of about six months. His tenderness with her and
sweet shy smile definitely touched my heart but I was
not yet ready for another relationship.
As the weeks went by I learned that my former
boyfriend was having an affair with a new woman
and seemed very serious about her. At the same
time he came to visit me and seemed to be asking
to see both of us at the same time. I refused to
even talk about it with him and I think that was
the day I decided I was over him.
My sister's daughter was getting married soon
and I was going to be her maid of honor. I was
excited and happy for her yet so sad that I
myself, nearly ten years older than her, had
no love in my life. We had some of the same
friends in the church and one day, to my great
surprise, the young man that my sister wanted
me to go out with called me on the phone. He
wanted to know if I'd give him an idea of what
he might get my niece and her future husband
as a wedding gift. I learned he had been asked
to be an usher in the wedding too. I gave some
suggestions as to a present and we ended up
talking for quiet a while with him asking him out
to dinner and me hearing myself accepting his
sweet invitation. Life can be wonderful when
we let God be God and lead us.
More tomorrow...
It's all about Jesus,
Sandy
Saturday, February 26, 2011
My Testimony
Well, since everyone is sharing their testimonies I guess I will also
share mine. Unlike some of the rest of you, I don't know all of my
background as to where my great grandparents came from. I do
know my grandparents were of Scottish descent as were my
husband's so we are both Scots through and through.
I was not fortunate enough to ever even meet either of my
grandmothers as both died before I was born. My maternal
grandmother was only fifty-three when she was found dead,
having died in her sleep, on Thanksgiving morning. My paternal
grandmother died, a young woman in her thirties, giving birth to
her sixth child. My mom's father lived with us when I was a child
and my memories of him are sweet as he was a kind and gentle
man who spoke softly and had a big smile. He was a brick mason
and helped build the beautiful Grove Park Inn and Resort here in
Asheville where I was born and raised. My memories of my dad's
father are very vague as he died when I was only three. So, as far
as grandparents go, I only remember one grandfather.
I may have missed out on the joy of grandparents but my parents
more than made up for that, being the best mom and dad a kid
could ask for. Never in my life did I ever have a doubt that I was
loved and wanted. Unfortunately, not everyone can make that
statement.
I was raised by a godly mother who revered God. She took all
of her children to church as soon as she was able after giving birth.
We were taught about the love and salvation won by the blood of
Jesus and urged to commit our lives to Him. My mother died at
the age of eighty-nine having seen only half of her eight children
come to Christ. I continue on with her prayers for their salvation.
My father was a hard-working man who made some of the most
beautiful furniture to ever grace a home. He believed in God and
had accepted Jesus as his Savior, yet he was back and forth in his
faith through the years. I was thrilled that only weeks before his
death at age ninety he once again recommitted his life to Christ.
My earliest memories of the Lord were of learning of Him as my
mother taught me to pray. I loved going to church with her on
Sunday morning and evening. I was raised in the Baptist church
and attended the Methodist church for a short time with my
mother where, to her delight, I sang in the choir.
I don't remember having a true concept of the love of God for me
until I was much older. I asked Jesus Christ to be my personal
Savior when I was twenty- three. How I wish I had accepted Him
sooner after having realized His love and sacrifice for me!
I will continue my testimony tomorrow.
Sandy
share mine. Unlike some of the rest of you, I don't know all of my
background as to where my great grandparents came from. I do
know my grandparents were of Scottish descent as were my
husband's so we are both Scots through and through.
I was not fortunate enough to ever even meet either of my
grandmothers as both died before I was born. My maternal
grandmother was only fifty-three when she was found dead,
having died in her sleep, on Thanksgiving morning. My paternal
grandmother died, a young woman in her thirties, giving birth to
her sixth child. My mom's father lived with us when I was a child
and my memories of him are sweet as he was a kind and gentle
man who spoke softly and had a big smile. He was a brick mason
and helped build the beautiful Grove Park Inn and Resort here in
Asheville where I was born and raised. My memories of my dad's
father are very vague as he died when I was only three. So, as far
as grandparents go, I only remember one grandfather.
I may have missed out on the joy of grandparents but my parents
more than made up for that, being the best mom and dad a kid
could ask for. Never in my life did I ever have a doubt that I was
loved and wanted. Unfortunately, not everyone can make that
statement.
I was raised by a godly mother who revered God. She took all
of her children to church as soon as she was able after giving birth.
We were taught about the love and salvation won by the blood of
Jesus and urged to commit our lives to Him. My mother died at
the age of eighty-nine having seen only half of her eight children
come to Christ. I continue on with her prayers for their salvation.
My father was a hard-working man who made some of the most
beautiful furniture to ever grace a home. He believed in God and
had accepted Jesus as his Savior, yet he was back and forth in his
faith through the years. I was thrilled that only weeks before his
death at age ninety he once again recommitted his life to Christ.
My earliest memories of the Lord were of learning of Him as my
mother taught me to pray. I loved going to church with her on
Sunday morning and evening. I was raised in the Baptist church
and attended the Methodist church for a short time with my
mother where, to her delight, I sang in the choir.
I don't remember having a true concept of the love of God for me
until I was much older. I asked Jesus Christ to be my personal
Savior when I was twenty- three. How I wish I had accepted Him
sooner after having realized His love and sacrifice for me!
I will continue my testimony tomorrow.
Sandy
Friday, February 25, 2011
The Bible Has Arrived
I was surprised to receive the Scarf Sister Bible in the mail just
now. I will hopefully have time to begin my testimony at some
point this weekend. Meet with you then!
Thank you for the wonderful smelling candles, Becky. I will
enjoy burning them here in my prayer room as I blog.
Sandy
now. I will hopefully have time to begin my testimony at some
point this weekend. Meet with you then!
Thank you for the wonderful smelling candles, Becky. I will
enjoy burning them here in my prayer room as I blog.
Sandy
A Quick Birthday Wish From Mom and Dad Golden
dear mrs. mac...i am really running late today...that mr. and mrs. jim's anniversary is really keeping me busy with what all the invited guests i have had to round up from all sides of the world..
i have not forgotten your birthday and so to hold you over until i can do it properly, i have enlisted mom and dad golden's help, to wish you a fast and breezy greeting....happy birthday girl! love terry
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Greetings from Pensacola Florida
Hello my new sisters! I am so happy to be a part of the group and look forward to getting to know all of you. Some of you already know of me but for those who don't, My name is Cyndi Lacefield. I am 42 yrs. old ,wife to Tim, mother of 4 sons, and grandmother of two. I lovingly call myself a bapticostal ,as I was raised Baptist and now am Penticostal! LOL I am also involved in the Emmaus community which is primarily Methodist. For me, it is about a personal relationship ,not a denomination. I just LOVE God and I love people. I have a powerful testimony ,but I know that just means he has powerful things to do in and through my life. Thank you for allowing me the priviledge of your fellowship. Be blessed and Decolores! Cyndi
New Sister Welcome
Dear Scarf Sisters,
I want to introduce you to a new sister. Her name is Cyndi. Please pay her a visit on her blog (link on side bar). She will post a short bio soon.
I'm still with limited Internet connectivity. Hope to be visiting your blogs soon.
Mrs. Mac
I want to introduce you to a new sister. Her name is Cyndi. Please pay her a visit on her blog (link on side bar). She will post a short bio soon.
I'm still with limited Internet connectivity. Hope to be visiting your blogs soon.
Mrs. Mac
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
A time of spiritual blessing
Please pray for journey mercies for my nephew Ash and friend Megan who will begin a 24 hour train journey from Assam (NE state) to Allahabad on Wed Feb 23rd morning.
I request prayers for my 3 sisters -Anjali, (Anja Lee) Namrita and Sonia who are suffering from health problems.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
My time with the Sister Scarf bible is coming to an end! I have a strong desire to let you know I am soooo thankful for the opportunity to participate in your life. I trust that God will use this new relationship to meet a purpose that he has designed long ago. We are all masterpieces of the Lord and we are not saved by doing good things, but FOR doing good things, and the Sister Scarf Family is a good thing.
Friday, February 18, 2011
In Memory of Arlene
There is a post for Arlene over at the prayer blog. By His Stripes
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him;
and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5
Our Prairie Sister's Birthday
look at what the scarf sisters found at the end of the rainbow in 2010!
this is our beloved saija and today it is her birthday!
and so dear sister we are wishing you a happy and fun filled day on the cold prairies in my beloved manitoba!
here are three of your sisters singing you your birthday song accompanied only by the music of the chirping frogs...what a peacful scene, eh?....NOT!!
i thought that this huge cake that i had googled over would be enough for all 27 sisters but not so!...well though, i see that there will be three less sisters gathered around the celebration table.
the birthday frog took care of THAT!!
so gather around sisters and dig in....we will save a few crumbs for saija's sweetheart, leo.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAIJA from all of your sisters save[alas! alas!] three!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Hi! A day in my life is somewhat normal. For example, went to work, came home made some type of Asian chicken patty deal w/carrots and asparagus’ on the side. Drop one boy off at chess, the other-along w/his friend jumps a fence for pizza for their lunch for school tomorrow. Ken leaves to go to the store to get screws to fix the busted door from monnnnnths ago by Thing 1 because he tried to open the door without turning the door knob-can you hear it…BREAK! Oops. Anyway, Ken comes home, looks “off” and says he has a headache-LIKE BEFORE! My heart is in my throat with his headaches. A while later he says it doesn’t feel like it was in the same place (couldn’t be, the doctor fixed that booger catching hole).
Then, I remember the last scenario with this drama. God has got this one, too.
He, God, reminds me that he always has it. I don’t need to know all the plan, I just need to trust Him. So I just read me some of His love. This is what I mean when I said my walk sort of evolved over time. Promptings, opportunities to hear and push thru and lean in close! I will most likely finish up the kitchen, go get Thing 2 from chess and ask God to bring me peace as He works on and in my hubby. Yes, he gets it, but I am a human wife that doesn’t want her husband hurting and the thought of going thru that process again is just a mess in my brain. Then I think of my friends w/cancer and going thru cancer again so what exactly do I have to complain about. I’m not, I’m just sharing my thought with new found sisters that will pray with me and poke fun with and at me! Which is good!
BTW, the boys that jumped the fence failed. Can you say alcohol pad to clean out the booboos? Boys! OH, does that sting??? HA!
Then, I remember the last scenario with this drama. God has got this one, too.
He, God, reminds me that he always has it. I don’t need to know all the plan, I just need to trust Him. So I just read me some of His love. This is what I mean when I said my walk sort of evolved over time. Promptings, opportunities to hear and push thru and lean in close! I will most likely finish up the kitchen, go get Thing 2 from chess and ask God to bring me peace as He works on and in my hubby. Yes, he gets it, but I am a human wife that doesn’t want her husband hurting and the thought of going thru that process again is just a mess in my brain. Then I think of my friends w/cancer and going thru cancer again so what exactly do I have to complain about. I’m not, I’m just sharing my thought with new found sisters that will pray with me and poke fun with and at me! Which is good!
BTW, the boys that jumped the fence failed. Can you say alcohol pad to clean out the booboos? Boys! OH, does that sting??? HA!
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
PRAYING FOR BABY KIERSTEN
Remember when we were praying for this little cutie-pie? She has been seizure free for over a year now and today is her 2nd birthday!!!
Free Books!
I discovered this today! Thought some of you may be interested...
You can get free books by doing reviews... check into the site for the details!
lovetoyou!
http://booksneeze.com/
You can get free books by doing reviews... check into the site for the details!
lovetoyou!
http://booksneeze.com/
Hi! It’s me again. More favorites of mine is when I started studying prayer. My quest: Teach me to pray meaningfully for others. This is a little bit of what I came across. This hit me hardest when I needed to pray for my friends in need that needed intercessory prayer.
I am
Called to intercede, 1 Samuel 12:23
To pray even when I don’t know what to pray for, the Spirit KNOWS, Romans 8:26
To intercede all the time for prayers and requests, Ephesians 6:16-18
Other than the lovey types in my life, I also need to pray
For those in authority, 1 Timothy 2:2
For the lost, Romans 10:1
For the sick, James 5:14
For my enemies, Matthew 5:44
For those who desert me, 2 Timothy 4:16
And finally, this I go back to often and when praying for my church leaders: Colossians 1:3-11, Paraphrase: I am thankful for you (the prayee who already knows the Lord) for your faith and changed life. God help them to know what you want them to do, give them deep understanding to your will, help them to continue to live for you, give them more knowledge of yourself and endurance to that knowledge. Fill them with joy, strength and thankfulness.
Asking for God's will gets easier and easier; I find in real difficult situations it's easier to just say your will, not theirs or mine. I don't have the answers or the plan; all I can do is pray that the plan be revealed for His glory and the people being prayed for is up for the answer-even if it's not what they want. I also throw in my own "Please let it be known to them that your hand is in this," so they don't feel discouraged. After this particular little study adventure I started a little texting prayer request thing. Usually on Thursdays, I send out a goofy little funny thing (imagine that) and with it is a request for prayers for the week, throw in a praise or two and its great. And I pray for that specific thing for the week or how ever long needed. I try to find some scripture and write it in my journal. Totally amazing to see how some thing unfold when you pray in God’s will, not mine! Totally not my original idea.
My Jesus also prayed...
John 17
Jesus Prays to Be Glorified
1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
Jesus Prays for His Disciples
6 “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
Jesus Prays for All Believers
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
I am
Called to intercede, 1 Samuel 12:23
To pray even when I don’t know what to pray for, the Spirit KNOWS, Romans 8:26
To intercede all the time for prayers and requests, Ephesians 6:16-18
Other than the lovey types in my life, I also need to pray
For those in authority, 1 Timothy 2:2
For the lost, Romans 10:1
For the sick, James 5:14
For my enemies, Matthew 5:44
For those who desert me, 2 Timothy 4:16
And finally, this I go back to often and when praying for my church leaders: Colossians 1:3-11, Paraphrase: I am thankful for you (the prayee who already knows the Lord) for your faith and changed life. God help them to know what you want them to do, give them deep understanding to your will, help them to continue to live for you, give them more knowledge of yourself and endurance to that knowledge. Fill them with joy, strength and thankfulness.
Asking for God's will gets easier and easier; I find in real difficult situations it's easier to just say your will, not theirs or mine. I don't have the answers or the plan; all I can do is pray that the plan be revealed for His glory and the people being prayed for is up for the answer-even if it's not what they want. I also throw in my own "Please let it be known to them that your hand is in this," so they don't feel discouraged. After this particular little study adventure I started a little texting prayer request thing. Usually on Thursdays, I send out a goofy little funny thing (imagine that) and with it is a request for prayers for the week, throw in a praise or two and its great. And I pray for that specific thing for the week or how ever long needed. I try to find some scripture and write it in my journal. Totally amazing to see how some thing unfold when you pray in God’s will, not mine! Totally not my original idea.
My Jesus also prayed...
John 17
Jesus Prays to Be Glorified
1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
Jesus Prays for His Disciples
6 “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
Jesus Prays for All Believers
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
HI! My name is Becky Mara, I’m 41 years old. Been married to Ken for 16 years, I have a beautiful angel grandson, Julian. My children are Collin (affectionately called Thing 2), Devon (aka, Thing 1), and Kirstin is mine, too; and Xavier, Kirstin’s hubby. I like my graying hair (I can pull it off). I head up my church’s In-House Hospitality (my team cooks and serves for the real hands and feet of Metro); I was not blessed with the gift of a talking to people ministry-I got and love the gift of hospitality. God knew well in advance that I should not talk to people, it always comes out WRONG. My grandmother passed the gene of OMIF disease and the when hard I try to work passed it-it fails miserably so I have just about learned to just shut up. Doesn’t always work, so to those I have offended-I am sorry.
I don’t have a true Ah-ha moment testimony; it just sort of evolved. I am a sinner, a looser and that’s why Jesus came-to save me. I struggle with the demon of inadequacy. I haven’t quite figured out of to loose him so I just pray. And in studying how to rid him, there has been so many verses and opportunities to hear from God that I have latched on to; I have lots of favorite verses that I always chew on. I will share some of them with you.
One favorite is when Solomon prayed for the Isrealites-1 Kings 8:54-61 When Solomon had finished all these prayers and supplications to the LORD, he rose from before the altar of the LORD, where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven. He stood and blessed the whole assembly of Israel in a loud voice, saying:
“Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave us nor forsake us. May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in obedience to him and keep the commands, decrees and laws he gave our ancestors. And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the LORD, be near to the LORD our God day and night, that he may uphold the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel according to each day’s need, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other. And may your hearts be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time.”
I am not exactly sure when this one came into play but I do refer back to it in my journal and the very first thing I think about is Ken-when we were going through his ordeal of finding that he needed to have brain surgery to remove a mass that lodged itself on his optic nerve and carotid artery. Fun stuff! God certainly made himself known to Ken and me for that matter. Ken now “gets it“. He will always suffer with headaches for the rest of his life, but like the Israelites-it took some time but he found his way.
OMIF moment:
After his surgery, the surgeon came out to explain to me what the procedure was, because they had absolutely NO IDEA what they were looking for or if it was tumor, they only knew that it was a mass of some kind and it didn’t belong there. In short- a cavity under/behind is eye had deteriorated and a mucus had fallen thru the hole! Wellll-before I could stop myself-Are you kidding me, it was a booger? Needless to say, those family members and friends had a good chuckle and it made the surgeon smile.
I don’t have a true Ah-ha moment testimony; it just sort of evolved. I am a sinner, a looser and that’s why Jesus came-to save me. I struggle with the demon of inadequacy. I haven’t quite figured out of to loose him so I just pray. And in studying how to rid him, there has been so many verses and opportunities to hear from God that I have latched on to; I have lots of favorite verses that I always chew on. I will share some of them with you.
One favorite is when Solomon prayed for the Isrealites-1 Kings 8:54-61 When Solomon had finished all these prayers and supplications to the LORD, he rose from before the altar of the LORD, where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven. He stood and blessed the whole assembly of Israel in a loud voice, saying:
“Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave us nor forsake us. May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in obedience to him and keep the commands, decrees and laws he gave our ancestors. And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the LORD, be near to the LORD our God day and night, that he may uphold the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel according to each day’s need, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other. And may your hearts be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time.”
I am not exactly sure when this one came into play but I do refer back to it in my journal and the very first thing I think about is Ken-when we were going through his ordeal of finding that he needed to have brain surgery to remove a mass that lodged itself on his optic nerve and carotid artery. Fun stuff! God certainly made himself known to Ken and me for that matter. Ken now “gets it“. He will always suffer with headaches for the rest of his life, but like the Israelites-it took some time but he found his way.
OMIF moment:
After his surgery, the surgeon came out to explain to me what the procedure was, because they had absolutely NO IDEA what they were looking for or if it was tumor, they only knew that it was a mass of some kind and it didn’t belong there. In short- a cavity under/behind is eye had deteriorated and a mucus had fallen thru the hole! Wellll-before I could stop myself-Are you kidding me, it was a booger? Needless to say, those family members and friends had a good chuckle and it made the surgeon smile.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Happy Valentines Day Sisters!
it is valentines day this monday and what better time for the sisters to be wishing each one a very happy valentines day!
here we all are in this picture 27 sisters!!..mrs mac, donna, connie 1 and connie 2,felisol, cindy, sandy, amrita, kell, trish, miss patty, maria who is displaying quite well miss apron, linda who wears brown shoes and linda 2, crown of beauty, deb, rebecca and becky who is giving out hugs and hiding her face, sherri, char, margie, saija, cheryl, diane, sara,julie and miss terry...
at the top of the picture is our beloved arlene who is in heaven and was there before the sisterhood of the traveling scarf started...if she had been here, she would have been the second one to join[mrs. mac being the FIRST of course!]
arlene was an encourager to all and if i had enough room, i would have included her favourite verse in the picture but here it is...
Isaiah 53:5
"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."
arlene's daughter has kept her mom's blog and if you care to see what a loving and faithful girl that arlene was, here is her blog address.. http://lovinggodandlife.blogspot.com/
when our donna first opened her prayer blog, she dedicated it to arlene and named it "By His Stripes" and that blog has been a real god send and a blessing to us.
as you can see in the picture, some of the sisters are resting on the scarf and some of them are resting on the sisterhood bible and one of the sisters, maria is really looking pretty, wearing our sisterhood apron!
for the three years that the sisters have been travelling together, even though there have been many trials and heartaches along the way, well there have also been many, many answers to prayers..
i for one will never tire of thanking mrs. mac for the treasure she has given!
god is surely blessing her....and i, for one love every last one of you dear sisters..
we are blessed and his banner over us IS love!.........love terry
just look at these little sisters singing!
Friday, February 11, 2011
In Response to Connie...
Randy has always been very loving and accepting of my past. It's something I shared with him on the very first day we "talked" - that first Christmas Day when we spent five hours online. He said then, "It's no big deal. God has forgiven you. End of discussion."
Over the years he has said that he can't even picture me living that life. I would have never fit the "stereotypical" definition of a lesbian. Then again, stereotypes are dangerous -- there are MANY who don't fit the stereotype.
We have never spent a whole lot of time talking about my past. It comes up now and again - sometimes at inopportune times. One example that comes to mind: I had a bunch of stuff in a closet in the basement - most of which was junk that needed to be thrown away. One afternoon, Randy had asked someone to help him clean out some of those items in the basement. I had left specific instructions that any items that were mine - to please ASK me before they were discarded - just in case they were something that I needed / wanted / or had sentimental value. He assured me that he would ask.
Later on in the day, I went downstairs and saw his helper guy carrying a bin of small, glass, baby formula jars out to his vehicle. They were mine. Randy hadn't asked. I hit the roof. And it turned ugly. I was hysterically crying. All over some empty glass jars which I had planned to use to store art supplies (beads, etc.) in my studio?....no, not really. When I saw this person carrying my things out to his car - the memories of my former partner showing up with her friends one morning to our house and randomly loading items into their cars....without ever asking my permission all came flooding back. These were things that obviously we had purchased together - and she was taking them. She appeared with a list of items she was taking. She handed me the list and proceeded to bring in her "crew" to carry the items away. No discussion. Among other things, she walked off with the antique card catalog for which we had searched together for years - until we found the right one - the right size at the right price. And what was even more upsetting was that it was being used to hold all of my accompaniment tapes. Her "crew" took the tapes out of the drawers and stacked them on top of the piano. And then she proceeded to tell me that she was also taking the piano. She doesn't play. I do. It was not a happy scene. So....the glass formula jars...brought back all the memories from that very unpleasant day. I told Randy why I was so upset. He tried to understand -although I'm not sure he really did. He was more focused on trying to understand why was I wanting to keep a bunch of stupid jars...
There have been several times throughout our married life when the baggage of my past creeps in and I allow it to ruin what could be a pleasant day. I have to work really hard to let go of the past. It's not always easy. The bottom line is this: our sin has consequences. Some big. Some small. Whenever I'm overwhelmed with thoughts of my past, I try to remember that the Lord has forgotten it all. In His eyes, I'm clean. Washed in His blood. Adorned in a robe of righteousness. Randy once told me that he sees me the same way.....my past doesn't exist in his eyes. Oh how I love him for that! I am indeed blessed!
_________________________________________
...as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
-Psalm 103:12
_________________________________________
In the comments which follow this post, Terry referenced this song - I just had to come back and include it at the end. What a wondrous reminder of God's unending mercy!
Over the years he has said that he can't even picture me living that life. I would have never fit the "stereotypical" definition of a lesbian. Then again, stereotypes are dangerous -- there are MANY who don't fit the stereotype.
We have never spent a whole lot of time talking about my past. It comes up now and again - sometimes at inopportune times. One example that comes to mind: I had a bunch of stuff in a closet in the basement - most of which was junk that needed to be thrown away. One afternoon, Randy had asked someone to help him clean out some of those items in the basement. I had left specific instructions that any items that were mine - to please ASK me before they were discarded - just in case they were something that I needed / wanted / or had sentimental value. He assured me that he would ask.
Later on in the day, I went downstairs and saw his helper guy carrying a bin of small, glass, baby formula jars out to his vehicle. They were mine. Randy hadn't asked. I hit the roof. And it turned ugly. I was hysterically crying. All over some empty glass jars which I had planned to use to store art supplies (beads, etc.) in my studio?....no, not really. When I saw this person carrying my things out to his car - the memories of my former partner showing up with her friends one morning to our house and randomly loading items into their cars....without ever asking my permission all came flooding back. These were things that obviously we had purchased together - and she was taking them. She appeared with a list of items she was taking. She handed me the list and proceeded to bring in her "crew" to carry the items away. No discussion. Among other things, she walked off with the antique card catalog for which we had searched together for years - until we found the right one - the right size at the right price. And what was even more upsetting was that it was being used to hold all of my accompaniment tapes. Her "crew" took the tapes out of the drawers and stacked them on top of the piano. And then she proceeded to tell me that she was also taking the piano. She doesn't play. I do. It was not a happy scene. So....the glass formula jars...brought back all the memories from that very unpleasant day. I told Randy why I was so upset. He tried to understand -although I'm not sure he really did. He was more focused on trying to understand why was I wanting to keep a bunch of stupid jars...
There have been several times throughout our married life when the baggage of my past creeps in and I allow it to ruin what could be a pleasant day. I have to work really hard to let go of the past. It's not always easy. The bottom line is this: our sin has consequences. Some big. Some small. Whenever I'm overwhelmed with thoughts of my past, I try to remember that the Lord has forgotten it all. In His eyes, I'm clean. Washed in His blood. Adorned in a robe of righteousness. Randy once told me that he sees me the same way.....my past doesn't exist in his eyes. Oh how I love him for that! I am indeed blessed!
_________________________________________
...as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
-Psalm 103:12
_________________________________________
In the comments which follow this post, Terry referenced this song - I just had to come back and include it at the end. What a wondrous reminder of God's unending mercy!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Egg Rolls? not.
I spent some last moments with our Bible this morning. I read once again the scriptures that each Sister before me had highlighted...
Coming across one of the verses which Connie highlighted, I was immediately reminded of time spent at a women's retreat shortly after walking away from the life I had lived.
At that retreat, a woman whom I had never met before, prayed with me and gave me a word from the Lord. She told me that the Lord wanted me to know that because I had set my face as flint before Him that He was going to restore to me all the years that the locust had eaten, all those that the cankerworm had destroyed...
"And I will restore to you
the years that the locust hath eaten,
the cankerworm, and the caterpiller,
and the palmerworm,
my great army which I sent among you."
-Joel 2:25
She also told me that the Lord gave her a vision of me standing with my husband and a baby in my arms. At that time in my life, envisioning myself married...let alone with a child...was simply unimaginable. I never thought in a million years that it would happen.
But then God.
Thinking about all the blessings I've received since turning away from my sin...oh my goodness, how I have been blessed!! ..with a loving husband, a wonderful daughter, dear friends, a beautiful home situated in our own "state park"...the list goes on and on. There are not adequate words to express my gratitude to our God for all He has done in my life!
I found an empty egg roll box and packed up our Bible and a gift for the next sister. I have just returned from the post office where I sent our Bible on its way. I know that xxxxx (shhh! It's a Secret!) is going to be blessed as she reads God's Word --I'm telling you...it's a copy that comes with an EXTRA annointing!! I didn't want to part with that Bible!!....but can't wait to see what our next sister shares...and what the rest of you share as well!
God bless you all!! Keep an eye on your mailbox!
__________________________________________________
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future."
-Jeremiah 29:11
__________________________________________________
Coming across one of the verses which Connie highlighted, I was immediately reminded of time spent at a women's retreat shortly after walking away from the life I had lived.
At that retreat, a woman whom I had never met before, prayed with me and gave me a word from the Lord. She told me that the Lord wanted me to know that because I had set my face as flint before Him that He was going to restore to me all the years that the locust had eaten, all those that the cankerworm had destroyed...
the years that the locust hath eaten,
the cankerworm, and the caterpiller,
and the palmerworm,
my great army which I sent among you."
-Joel 2:25
She also told me that the Lord gave her a vision of me standing with my husband and a baby in my arms. At that time in my life, envisioning myself married...let alone with a child...was simply unimaginable. I never thought in a million years that it would happen.
But then God.
Thinking about all the blessings I've received since turning away from my sin...oh my goodness, how I have been blessed!! ..with a loving husband, a wonderful daughter, dear friends, a beautiful home situated in our own "state park"...the list goes on and on. There are not adequate words to express my gratitude to our God for all He has done in my life!
I found an empty egg roll box and packed up our Bible and a gift for the next sister. I have just returned from the post office where I sent our Bible on its way. I know that xxxxx (shhh! It's a Secret!) is going to be blessed as she reads God's Word --I'm telling you...it's a copy that comes with an EXTRA annointing!! I didn't want to part with that Bible!!....but can't wait to see what our next sister shares...and what the rest of you share as well!
God bless you all!! Keep an eye on your mailbox!
__________________________________________________
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future."
-Jeremiah 29:11
__________________________________________________
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Nearing the End...
I am finally nearing the end of my time with our Bible . . . and you have no idea how much I would love to keep it here in my home and never let it go!
Through its pages, believe it or not, I have grown to have a new appreciation for God's Word. The little post-it tabs which take me to each highlighted verse of each of the sisters before me has enabled me to share some precious times with my Savior this week. I am so envious of whomever is going to receive this Good Book last and have the privilege of reading ALL of our favorite passages - allowing the Lord to speak through each of them.
Thank you for reading through all of my words. I know it was a lot through which to wade! Believe me, there is so much more I could have written. But if you're interested in the unabridged version, you'll have to buy the book when it comes out!
Seriously . . . the Lord impressed upon me several years ago that I was to write my story down - even gave me the title of my book. And I've been toying around with the idea off and on for several years. It wasn't until a year ago that I began to get serious about writing. The constant prompting of the Holy Spirit finally wore me down! That, and a friend who replied to my frequent comment of "one day I'm going to write a book . . . " -- "DEB! Write the book already! You've been hinting around for months that you should write a book . . . now go and write it already because while it's all still rattling around in your brain, it's not on paper and it's not blessing anybody! Go write the book before you're dead and nobody is blessed!" I just looked at her and said, "you're right." . . . I went home that evening and wrote the preface. And I've been writing ever since.
...But not always consistently. As I mentioned previously, it's not always easy to write. The emotions that come back as I relive, oh . . . so much more than I've revealed in these few posts . . . is sometimes even more than I'm willing to revisit. As a result, writing has come in spurts. There are times when I need to take a break now and again when the emotions get too intense.
There are also a lot of considerations regarding the people in my life who are characters in my book. I’m unsure of the “legality” of it all - how much I’m allowed to say, etc. Obviously, I will have to change the names to protect the guilty (and the innocent!). I am extremely concerned with the impact my writing may have - foremost on my former partner - as I have no contact with her whatsoever and have no way of gauging her reaction . . . and on many, many others in my past and present . . . even having to consider how this will impact my daughter and her future . . .
But even though it’s at times difficult, along with writing comes the benefit of additional healing. Each time I share a piece of my past, the Holy Spirit adds a soothing balm to the fading scars . . . and I’m one step closer to complete psychological healing.
It is my prayer that one day, my experience, my story, will help someone to break free from the bondage that he or she has allowed the enemy to place on his or her life. No one will ever convince me that the homosexual lifestyle is okay in the sight of the Lord. No one has ever lived the life that I have lived. No one has ever faced the pain that I faced when I finally chose to be obedient to the Holy Spirit. No one will ever understand the pain that it caused my family, who loved my partner like one of their own . . . who is now no longer a part of their lives as well. (Don’t ever fool yourself into thinking that when you sin you are only hurting yourself . . . because, oh my goodness . . . that, too, is a lie of the enemy.) But it is through all of this that I believe - with my whole heart - that the Lord will not waste a minute of my pain . . . that He will turn my ashes into beauty. And someone else will be free to wash the feet of Jesus.....
I leave you with this song - one I often sing when sharing my story (oh that I could sing it as well as CeCe...) Thanks again for “listening.” It is with such heartfelt emotion I read your comments and feel your love coming through...I love each of you....and am so very blessed that you are in my life! I covet your continued prayers....Keep me accountable!! ...and remember, God loves you with an everlasting love...and it is by His Spirit that He draws you...don't ever walk the other way. Trust me. It's not worth it.
Through its pages, believe it or not, I have grown to have a new appreciation for God's Word. The little post-it tabs which take me to each highlighted verse of each of the sisters before me has enabled me to share some precious times with my Savior this week. I am so envious of whomever is going to receive this Good Book last and have the privilege of reading ALL of our favorite passages - allowing the Lord to speak through each of them.
Thank you for reading through all of my words. I know it was a lot through which to wade! Believe me, there is so much more I could have written. But if you're interested in the unabridged version, you'll have to buy the book when it comes out!
Seriously . . . the Lord impressed upon me several years ago that I was to write my story down - even gave me the title of my book. And I've been toying around with the idea off and on for several years. It wasn't until a year ago that I began to get serious about writing. The constant prompting of the Holy Spirit finally wore me down! That, and a friend who replied to my frequent comment of "one day I'm going to write a book . . . " -- "DEB! Write the book already! You've been hinting around for months that you should write a book . . . now go and write it already because while it's all still rattling around in your brain, it's not on paper and it's not blessing anybody! Go write the book before you're dead and nobody is blessed!" I just looked at her and said, "you're right." . . . I went home that evening and wrote the preface. And I've been writing ever since.
...But not always consistently. As I mentioned previously, it's not always easy to write. The emotions that come back as I relive, oh . . . so much more than I've revealed in these few posts . . . is sometimes even more than I'm willing to revisit. As a result, writing has come in spurts. There are times when I need to take a break now and again when the emotions get too intense.
There are also a lot of considerations regarding the people in my life who are characters in my book. I’m unsure of the “legality” of it all - how much I’m allowed to say, etc. Obviously, I will have to change the names to protect the guilty (and the innocent!). I am extremely concerned with the impact my writing may have - foremost on my former partner - as I have no contact with her whatsoever and have no way of gauging her reaction . . . and on many, many others in my past and present . . . even having to consider how this will impact my daughter and her future . . .
But even though it’s at times difficult, along with writing comes the benefit of additional healing. Each time I share a piece of my past, the Holy Spirit adds a soothing balm to the fading scars . . . and I’m one step closer to complete psychological healing.
It is my prayer that one day, my experience, my story, will help someone to break free from the bondage that he or she has allowed the enemy to place on his or her life. No one will ever convince me that the homosexual lifestyle is okay in the sight of the Lord. No one has ever lived the life that I have lived. No one has ever faced the pain that I faced when I finally chose to be obedient to the Holy Spirit. No one will ever understand the pain that it caused my family, who loved my partner like one of their own . . . who is now no longer a part of their lives as well. (Don’t ever fool yourself into thinking that when you sin you are only hurting yourself . . . because, oh my goodness . . . that, too, is a lie of the enemy.) But it is through all of this that I believe - with my whole heart - that the Lord will not waste a minute of my pain . . . that He will turn my ashes into beauty. And someone else will be free to wash the feet of Jesus.....
I leave you with this song - one I often sing when sharing my story (oh that I could sing it as well as CeCe...) Thanks again for “listening.” It is with such heartfelt emotion I read your comments and feel your love coming through...I love each of you....and am so very blessed that you are in my life! I covet your continued prayers....Keep me accountable!! ...and remember, God loves you with an everlasting love...and it is by His Spirit that He draws you...don't ever walk the other way. Trust me. It's not worth it.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
My Heart's Desire
Not long afterward, I began to desire a husband. I had all of these qualities in mind, floating around in my head and I decided to write them down. So – I made a list of the qualities that I wanted in a mate. The first three things were absolutely non-negotiable.
1) Someone who loved the Lord with all His heart, mind, soul and strength.
2) Someone with the same beliefs as I.
3) Someone with a servant’s heart
Then I had a whole page of "it would be nice if..."
he is between the ages of 40-45
he is taller than I
he has a good sense of humor
he has chest hair!
he likes antiques
he enjoys canoeing
he enjoys hiking
etc...
I told my friend (and Christian counselor at the time) that I had made this list...and that I wasn’t even sure I should be making a list, but that I really felt compelled to write everything down. She shared her thoughts that since the Lord had placed the desire in my heart to be married, that she felt it was perfectly okay to make a list of qualities and that she would even pray with me over my list! So...pray we did!
Shortly thereafter, one September day, I was watching the local Christian TV station. They were having a pledge drive to raise money and the Lord prompted me to call in a pledge. While on the phone, the prayer partner asked me if there was anything about which she could pray for me. I said, "yes, as a matter of fact, there is. I would like a godly husband." She wrote the request on the pledge card and then agreed with me in prayer and told me that she would pass along my prayer request so that others would pray as well. Richard Roberts (of Oral Roberts University) happened to be the guest on the show that day. About 30 minutes after I called, someone handed my pledge card to Richard Roberts. On the air he said, "Deborah from Cranberry Township is pledging X amount and she has a prayer request...I see the request...I’m not going to read it on the air...do you see it Oleen?" He then handed the pledge card to Oleen Eagle –who at that time was the CEO of Cornerstone Television and who was present on the show that evening. Oleen read the card. Richard said, "Oleen, I feel impressed to pray right now." And he then began to pray..."Dear Lord, I pray that you will make this request manifest in a way that she will KNOW that the answer only could have come from you. Place this person in her life - may it be a ‘suddenly’ an ‘unexpected’ answer and may she be blessed. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen."
As I sat and listened to Richard Roberts pray for me - on the air - there were tears streaming down my cheeks as I felt the presence of the Lord fill my living room. I cried and cried –and thanked the Lord in advance for answering my prayer. And then I sat back and promptly forgot about it. I went about my daily living, believing that God would answer in His time.
Three months later on Christmas day, I was home alone feeling sorry for myself because my family had celebrated Christmas together the week before. All my friends were with their families and I was alone in this house which I had previously shared with my partner. All the memories of all the past Christmases spent together were flooding my mind and I was very discouraged, thinking that I couldn’t possibly ever know the joy of a right relationship with someone. I turned on my computer and soon found myself in a Christian chat room. I hadn’t visited this site before. The ‘room’ had about 15 visitors that afternoon. Everyone was chatting about what they had for dinner and what Christmas gifts they received. In fact, I recall one person complaining that he had meatloaf for dinner and wondering who in the world serves meatloaf on Christmas? “Where was the ham or the turkey?”, he wanted to know! Someone else described in detail the beautiful scarf that her Aunt had knitted for her. I just didn’t feel like taking part in all the merry well-wishing and thought that this was a big waste of my time. Eventually I typed, "Well, since none of you is ready to prophesy that you’re my future husband, I’m outta here. Merry Christmas everyone." And then, just seconds before I clicked the "exit" button, someone typed, "Wait, don’t go." My very first thought was, "Oh, who is this bozo?" The person said, "Can we talk? Can we go in a ‘private’ chat room?" At this point, I KNEW that he was probably NOT the type of person with whom I would enjoy conversing –especially after hearing all the horror stories of men attempting to "pick up" women online. Nevertheless, I agreed to go into a private chat room and chat since I didn’t think there would be any chance that he could track me down by only knowing my screenname: DebPghPA40.
Without knowing anything about me, other than my name was Deb, I was 40 years old and I lived near Pittsburgh, Pa, this person began to share his testimony with me. As he began unfolding the events of his life and I watched the words spell across my computer screen - just by reading his words, I knew that He loved the Lord with all his heart. Also, I couldn’t believe that not only was he a Christian, but he was a member of the same denomination as I. He shared with me that he was on staff at Wekiva Assembly of God in Sanford, Florida! Wow! - "A Pastor?"....no, he said he was the Chief Operations Manager with a staff of seven people under him. Their job was to clean and maintain the church and the adjoining Christian school. A big job for a church of over 1000 members. At this point, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper in my ear, "Deb, there’s the servant’s heart that you requested"...It was at that moment that I knew I was going to marry this man.
We talked online for over five hours on that Christmas Day....and then talked online again for the next several days before I got cold feet and told him that I didn’t think it was going to work out –he lived in Florida and I lived in Pennsylvania. I knew that I couldn’t live in Florida because of the heat and how it would affect my MS. He honored my request to not pursue the relationship and the emails and online chats stopped. Until a week later when I said to myself, "Are you nuts? God has placed this man in your life and you’re going to let him go?" I contacted him and said that perhaps I was too hasty in my decision and that we should try again.
We spent countless hours on the internet and on the telephone getting to know each other. Over the next few weeks, I was able to check off EVERY item on my "list". And at that time, he never even knew I had a list! Without a doubt – this was the man that God had suddenly and from a very unexpected place – brought into my life.
Randy flew up to meet me in February. While visiting, I took him to McConnell’s Mill State Park. It was a beautiful, sunny day with a temperature in the mid 60s –very unusual for February! We walked the path along the creek and then stopped to rest on some large boulders. He pointed out that carved into the boulder behind us was a cross. Just then, a breeze blew some seeds down on his shoulder and I picked one up that was in the shape of a dove. I showed it to him and at that moment he said, "this is the perfect time"....and he got down on one knee, opened a box which contained the most beautiful ring I had ever seen - and asked me to be his wife.
Four months later, after having not even known each other six months, Randy and I were married on June 2, 2001. I wish I could say that the road up to that time was paved with roses, but it wasn’t. My pastor - one of my closest friends at the time, refused to marry us. He said, "But Deb, you’re moving so stinkin’ fast!" He wanted us to wait another six months. It didn’t matter how fast it was. I knew. We knew. God had brought us together and we absolutely knew that we were going to get married –with or without his blessing. He and his family did attend the wedding and in fact, asked the blessing at the reception –but he held to his convictions that we were moving too quickly and wouldn’t perform the ceremony. We had my mother’s blessing and Randy's parents’ blessing and the blessing of all of our family and friends.
Our wedding was the day that I had always dreamed it would be – filled with music. We had so many vocalists and musicians that my former worship Pastor who played and sang during the ceremony refers to our wedding as, "The Musical...um, I mean, the Wedding"! In fact, I also surprised Randy and sang to him. I’ll never forget the look of surprise on Randy’s face when Pastor Meyer handed me the microphone and the music began....he just looked at me and asked what was going on...muttering something about ‘this not being in the rehearsal’...
Here are the lyrics to the song I sang to Randy on our Wedding Day:
I asked the Lord for someone
and I always knew that in God's time and in God's way
it would be someone like you.
All my hopes and all my dreams
were suddenly fulfilled.
It's almost unbelievable
our love is in His will.
Only God could love you more
for He gave me this love I have for you.
What a blessing to know He's your Lord
For only God could love you more, than I do.
I'm tempted to be saying
that we met by chance.
But God was there at every turn
In every circumstance.
To share this life God gave me
seems such a fearful task.
But every moment we have shared
is more than I could ask.
Only God could love you more
for He gave me this love I have for you.
What a blessing to know He's your Lord.
For only God could love you more, than I do.
We have been happily married for over nine years...approaching our tenth anniversary in June. Olivia was born 23 days after our first wedding anniversary. She was 2 ½ months early and the Lord spared both of our lives. (But the retelling of that miracle would involve another four or five posts - at least!)
The Lord has certainly taken the ashes of my past –and exchanged them all for beauty - to glorify Him alone. Through the years, I have been asked by several congregations to share my testimony. In prayerful consideration I have done so four times. And each time the Lord has honored my words. Each time I was contacted the very next day by people who are going through the same struggle that I experienced. Each time I have been able to counsel these women over a period of time, praying with them and encouraging them. And I have a quite lengthy list of people I pray for daily...all the brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors and cousins of all who know my story who have asked me to pray for their loved ones. I don’t believe the Lord will ever waste a hurt. He promises in His Word that He will equip us to accomplish the tasks that He calls us to do. I’m trusting Him to continue do just that and am looking forward to being used for His glory to help make a difference in others’ lives.
That brings me to ask you all for your prayers for a project that I believe the Lord wants me to complete. I have only shared this with one other scarf sister up until now. She has been praying for me for several months, but I would ask for your prayers as well as I continue to pour myself into this project. The Lord has asked me to write a book. In these past few posts, even though they’ve been lengthy ones, I have only touched on the highlights of my story. There is so much more that I could have included. And there are so many in the church today whom I believe would benefit from reading my testimony. Homosexuality is a huge problem in the church today. I can almost guarantee that each of you knows someone in the church (even if you don’t know that you know someone) who struggles with this issue.
There are many places in God’s Word which deal with homosexuality. One of them in Romans, Chapter one:
“...For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality... who, knowing the righteous judgement of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”
As I think of others, many still close friends of mine, who remain deceived; believing that their behavior is right in the sight of the Lord, my heart is broken. I have come to the conclusion that prayer is my best weapon against this lifestyle. I will certainly not win anyone over with condemnation. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. My job is just to love them where they are. Until they are convinced by the Holy Spirit, I remain, in their eyes, an over zealous Christian bigot who can’t open her heart to include everyone, believing that all who practice homosexuality are destined for hell.
Let me be the first to say that only God may judge. Looking back over my own life, there was a time when I was deep in sin and I had completely turned my back on the Lord. If you remember, I had actually said that if living as a lesbian meant going to hell, then so be it. I was not willing to walk away. But then, as the Holy Spirit began to convict me and I allowed my heart to soften, there was quite a long process of walking out of that lifestyle into the one I know today. Had I died during that long process of walking out, those years of back and forth struggle, would I be banished to hell? I would like to think not. I would like to believe that as each of us struggle with various issues and sin in our lives, we serve a merciful God - a God who will not turn His back on us completely when He knows that we are trying to live a righteous life. Sanctification is a process. None of us will have “arrived” here on this earth. There is always room for improvement. Always the Holy Spirit continues to draw us closer to Him if we will only allow Him.
I have come a long way, but I have so far yet to go. Just as Paul wrote to the Philippians in chapter 3:12-16: “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind."
And so, I ask, once again, for your prayers as I continue to write and share my heart. I ask for your encouragement, and to hold me accountable - asking me every now and then if I'm keeping true to the task. As you may imagine, this journey through my past is an emotional journey and it comes with a cost at times. I find that I am often angry at myself as I think of wasted years; time I could have been living for the Lord, working to further His kingdom. Instead, I was busy fulfilling my own lustful desires. That anger at times manifests itself against my family. The enemy is always working to destroy the beautiful gift of this life that God has given me. Now it is my desire to be used of God...that many may come to know him through my testimony....”And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony...” Revelation 12:11
Thank you for ‘listening’ to my story. I am so blessed to belong to this group of Christian bloggers....This Sisterhood of the Traveling Scarf. ....who’d have ever thought in the very beginning that we’d be so tightly knit together in God’s love? Indeed....we are blessed.
1) Someone who loved the Lord with all His heart, mind, soul and strength.
2) Someone with the same beliefs as I.
3) Someone with a servant’s heart
Then I had a whole page of "it would be nice if..."
he is between the ages of 40-45
he is taller than I
he has a good sense of humor
he has chest hair!
he likes antiques
he enjoys canoeing
he enjoys hiking
etc...
I told my friend (and Christian counselor at the time) that I had made this list...and that I wasn’t even sure I should be making a list, but that I really felt compelled to write everything down. She shared her thoughts that since the Lord had placed the desire in my heart to be married, that she felt it was perfectly okay to make a list of qualities and that she would even pray with me over my list! So...pray we did!
Shortly thereafter, one September day, I was watching the local Christian TV station. They were having a pledge drive to raise money and the Lord prompted me to call in a pledge. While on the phone, the prayer partner asked me if there was anything about which she could pray for me. I said, "yes, as a matter of fact, there is. I would like a godly husband." She wrote the request on the pledge card and then agreed with me in prayer and told me that she would pass along my prayer request so that others would pray as well. Richard Roberts (of Oral Roberts University) happened to be the guest on the show that day. About 30 minutes after I called, someone handed my pledge card to Richard Roberts. On the air he said, "Deborah from Cranberry Township is pledging X amount and she has a prayer request...I see the request...I’m not going to read it on the air...do you see it Oleen?" He then handed the pledge card to Oleen Eagle –who at that time was the CEO of Cornerstone Television and who was present on the show that evening. Oleen read the card. Richard said, "Oleen, I feel impressed to pray right now." And he then began to pray..."Dear Lord, I pray that you will make this request manifest in a way that she will KNOW that the answer only could have come from you. Place this person in her life - may it be a ‘suddenly’ an ‘unexpected’ answer and may she be blessed. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen."
As I sat and listened to Richard Roberts pray for me - on the air - there were tears streaming down my cheeks as I felt the presence of the Lord fill my living room. I cried and cried –and thanked the Lord in advance for answering my prayer. And then I sat back and promptly forgot about it. I went about my daily living, believing that God would answer in His time.
Three months later on Christmas day, I was home alone feeling sorry for myself because my family had celebrated Christmas together the week before. All my friends were with their families and I was alone in this house which I had previously shared with my partner. All the memories of all the past Christmases spent together were flooding my mind and I was very discouraged, thinking that I couldn’t possibly ever know the joy of a right relationship with someone. I turned on my computer and soon found myself in a Christian chat room. I hadn’t visited this site before. The ‘room’ had about 15 visitors that afternoon. Everyone was chatting about what they had for dinner and what Christmas gifts they received. In fact, I recall one person complaining that he had meatloaf for dinner and wondering who in the world serves meatloaf on Christmas? “Where was the ham or the turkey?”, he wanted to know! Someone else described in detail the beautiful scarf that her Aunt had knitted for her. I just didn’t feel like taking part in all the merry well-wishing and thought that this was a big waste of my time. Eventually I typed, "Well, since none of you is ready to prophesy that you’re my future husband, I’m outta here. Merry Christmas everyone." And then, just seconds before I clicked the "exit" button, someone typed, "Wait, don’t go." My very first thought was, "Oh, who is this bozo?" The person said, "Can we talk? Can we go in a ‘private’ chat room?" At this point, I KNEW that he was probably NOT the type of person with whom I would enjoy conversing –especially after hearing all the horror stories of men attempting to "pick up" women online. Nevertheless, I agreed to go into a private chat room and chat since I didn’t think there would be any chance that he could track me down by only knowing my screenname: DebPghPA40.
Without knowing anything about me, other than my name was Deb, I was 40 years old and I lived near Pittsburgh, Pa, this person began to share his testimony with me. As he began unfolding the events of his life and I watched the words spell across my computer screen - just by reading his words, I knew that He loved the Lord with all his heart. Also, I couldn’t believe that not only was he a Christian, but he was a member of the same denomination as I. He shared with me that he was on staff at Wekiva Assembly of God in Sanford, Florida! Wow! - "A Pastor?"....no, he said he was the Chief Operations Manager with a staff of seven people under him. Their job was to clean and maintain the church and the adjoining Christian school. A big job for a church of over 1000 members. At this point, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper in my ear, "Deb, there’s the servant’s heart that you requested"...It was at that moment that I knew I was going to marry this man.
We talked online for over five hours on that Christmas Day....and then talked online again for the next several days before I got cold feet and told him that I didn’t think it was going to work out –he lived in Florida and I lived in Pennsylvania. I knew that I couldn’t live in Florida because of the heat and how it would affect my MS. He honored my request to not pursue the relationship and the emails and online chats stopped. Until a week later when I said to myself, "Are you nuts? God has placed this man in your life and you’re going to let him go?" I contacted him and said that perhaps I was too hasty in my decision and that we should try again.
We spent countless hours on the internet and on the telephone getting to know each other. Over the next few weeks, I was able to check off EVERY item on my "list". And at that time, he never even knew I had a list! Without a doubt – this was the man that God had suddenly and from a very unexpected place – brought into my life.
Randy flew up to meet me in February. While visiting, I took him to McConnell’s Mill State Park. It was a beautiful, sunny day with a temperature in the mid 60s –very unusual for February! We walked the path along the creek and then stopped to rest on some large boulders. He pointed out that carved into the boulder behind us was a cross. Just then, a breeze blew some seeds down on his shoulder and I picked one up that was in the shape of a dove. I showed it to him and at that moment he said, "this is the perfect time"....and he got down on one knee, opened a box which contained the most beautiful ring I had ever seen - and asked me to be his wife.
Four months later, after having not even known each other six months, Randy and I were married on June 2, 2001. I wish I could say that the road up to that time was paved with roses, but it wasn’t. My pastor - one of my closest friends at the time, refused to marry us. He said, "But Deb, you’re moving so stinkin’ fast!" He wanted us to wait another six months. It didn’t matter how fast it was. I knew. We knew. God had brought us together and we absolutely knew that we were going to get married –with or without his blessing. He and his family did attend the wedding and in fact, asked the blessing at the reception –but he held to his convictions that we were moving too quickly and wouldn’t perform the ceremony. We had my mother’s blessing and Randy's parents’ blessing and the blessing of all of our family and friends.Our wedding was the day that I had always dreamed it would be – filled with music. We had so many vocalists and musicians that my former worship Pastor who played and sang during the ceremony refers to our wedding as, "The Musical...um, I mean, the Wedding"! In fact, I also surprised Randy and sang to him. I’ll never forget the look of surprise on Randy’s face when Pastor Meyer handed me the microphone and the music began....he just looked at me and asked what was going on...muttering something about ‘this not being in the rehearsal’...
Here are the lyrics to the song I sang to Randy on our Wedding Day:
and I always knew that in God's time and in God's way
it would be someone like you.
All my hopes and all my dreams
were suddenly fulfilled.
It's almost unbelievable
our love is in His will.
Only God could love you more
for He gave me this love I have for you.
What a blessing to know He's your Lord
For only God could love you more, than I do.
I'm tempted to be saying
that we met by chance.
But God was there at every turn
In every circumstance.
To share this life God gave me
seems such a fearful task.
But every moment we have shared
is more than I could ask.
Only God could love you more
for He gave me this love I have for you.
What a blessing to know He's your Lord.
For only God could love you more, than I do.
We have been happily married for over nine years...approaching our tenth anniversary in June. Olivia was born 23 days after our first wedding anniversary. She was 2 ½ months early and the Lord spared both of our lives. (But the retelling of that miracle would involve another four or five posts - at least!)
The Lord has certainly taken the ashes of my past –and exchanged them all for beauty - to glorify Him alone. Through the years, I have been asked by several congregations to share my testimony. In prayerful consideration I have done so four times. And each time the Lord has honored my words. Each time I was contacted the very next day by people who are going through the same struggle that I experienced. Each time I have been able to counsel these women over a period of time, praying with them and encouraging them. And I have a quite lengthy list of people I pray for daily...all the brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors and cousins of all who know my story who have asked me to pray for their loved ones. I don’t believe the Lord will ever waste a hurt. He promises in His Word that He will equip us to accomplish the tasks that He calls us to do. I’m trusting Him to continue do just that and am looking forward to being used for His glory to help make a difference in others’ lives.
That brings me to ask you all for your prayers for a project that I believe the Lord wants me to complete. I have only shared this with one other scarf sister up until now. She has been praying for me for several months, but I would ask for your prayers as well as I continue to pour myself into this project. The Lord has asked me to write a book. In these past few posts, even though they’ve been lengthy ones, I have only touched on the highlights of my story. There is so much more that I could have included. And there are so many in the church today whom I believe would benefit from reading my testimony. Homosexuality is a huge problem in the church today. I can almost guarantee that each of you knows someone in the church (even if you don’t know that you know someone) who struggles with this issue.
There are many places in God’s Word which deal with homosexuality. One of them in Romans, Chapter one:
“...For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality... who, knowing the righteous judgement of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”
As I think of others, many still close friends of mine, who remain deceived; believing that their behavior is right in the sight of the Lord, my heart is broken. I have come to the conclusion that prayer is my best weapon against this lifestyle. I will certainly not win anyone over with condemnation. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. My job is just to love them where they are. Until they are convinced by the Holy Spirit, I remain, in their eyes, an over zealous Christian bigot who can’t open her heart to include everyone, believing that all who practice homosexuality are destined for hell.
Let me be the first to say that only God may judge. Looking back over my own life, there was a time when I was deep in sin and I had completely turned my back on the Lord. If you remember, I had actually said that if living as a lesbian meant going to hell, then so be it. I was not willing to walk away. But then, as the Holy Spirit began to convict me and I allowed my heart to soften, there was quite a long process of walking out of that lifestyle into the one I know today. Had I died during that long process of walking out, those years of back and forth struggle, would I be banished to hell? I would like to think not. I would like to believe that as each of us struggle with various issues and sin in our lives, we serve a merciful God - a God who will not turn His back on us completely when He knows that we are trying to live a righteous life. Sanctification is a process. None of us will have “arrived” here on this earth. There is always room for improvement. Always the Holy Spirit continues to draw us closer to Him if we will only allow Him.
I have come a long way, but I have so far yet to go. Just as Paul wrote to the Philippians in chapter 3:12-16: “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind."
And so, I ask, once again, for your prayers as I continue to write and share my heart. I ask for your encouragement, and to hold me accountable - asking me every now and then if I'm keeping true to the task. As you may imagine, this journey through my past is an emotional journey and it comes with a cost at times. I find that I am often angry at myself as I think of wasted years; time I could have been living for the Lord, working to further His kingdom. Instead, I was busy fulfilling my own lustful desires. That anger at times manifests itself against my family. The enemy is always working to destroy the beautiful gift of this life that God has given me. Now it is my desire to be used of God...that many may come to know him through my testimony....”And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony...” Revelation 12:11
Thank you for ‘listening’ to my story. I am so blessed to belong to this group of Christian bloggers....This Sisterhood of the Traveling Scarf. ....who’d have ever thought in the very beginning that we’d be so tightly knit together in God’s love? Indeed....we are blessed.
Monday, February 7, 2011
For Our Deb
Bring Back the Springtime
Words and Music by Kurt Kaiser, 1970
When in the spring, the flowers are blooming bright and fair,
After the grey of winter's gone.
Once again the lark begins his tuning,
Back in the meadows of my heart.
.
Chorus
Lord, to my heart bring back the springtime.
Take away the cold and dark of sin.
And, Oh refill me now, sweet Holy Spirit:
May I warm and tender be again.
.
Lord, make me like that stream that flows so cool and clear
Down from the mountains high above;
I will tell the world the wondrous story
Of the precious stream filled with your Love.
.
Chorus
Lord, to my heart bring back the springtime.
Take away the cold and dark of sin.
And, Oh refill me now, sweet Holy Spirit:
May I warm and tender be again.
Debbie...the lord worked so many years to bring his own dear child into the spring time again...you are a blessing!.........love terry
Beyond the Open Door....
Not quite a year after my father went Home to be with Jesus, Becca and I received notification from our landord that the company wanted to remodel our townhouse. We were going to have to move everything into another townhouse, allow them to remodel and then move everything back. Considering that I have multiple sclerosis and wouldn’t be able to do all that packing and moving - it wasn’t an option. We decided to opt out of our lease and we began looking for a home to buy. Moving one time was certainly more appealing than moving twice.
The problem was - we had no down payment. We attended a church service around the Christmas holiday and the pastor asked anyone with a financial need to stand. I stood. The pastor prayed that the Lord would meet the financial need, through no prompting of my own and that I would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord had worked on my behalf. I agreed with him in prayer, but then really forgot all about the incident until two months later when my mother called to tell me that my Grandmother wanted to give me $17,000 to buy a house! I almost fell over! My grandmother wasn’t the type to give away even a $20 bill. She was very frugal and managed her finances well. I got off the phone, turned to Becca and said, "I can’t believe that Grandma wants to do this. I didn’t even do anything to prompt it." Becca immediately jumped up and down and said, "That’s it! That’s it! Through no prompting of your own –that’s what the pastor prayed in church a few months ago!"
So...we began the long process of buying a house - together. When I was uncertain, the Lord said to me, "Deb, don’t I take care of the sparrows?" I replied, "yes, Lord." Then He said, "and aren’t you more important to me than a sparrow?" I replied, "I guess so, Lord." I then opened my Bible at random and looked down and read a verse in Psalms (84:3), "The sparrow has found a house..." Confirmation that we were to go through with everything. Several days later we put an offer on a home in Cranberry Township, PA. We met with the finance people and got the ball rolling...we would soon be homeowners.
When we were quite far along in the process, we were driving home from my sister’s after having attended a weekend birthday celebration for my niece. Becca turned to me as we were driving and informed me that two days before she had lost her job due to downsizing. She had waited until the end of the weekend so as not to spoil the good time at my niece’s party. We were so upset - knowing that there was no way we could buy a house now with only one income.
It was raining that night and we were on the turnpike. A semi-truck kept passing us. We would pass the truck, the truck would pass us. This went on at least four times. The entire time we were crying and discussing what we were going to do since we were certain that we would lose the chance to buy the house that we had found. Finally, after the fourth time that the truck passed us, Becca said, "What is with this truck?!" And then we saw it...emblazoned on the back of the semi in big red and yellow letters were the words, "Hurting? God Cares!" We began to sob! It just so happened that this occurred about two miles from the exit where the new house was located. We turned off the turnpike –drove to the house –pulled up to the front and prayed together. "Lord, if You want us to have this house, we trust that You will work out all the details - including this recent loss of Becca’s job. We promise to give the house back to You to use however You will."
Now...having since married a mortgage broker and spent countless hours processing home loans for his company, I know that there is no way that Becca and I would have closed on that house after she lost her job. A month later...all the details were worked out and we closed on the house. Only God. Little did we know the plans that He had for this house.
The next day was moving day and as the movers were moving the last of the boxes into the new home, Becca, my mother, my grandmother, a friend of ours, and myself stood on the lawn, held hands and I prayed. "Lord, we are so thankful for this house and we want You to know that it’s Yours. Place a hedge of protection around it, station Your angels at all the corners. Use this house - we give it back to You - bless it and use it in whatever way You will."
Several weeks went by and I answered a knock on the door. A couple was taking a neighborhood survey and asked what I wanted to see in Cranberry Township. I couldn’t think of anything besides a Taco Bell. It’s my favorite fast food restaurant and there is not one in Cranberry. I told them that I wanted to see a Taco Bell in Cranberry. They laughed and then asked if we were attending a church in the area. We were. (We had begun to look for a church and had attended several.) They then thanked me and left to go on to the next house in our neighborhood.
Becca emerged from the other room after having listened to our conversation and said, "Why didn’t you tell them that we wanted to see an Assemblies of God church in the area?" (Since this was our denomination and Cranberry Township did not have an A/G church.) I said to Becca that they were just taking some silly neighborhood survey and it probably wouldn’t matter, but I would call them back. I opened the door, called them back and told them that even though I was sure it wouldn’t make any difference in the world, we really would like to see an Assemblies of God church in the area. They immediately started to laugh and said that the reason they were there was because they wanted to start an A/G church in Cranberry! We asked them where they were meeting and they said that they didn’t have a place to meet, that they were hoping to start in a home. Immediately tears filled my eyes as I shared with them the prayer that I had prayed over our home several weeks earlier.
Two weeks later, CrossWay Church of the Assemblies of God began in our living room with 15 people. We also discovered later that there were three couples canvassing the area that day. Earlier, someone had prayed with the couple that knocked on our door that God would lead them to the house where the church would begin. God used us in spite of our struggle with sin.
Over the next six years we watched the church grow from 15 to over 400. They now meet in a beautiful building which I helped build with my own two hands. The church sits on a hillside - overlooking the community. I was very active in the new church - singing on the praise team, keeping the church offering records, leading a Bible study and even going on a life-changing missions trip to The Dominican Republic.
One evening after my Bible study, our friend Colleen lingered after everyone else had gone. She started talking and asked us if she could share her story. Colleen was very happily married to Jeff, so you may imagine my surprise when she shared how the Lord had delivered her from a life of homosexuality. I just looked at Becca and said, "Should I say something?" Becca said, "You might as well, you’re going to spill your guts anyway whether I give permission or not." I told Colleen of our struggle with homosexuality. At this point, we had been a couple for 17 years –longer than most of our friends had been married. Colleen just looked at us and knowingly smiled. She knew of our struggle. The Lord had confirmed to her that we were involved in this lifestyle and told us that she had been praying for us for quite some time! She was just waiting for the Lord’s direction and timing as to when to approach us. I was dumbfounded.
Colleen immediately said that we MUST sell our house and live separately. At this point in our minds –it wasn’t even an option. I mean, after all that we had been through to get our home...and how the Lord had used it! And besides, I insisted that even though we shared a bed - we were rarely intimate. Colleen just looked at me and laughed –and said, "Deb, I’m going to ride your butts until you follow through with selling this house and live separately because until you do –you will never break free from this stronghold the enemy has on your life."
Needless to say, Colleen exhibited tough love. Very tough love. Over the next few weeks she constantly encouraged Becca and I to make the decision to split up and assured us again and again that she was praying for us. One evening I just kept looking at the open door of our spare bedroom and the Lord kept saying to me, "You have to make the move and go through that bedroom door." Finally, after much deliberation with the Lord, I gave in and told Becca that I needed to move into the other bedroom. It was one of the most difficult moves I made, but I moved. Once settled into the other room –I laid down on my bed and turned on the radio to the local Christian radio station and these are the lyrics to Beyond the Open Door, the song that I heard playing:
In the things familiar we find security
Resisting all the changes that days and years can bring,
When God decides to lead you through an open door
Inviting you to walk in realms you've never walked before.
Beyond the open door is a new and fresh anointing,
Hear the Spirit calling you to go.
Walk on through the door for the Lord will go before you
Into a greater power you've never known before.
Hear the spirit calling to wake the living dead,
To reach the huddled masses who cry out for living bread.
Arise oh mighty army, take up thy shield and sword
For the Father lifts His golden lamp beside the open door.
Beyond the open door is a new and fresh anointing,
Hear the Spirit calling you to go.
Walk on through the door for the Lord will go before you
Into a greater power you've never known.
Beyond the open door is a new and fresh anointing,
Hear the Spirit calling you to go.
Walk on through the door for the Lord will go before you
Into a greater power you've never known . . .
Where He leads me, I will follow
Where He leads me, I will follow
And where He leads me, I will follow
Into a greater power we've never known before,
Beyond the open door.
That move into the spare bedroom was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. After all, I had spent over 17 years with Becca. She was everything to me. A week later, Becca moved in with Colleen and her husband and I was left alone in this house which I believed that God had blessed us with and I couldn’t believe that He was now requiring us to sell it and move apart. I kept insisting that we could continue to live together as friends. But there was no way God was going to allow that. Regardless of any presence or absence of physical intimacy, we had a soul tie that needed to be broken. Each of us had placed the other first in our lives - a place which should be reserved only for the Lord.
I began to cry out to God like I never had before. I needed Him like I never had before. I had spoken to some friends and asked them how they viewed the Lord. One said, "I can’t see His face, but I can see the corners of His mouth and He’s smiling at me and He extends His hand and says, ‘let’s dance’." Another friend said that she pictured the Lord seated and she was at His feet, with her head in His lap, His arms embracing her. I had always seen the Lord as this All Powerful Being Who sat on the throne, with His train filling the temple and the cherubim and seraphim continually crying, "Holy Holy Holy is the Lamb Who sits on the Throne..." The God of the Universe. Not that God is not to be revered in that way, but I wanted to know the other aspects of His character. I wanted to learn how to be His bride –to dance with Him, to be able to have Him embrace me. I told the Lord that I wanted to go back to those days as a young person when I would spend hours praying and singing and worshiping Him.
It was then that I opened my Bible to a random spot and looked down and read this from Hosea chapter two. This is what it said:
Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
Will bring her into the wilderness,
And speak comfort to her.
I will give her her vineyards from there,
And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope;
She shall sing there,
As in the days of her youth,
As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.
“ And it shall be, in that day,”
Says the LORD,
“ That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’
And no longer call Me ‘My Master,’
For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals,
And they shall be remembered by their name no more.
In that day I will make a covenant for them
With the beasts of the field,
With the birds of the air,
And with the creeping things of the ground.
Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth,
To make them lie down safely.
“ I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me
In righteousness and justice,
In lovingkindness and mercy;
I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,
And you shall know the LORD.
Wow. I am convinced that Hosea penned those words just for me. I fell to my knees and began to weep. The journey that the Lord took me on for the next six months was incredible. My relationship with Him grew to places that I never thought could be attained. I began to KNOW Him and all the aspects of His character. He taught me how to be His bride. It was one of the most rewarding times of my life.
During this time, I met with two friends and had them pray for me. As they were praying - I closed my eyes and the Lord showed me a vision of a stone and brick wall which was all around me. As they prayed, the wall broke apart and fell at my feet. It was so clear in my mind - as if it were real –only it was a vision in my mind. The Lord told me that the wall was the homosexual lifestyle and all the other stuff that I had placed between Him and me over the years. And it was crumbling at my feet. The Lord said to me, "I want you to step out of the rubble." I did nothing. The Lord just kept saying, "Step out of the rubble." A few minutes later, one of the two friends who were praying with me said, "Deb, God is telling you to step out of the rubble." I couldn’t believe it! How could she know what I was seeing and what God was telling me? But, I was obedient and stepped out of the rubble. I literally had to pick up my feet and step over the imaginary blocks that I saw in my mind. At the moment I did so, the power of the Holy Spirit came upon me and literally picked me up off my feet and threw me to the ground. I know that some of you reading this may not understand what it means to be ‘slain in the Spirit’ - but let me tell you - I speak from experience. It is real. I spent the next thirty minutes praying and crying out to the Lord.
And from that moment on - experienced a freedom unlike any I had ever known. For the first time in years, I felt clean. I knew that I was totally delivered from homosexuality. It was an awesome experience!
To be continued....
The problem was - we had no down payment. We attended a church service around the Christmas holiday and the pastor asked anyone with a financial need to stand. I stood. The pastor prayed that the Lord would meet the financial need, through no prompting of my own and that I would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord had worked on my behalf. I agreed with him in prayer, but then really forgot all about the incident until two months later when my mother called to tell me that my Grandmother wanted to give me $17,000 to buy a house! I almost fell over! My grandmother wasn’t the type to give away even a $20 bill. She was very frugal and managed her finances well. I got off the phone, turned to Becca and said, "I can’t believe that Grandma wants to do this. I didn’t even do anything to prompt it." Becca immediately jumped up and down and said, "That’s it! That’s it! Through no prompting of your own –that’s what the pastor prayed in church a few months ago!"
So...we began the long process of buying a house - together. When I was uncertain, the Lord said to me, "Deb, don’t I take care of the sparrows?" I replied, "yes, Lord." Then He said, "and aren’t you more important to me than a sparrow?" I replied, "I guess so, Lord." I then opened my Bible at random and looked down and read a verse in Psalms (84:3), "The sparrow has found a house..." Confirmation that we were to go through with everything. Several days later we put an offer on a home in Cranberry Township, PA. We met with the finance people and got the ball rolling...we would soon be homeowners.
When we were quite far along in the process, we were driving home from my sister’s after having attended a weekend birthday celebration for my niece. Becca turned to me as we were driving and informed me that two days before she had lost her job due to downsizing. She had waited until the end of the weekend so as not to spoil the good time at my niece’s party. We were so upset - knowing that there was no way we could buy a house now with only one income.
It was raining that night and we were on the turnpike. A semi-truck kept passing us. We would pass the truck, the truck would pass us. This went on at least four times. The entire time we were crying and discussing what we were going to do since we were certain that we would lose the chance to buy the house that we had found. Finally, after the fourth time that the truck passed us, Becca said, "What is with this truck?!" And then we saw it...emblazoned on the back of the semi in big red and yellow letters were the words, "Hurting? God Cares!" We began to sob! It just so happened that this occurred about two miles from the exit where the new house was located. We turned off the turnpike –drove to the house –pulled up to the front and prayed together. "Lord, if You want us to have this house, we trust that You will work out all the details - including this recent loss of Becca’s job. We promise to give the house back to You to use however You will."
Now...having since married a mortgage broker and spent countless hours processing home loans for his company, I know that there is no way that Becca and I would have closed on that house after she lost her job. A month later...all the details were worked out and we closed on the house. Only God. Little did we know the plans that He had for this house.
The next day was moving day and as the movers were moving the last of the boxes into the new home, Becca, my mother, my grandmother, a friend of ours, and myself stood on the lawn, held hands and I prayed. "Lord, we are so thankful for this house and we want You to know that it’s Yours. Place a hedge of protection around it, station Your angels at all the corners. Use this house - we give it back to You - bless it and use it in whatever way You will."
Several weeks went by and I answered a knock on the door. A couple was taking a neighborhood survey and asked what I wanted to see in Cranberry Township. I couldn’t think of anything besides a Taco Bell. It’s my favorite fast food restaurant and there is not one in Cranberry. I told them that I wanted to see a Taco Bell in Cranberry. They laughed and then asked if we were attending a church in the area. We were. (We had begun to look for a church and had attended several.) They then thanked me and left to go on to the next house in our neighborhood.
Becca emerged from the other room after having listened to our conversation and said, "Why didn’t you tell them that we wanted to see an Assemblies of God church in the area?" (Since this was our denomination and Cranberry Township did not have an A/G church.) I said to Becca that they were just taking some silly neighborhood survey and it probably wouldn’t matter, but I would call them back. I opened the door, called them back and told them that even though I was sure it wouldn’t make any difference in the world, we really would like to see an Assemblies of God church in the area. They immediately started to laugh and said that the reason they were there was because they wanted to start an A/G church in Cranberry! We asked them where they were meeting and they said that they didn’t have a place to meet, that they were hoping to start in a home. Immediately tears filled my eyes as I shared with them the prayer that I had prayed over our home several weeks earlier.
Two weeks later, CrossWay Church of the Assemblies of God began in our living room with 15 people. We also discovered later that there were three couples canvassing the area that day. Earlier, someone had prayed with the couple that knocked on our door that God would lead them to the house where the church would begin. God used us in spite of our struggle with sin.
Over the next six years we watched the church grow from 15 to over 400. They now meet in a beautiful building which I helped build with my own two hands. The church sits on a hillside - overlooking the community. I was very active in the new church - singing on the praise team, keeping the church offering records, leading a Bible study and even going on a life-changing missions trip to The Dominican Republic.
One evening after my Bible study, our friend Colleen lingered after everyone else had gone. She started talking and asked us if she could share her story. Colleen was very happily married to Jeff, so you may imagine my surprise when she shared how the Lord had delivered her from a life of homosexuality. I just looked at Becca and said, "Should I say something?" Becca said, "You might as well, you’re going to spill your guts anyway whether I give permission or not." I told Colleen of our struggle with homosexuality. At this point, we had been a couple for 17 years –longer than most of our friends had been married. Colleen just looked at us and knowingly smiled. She knew of our struggle. The Lord had confirmed to her that we were involved in this lifestyle and told us that she had been praying for us for quite some time! She was just waiting for the Lord’s direction and timing as to when to approach us. I was dumbfounded.
Colleen immediately said that we MUST sell our house and live separately. At this point in our minds –it wasn’t even an option. I mean, after all that we had been through to get our home...and how the Lord had used it! And besides, I insisted that even though we shared a bed - we were rarely intimate. Colleen just looked at me and laughed –and said, "Deb, I’m going to ride your butts until you follow through with selling this house and live separately because until you do –you will never break free from this stronghold the enemy has on your life."
Needless to say, Colleen exhibited tough love. Very tough love. Over the next few weeks she constantly encouraged Becca and I to make the decision to split up and assured us again and again that she was praying for us. One evening I just kept looking at the open door of our spare bedroom and the Lord kept saying to me, "You have to make the move and go through that bedroom door." Finally, after much deliberation with the Lord, I gave in and told Becca that I needed to move into the other bedroom. It was one of the most difficult moves I made, but I moved. Once settled into the other room –I laid down on my bed and turned on the radio to the local Christian radio station and these are the lyrics to Beyond the Open Door, the song that I heard playing: Resisting all the changes that days and years can bring,
When God decides to lead you through an open door
Inviting you to walk in realms you've never walked before.
Beyond the open door is a new and fresh anointing,
Hear the Spirit calling you to go.
Walk on through the door for the Lord will go before you
Into a greater power you've never known before.
Hear the spirit calling to wake the living dead,
To reach the huddled masses who cry out for living bread.
Arise oh mighty army, take up thy shield and sword
For the Father lifts His golden lamp beside the open door.
Beyond the open door is a new and fresh anointing,
Hear the Spirit calling you to go.
Walk on through the door for the Lord will go before you
Into a greater power you've never known.
Beyond the open door is a new and fresh anointing,
Hear the Spirit calling you to go.
Walk on through the door for the Lord will go before you
Into a greater power you've never known . . .
Where He leads me, I will follow
Where He leads me, I will follow
And where He leads me, I will follow
Into a greater power we've never known before,
Beyond the open door.
That move into the spare bedroom was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. After all, I had spent over 17 years with Becca. She was everything to me. A week later, Becca moved in with Colleen and her husband and I was left alone in this house which I believed that God had blessed us with and I couldn’t believe that He was now requiring us to sell it and move apart. I kept insisting that we could continue to live together as friends. But there was no way God was going to allow that. Regardless of any presence or absence of physical intimacy, we had a soul tie that needed to be broken. Each of us had placed the other first in our lives - a place which should be reserved only for the Lord.
I began to cry out to God like I never had before. I needed Him like I never had before. I had spoken to some friends and asked them how they viewed the Lord. One said, "I can’t see His face, but I can see the corners of His mouth and He’s smiling at me and He extends His hand and says, ‘let’s dance’." Another friend said that she pictured the Lord seated and she was at His feet, with her head in His lap, His arms embracing her. I had always seen the Lord as this All Powerful Being Who sat on the throne, with His train filling the temple and the cherubim and seraphim continually crying, "Holy Holy Holy is the Lamb Who sits on the Throne..." The God of the Universe. Not that God is not to be revered in that way, but I wanted to know the other aspects of His character. I wanted to learn how to be His bride –to dance with Him, to be able to have Him embrace me. I told the Lord that I wanted to go back to those days as a young person when I would spend hours praying and singing and worshiping Him.
It was then that I opened my Bible to a random spot and looked down and read this from Hosea chapter two. This is what it said:
Will bring her into the wilderness,
And speak comfort to her.
I will give her her vineyards from there,
And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope;
She shall sing there,
As in the days of her youth,
As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.
“ And it shall be, in that day,”
Says the LORD,
“ That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’
And no longer call Me ‘My Master,’
For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals,
And they shall be remembered by their name no more.
In that day I will make a covenant for them
With the beasts of the field,
With the birds of the air,
And with the creeping things of the ground.
Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth,
To make them lie down safely.
“ I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me
In righteousness and justice,
In lovingkindness and mercy;
I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,
And you shall know the LORD.
Wow. I am convinced that Hosea penned those words just for me. I fell to my knees and began to weep. The journey that the Lord took me on for the next six months was incredible. My relationship with Him grew to places that I never thought could be attained. I began to KNOW Him and all the aspects of His character. He taught me how to be His bride. It was one of the most rewarding times of my life.
During this time, I met with two friends and had them pray for me. As they were praying - I closed my eyes and the Lord showed me a vision of a stone and brick wall which was all around me. As they prayed, the wall broke apart and fell at my feet. It was so clear in my mind - as if it were real –only it was a vision in my mind. The Lord told me that the wall was the homosexual lifestyle and all the other stuff that I had placed between Him and me over the years. And it was crumbling at my feet. The Lord said to me, "I want you to step out of the rubble." I did nothing. The Lord just kept saying, "Step out of the rubble." A few minutes later, one of the two friends who were praying with me said, "Deb, God is telling you to step out of the rubble." I couldn’t believe it! How could she know what I was seeing and what God was telling me? But, I was obedient and stepped out of the rubble. I literally had to pick up my feet and step over the imaginary blocks that I saw in my mind. At the moment I did so, the power of the Holy Spirit came upon me and literally picked me up off my feet and threw me to the ground. I know that some of you reading this may not understand what it means to be ‘slain in the Spirit’ - but let me tell you - I speak from experience. It is real. I spent the next thirty minutes praying and crying out to the Lord.
And from that moment on - experienced a freedom unlike any I had ever known. For the first time in years, I felt clean. I knew that I was totally delivered from homosexuality. It was an awesome experience!
To be continued....
Sunday, February 6, 2011
20+ years....
20+ years...
....that’s how long I spent in a life with my heart far from the center of my Savior... So much time wasted...so much I could have accomplished for the Lord, but instead I spent my time running.
Making the choice to be with Becca meant that I would spend the next 17 years living a dual life. I told no one in my family and believed that they never knew our secret. As far as they were concerned, Becca and I were strictly roommates. It’s also important to note that Becca was considered another daughter in our family. She called my Mom, "MomLea" and my Dad, "DaddyBob". She attended every family reunion, vacation, holiday celebration, etc. We had never lived openly as lesbians and my family had no idea that we were living a double life. I made it a point to not go home to visit my relatives on the weekends for fear that I would be expected to attend church. There just was no way in my mind that I could combine the life that I was living with the life that I had known as a Christian.
I invented elaborate tales of relationships gone bad with former boyfriends that didn’t exist and stories of sexual abuse that never happened as a way to “explain” why I was a lesbian. For, after all, it could not have been because of my choice. I had to have a “reason” for why I was the way I was....I had to have something to “blame.” Those stories became such a part of my existence that I actually began to believe some of the lies and convince myself that I had indeed been a victim of sexual abuse. And once hearing these made-up stories, the women in my circle of friends were very supportive and understanding...and of course considered me to be the perfect person to counsel other women who had been through similar trauma. As a result I began to volunteer with Pittsburgh Action Against Rape (PAAR) as a crisis intervention counselor and medical advocate. After spending many hours in training, I was on call 24/7 to take phone calls from women in crisis situations. I was also available to be with them in the emergency room while they went through their rape kit exam and followed up with counseling afterwards. The staff and at PAAR was largely comprised of liberal, lesbian women. I also joined the Pittsburgh Women’s Choir which was also comprised of mostly liberal, lesbian women. I surrounded myself with like-minded women because they validated who I thought I was. And I convinced myself that I was happy.
But anyone who really knew me must have known otherwise. I began to eat, eventually eating my way to over 350 lbs. I stopped getting on the scale at 353...but I know that I weighed quite a bit more than that. Food became my god and my way to escape the hurt that I really felt deep down inside knowing that I was far from the will of God. No one in my circle of lesbian friends had a clue that I was unhappy. Not even my partner, Becca.
Becca and I had been together twelve years when my mother telephoned to ask if I had noticed someone’s blood work come through our laboratory. (My occupation was a Medical Technologist at UPMC - Presby in Pittsburgh.) Yes, I had seen the blood work - for Pastor Hatchner - the associate pastor of my mom’s church. Pastor Hatchner had been in a car accident while transporting a church member to a doctor's appointment in Pittsburgh. The car hit some ice and skidded under a tractor trailer. Pastor Hatchner wasn’t expected to live through the night. Mom asked me to pray for him. Okay. I would pray, although I didn’t think that God would hear my prayers because I was so far from Him. That next morning, Pastor Hatchner went home to be with the Lord.
Pastor Hatchner was an extraordinary man. One thing for which he was "famous" was handing out quarters. If it was your wedding day, he’d press a quarter into your hand. Your birthday - you got a quarter. If he visited you in the hospital -he always left a quarter on the night stand. His family estimates that he gave away thousands of dollars in quarters over the course of many years. My sister still has the quarter he gave her and her husband on their wedding day. And my mother has the quarter that he gave to my grandmother when she lay sick in the hospital.
At Pastor Hatchner’s funeral, the church (which seats well over 600 people) was "standing room only". As each person walked by to pay their last respects, they placed a quarter on the casket. There were hundreds of quarters! I didn’t travel back to New Castle to attend his funeral, but when my mother telephoned to tell me about the tribute of quarters, I started sobbing uncontrollably. This man had touched so many lives. I was moved so deeply –but didn’t know why because I hadn’t really known him personally, in fact, had only seen him on a few occasions because I
didn’t attend church very often when I went home to visit. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop crying.I hung up the phone, took my Bible off the shelf - literally dusted it off and said to God, "God, why am I so broken apart by hearing this man’s story?" I then opened my Bible at random and looked down at a verse in Jeremiah:
____________________________________________________________
The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying,
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love:
therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."
-Jeremiah 31:3
____________________________________________________________
Wow. At this point, I completely fell apart. I got down on my knees and told the Lord - "I surrender". I cried out to Him and asked for forgiveness. I asked for His help. I told my partner, Becca, that I was going to attend church at the next service - which happened to be a Wednesday night. I was done with this lesbian lifestyle.
We got involved in Walnut Grove Assembly of God Church in the south hills of Pittsburgh and attended faithfully for several years. Throughout that time, we continued to struggle. Even though we both had recommitted our lives to the Lord we neglected to sleep in separate bedrooms and would continually find ourselves engaged in inappropriate activity.
About this time, my father began to have more serious heart problems. He had two double bypass surgeries before they told us that there was nothing more they could do for him and he would need a heart transplant. After over a year of waiting for a heart, his condition had deteriorated to the point that he needed to be hospitalized permanently. We knew that if he did not get an organ, he wasn’t going to survive more than a couple of weeks. Two weeks into his hospital stay, he called me shortly after Becca and I had returned home after visiting him and said that they had found a heart for him. We were elated –but with very mixed emotions too, knowing that another family had lost a loved one in order for my Dad to have a second chance at life.
Dad was wheeled into the operating room and when he was wheeled out, it was amazing how wonderful he looked after surgery! He was pink –his formerly gray appearance due to lack of oxygen was completely turned around and we rejoiced when we saw him in the recovery room. But the most important thing was that Dad not only had a physical heart transplant that day –but a spiritual one as well. After his recovery, he began attending church and became "sold out" for the Lord! Dad had an incredible testimony to share of how the Lord changed his life by giving him a second chance to live. He was forever grateful and served the Lord with all of his heart.
Six years after his transplant, he began to cough. It was discovered that he had developed lung cancer–more than likely from the years of cigarette smoking, complicated by the anti-rejection medication he was taking; causing him to have a compromised immune system. On November 7, 1995, he was once again wheeled into the operating room. This time to remove the lower right lobe of his lung. While in surgery, the surgeon nicked his pulmonary artery and Dad bled to death on the operating table. He was Home. No more suffering. No more pain. My family, of course, was completely devastated and leaned heavily on the Lord to get us through that time.
And I now had to live with knowing that my Dad would never know the real truth about the stuggles in my life....
...to be continued.
....that’s how long I spent in a life with my heart far from the center of my Savior... So much time wasted...so much I could have accomplished for the Lord, but instead I spent my time running.
Making the choice to be with Becca meant that I would spend the next 17 years living a dual life. I told no one in my family and believed that they never knew our secret. As far as they were concerned, Becca and I were strictly roommates. It’s also important to note that Becca was considered another daughter in our family. She called my Mom, "MomLea" and my Dad, "DaddyBob". She attended every family reunion, vacation, holiday celebration, etc. We had never lived openly as lesbians and my family had no idea that we were living a double life. I made it a point to not go home to visit my relatives on the weekends for fear that I would be expected to attend church. There just was no way in my mind that I could combine the life that I was living with the life that I had known as a Christian.
I invented elaborate tales of relationships gone bad with former boyfriends that didn’t exist and stories of sexual abuse that never happened as a way to “explain” why I was a lesbian. For, after all, it could not have been because of my choice. I had to have a “reason” for why I was the way I was....I had to have something to “blame.” Those stories became such a part of my existence that I actually began to believe some of the lies and convince myself that I had indeed been a victim of sexual abuse. And once hearing these made-up stories, the women in my circle of friends were very supportive and understanding...and of course considered me to be the perfect person to counsel other women who had been through similar trauma. As a result I began to volunteer with Pittsburgh Action Against Rape (PAAR) as a crisis intervention counselor and medical advocate. After spending many hours in training, I was on call 24/7 to take phone calls from women in crisis situations. I was also available to be with them in the emergency room while they went through their rape kit exam and followed up with counseling afterwards. The staff and at PAAR was largely comprised of liberal, lesbian women. I also joined the Pittsburgh Women’s Choir which was also comprised of mostly liberal, lesbian women. I surrounded myself with like-minded women because they validated who I thought I was. And I convinced myself that I was happy.
But anyone who really knew me must have known otherwise. I began to eat, eventually eating my way to over 350 lbs. I stopped getting on the scale at 353...but I know that I weighed quite a bit more than that. Food became my god and my way to escape the hurt that I really felt deep down inside knowing that I was far from the will of God. No one in my circle of lesbian friends had a clue that I was unhappy. Not even my partner, Becca.
Becca and I had been together twelve years when my mother telephoned to ask if I had noticed someone’s blood work come through our laboratory. (My occupation was a Medical Technologist at UPMC - Presby in Pittsburgh.) Yes, I had seen the blood work - for Pastor Hatchner - the associate pastor of my mom’s church. Pastor Hatchner had been in a car accident while transporting a church member to a doctor's appointment in Pittsburgh. The car hit some ice and skidded under a tractor trailer. Pastor Hatchner wasn’t expected to live through the night. Mom asked me to pray for him. Okay. I would pray, although I didn’t think that God would hear my prayers because I was so far from Him. That next morning, Pastor Hatchner went home to be with the Lord.
Pastor Hatchner was an extraordinary man. One thing for which he was "famous" was handing out quarters. If it was your wedding day, he’d press a quarter into your hand. Your birthday - you got a quarter. If he visited you in the hospital -he always left a quarter on the night stand. His family estimates that he gave away thousands of dollars in quarters over the course of many years. My sister still has the quarter he gave her and her husband on their wedding day. And my mother has the quarter that he gave to my grandmother when she lay sick in the hospital.
At Pastor Hatchner’s funeral, the church (which seats well over 600 people) was "standing room only". As each person walked by to pay their last respects, they placed a quarter on the casket. There were hundreds of quarters! I didn’t travel back to New Castle to attend his funeral, but when my mother telephoned to tell me about the tribute of quarters, I started sobbing uncontrollably. This man had touched so many lives. I was moved so deeply –but didn’t know why because I hadn’t really known him personally, in fact, had only seen him on a few occasions because I
didn’t attend church very often when I went home to visit. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop crying.I hung up the phone, took my Bible off the shelf - literally dusted it off and said to God, "God, why am I so broken apart by hearing this man’s story?" I then opened my Bible at random and looked down at a verse in Jeremiah:
____________________________________________________________
The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying,
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love:
therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."
-Jeremiah 31:3
____________________________________________________________
Wow. At this point, I completely fell apart. I got down on my knees and told the Lord - "I surrender". I cried out to Him and asked for forgiveness. I asked for His help. I told my partner, Becca, that I was going to attend church at the next service - which happened to be a Wednesday night. I was done with this lesbian lifestyle.
We got involved in Walnut Grove Assembly of God Church in the south hills of Pittsburgh and attended faithfully for several years. Throughout that time, we continued to struggle. Even though we both had recommitted our lives to the Lord we neglected to sleep in separate bedrooms and would continually find ourselves engaged in inappropriate activity.
About this time, my father began to have more serious heart problems. He had two double bypass surgeries before they told us that there was nothing more they could do for him and he would need a heart transplant. After over a year of waiting for a heart, his condition had deteriorated to the point that he needed to be hospitalized permanently. We knew that if he did not get an organ, he wasn’t going to survive more than a couple of weeks. Two weeks into his hospital stay, he called me shortly after Becca and I had returned home after visiting him and said that they had found a heart for him. We were elated –but with very mixed emotions too, knowing that another family had lost a loved one in order for my Dad to have a second chance at life.
Dad was wheeled into the operating room and when he was wheeled out, it was amazing how wonderful he looked after surgery! He was pink –his formerly gray appearance due to lack of oxygen was completely turned around and we rejoiced when we saw him in the recovery room. But the most important thing was that Dad not only had a physical heart transplant that day –but a spiritual one as well. After his recovery, he began attending church and became "sold out" for the Lord! Dad had an incredible testimony to share of how the Lord changed his life by giving him a second chance to live. He was forever grateful and served the Lord with all of his heart.
Six years after his transplant, he began to cough. It was discovered that he had developed lung cancer–more than likely from the years of cigarette smoking, complicated by the anti-rejection medication he was taking; causing him to have a compromised immune system. On November 7, 1995, he was once again wheeled into the operating room. This time to remove the lower right lobe of his lung. While in surgery, the surgeon nicked his pulmonary artery and Dad bled to death on the operating table. He was Home. No more suffering. No more pain. My family, of course, was completely devastated and leaned heavily on the Lord to get us through that time.
And I now had to live with knowing that my Dad would never know the real truth about the stuggles in my life....
...to be continued.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Changed....not once...not twice...
but always....again and again.
Our journey as Christians on this planet is filled with many changes....many twists and turns along the journey. Some come about by circumstances beyond our control - yet some are those we bring on by the choices that we make in this life.
A choice. That's what I faced one day. And I made the wrong one....
There are times when I think that perhaps the people who have heard my testimony will tire of it. Then I think again and realize that each time I share what God has done in my life, God gets the glory and enemy gets his head stomped on.
So...let the stomping begin...
My moment(s) of salvation --changed forever -- in a moment. (More than once!)
I say more than once because I don't know how I feel about the "once saved, always saved" theology. I know that there are many very good arguments for that theology and many very convincing debators who would disagree. And who knows, they may be right. And while I do believe that the Lord died for our sins: past, present and future... in my heart of hearts, I know that whenever I walked away from the Lord there was a time when I had completely turned my back on Him. At one point, even speaking out loud that if living the life I was living meant spending an eternity away from God then so be it. That's how deep I was in sin. The sensual allure and stronghold that the sin and the enemy had on my heart was far more enticing than anything that God had to offer. What a liar Satan is. I remember the day I spoke the words..."if living this way will mean that I go to hell...then I guess I'm going to hell...because I'm choosing to live this way." And I remember hearing the enemy say, "now I've got you."
Looking back, wondering HOW in the world I could have ever thought that!! How I could have exchanged God's truth for a lie? How I could have just tossed away all that I knew about His goodness and His faithfulness? That whole thought process boggles my mind. For now, I can't imagine living my life for even one second without the Lord. He is my everything. His grace is amazing. His love is infinite and incomparable! He is an amazing God. And what's even more amazing is that He LOVES ME. Me. Who am I? No one worthy of such love, that's for sure. But love me He does and I am so grateful.
So, I had several moments of salvation. The first was at the age of nine.
Me - age nine - out of focus
...taken with my phone when I met up
with an old schoolmate
while on vacation in Virginia last summer.
My copy of this photo is somewhere
buried in my Mother's attic...
I was in Sunday School - in the pre-prayer / worship part of Sunday School when all of the classes sat together up in third floor annex of First Pentecostal Church of the Assemblies of God - the place we all refered to as "Peanut Heaven." I'll never forget the day. George, a.k.a. Brother Freed was leading us in prayer before we were to be dismissed to our classes and he asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus as their Savior. My heart started beating faster and I got this funny feeling in the pit of my stomach and when he said, "if you do, then please step out of your seat and join me in the front and I'll pray for you," the Lord said, "go." And I went.
There were several other children who made a commitment to the Lord that day, but I have no idea who they were. At that moment, it was just me and Jesus. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I also remember that afterwards some of the kids said, "Debbie, we thought you were already saved...." And immediately there was a feeling of embarrassment as the enemy tried to make me feel ashamed of what I had done or hadn't done up until that point. And over the years he has used those statements to make me feel as if the girls who made those comments somehow thought that they were better than I. I'm going to say it again - the enemy is such a liar.
Over the next decade, I loved the Lord. I was in church every time the doors were open. My life revolved largely around my church youth group and I was there for each activity and each church service. Often, I could be found at the altar on Sunday evenings - on my knees, crying out to the Lord. He and I worked out a lot of stuff together and I was drawn ever closer to Him as He, in turn drew close to me. In my Christian life, all was sunshine and roses. I was secure in my faith. I knew where I was spending eternity and I spent a lot of effort telling my friends and teachers about His love. I was passionate about sharing my faith. After all, everyone deserves to know about His amazing love for us.
On a Sunday evening during my senior year of high school as I listened to others testify about how the Lord had brought them out of a life filled with drugs or sex or every kind of sin you can imagine, I stood and testified how grateful I was that God had kept me from all of that. I had stayed strong - and I knew it was only by His strength that I did.
______________________________________________________________
Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
-I Corinthians 10:12
______________________________________________________________
(Note: I've changed the names in the following paragraphs
...to protect the innocent
...and the guilty.)
One month after giving my testimony, thanking God for keeping me from all the things that I considered to be "horrendous" sins, I went off to college at Edinboro University.. I was in heaven! This was awesome, being out on my own, meeting new friends, expanding my brain! My college roommate Ann, happened to be a close friend from home –we had been friends since age nine. She and I had decided to make a go of it as roommates, even though our high school art teachers and everyone we knew advised us not to be roommates, telling us it would destroy our friendship. (We are still friends to this day, by the way.)
Ann and I were very affectionate with one another, giving hugs freely when we would see each other. Another good friend, Kim, asked me why my roomate and I were so affectionate. I explained that we had known each other ‘forever’ and besides, I was from an Italian family and Italians are very affectionate people. Kim asked me if she could have a hug now and then too. I said sure, why not...and then one thing led to another until one day we found ourselves in bed together. Kim was also a Christian and was just as mortified by this development as was I. We got down on our knees, begged for forgiveness and asked the Lord to help us so it would never happen again. But because we didn't remove ourselves from the situation... It happened again. And it kept happening.
One month after Kim and I got together, My roommate Ann confided in me that she too, was involved in a lesbian relationship with Cindy. Cindy was someone I had introduced to Ann. Since Cindy was a Christian, I thought she would be a good influence on my roommate who had yet to make a commitment to Christ. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that Ann and Cindy were caught up in the same sin in which Kim and I were involved.
After a year of being together, Kim finally had the good sense to end our lesbian relationship. She was under such conviction and couldn’t continue to live the way we were living. We remained friends, but I was devastated.
About the same time, my father had suffered a heart attack and my Mom called to tell me that the doctor had told my Dad that he was going to die –it could be today –it could be tomorrow, it could be next week, it could be next year...but he was going to die. (Guess what?- we all are going to die someday. But I wasn’t looking at it that way at all.) I was, as you may imagine, extremely upset thinking that my Dad had only days to live. I turned to a friend to console me. Lynne helped me get through that tough time by buying me plenty of cheap blueberry wine to numb all the ‘stuff’ that was going on in my head. I actually have a photograph of ten empty bottles of wine. I had consumed every drop of that wine - by myself - in a period of 48 hours. At the end of the 48 hours, I was not only drunk, but hysterical, knowing that my Dad was going to be dead any minute. Kim and Lynne called my Mom and explained what was going on. Mom told me that what I had heard had been a misunderstanding and that the doctor was advising Dad to quit smoking because since he had had a heart attack, the cigarettes would only contribute to the disease process and could end his life prematurely. The doctor wasn’t telling Dad that he was going to die the next day.
I was relieved –and cried myself to sleep –in my friend Lynne’s arms. The next day, we were an official couple. We spent four years together. All of this time, I struggled with my decision to live as a lesbian. I knew that God’s Word taught that it is not a lifestyle that is pleasing to God. Yet the level of emotional intimacy that I felt was something that I wasn’t willing to give up.
Another friend had been praying for me and convinced me to attend a campus Christian Ministry meeting run by the Christian Coalition. I went to this meeting and it was there that I met Becca. Becca and I became great friends. I confided in her regarding my struggle with homosexuality and she became my prayer partner - committing to pray for me. Eventually, I did leave Lynne –but not because I had surrendered myself to the Lord...but rather because I had fallen in love with my prayer partner, Becca.
I believe that my insistence and determination to "save myself for marriage" was so intense and knowing that I couldn’t be tempted in that way, Satan tempted me with my emotional friendships with women and I turned them into something perverse –I allowed it. And in doing so, I know I missed out on so much that the Lord had planned for my life.
I have always had deep regrets about living life as a lesbian. I know that God had better plans for my life and I chose to walk away from His plan. What always comes to mind is the time when a very nice young, Christian guy from the local A/G church came knocking on my dorm room door to ask me on a date. I wasn't there. I was in Lynne's room. He left a note. I never responded because I was involved with Lynne. Today, that nice, Christian guy is a nice Christian Pastor. The Lord revealed to me that he was to be my husband...many years ago...but I turned my back on the whole idea. Oh, the blessings we miss when we walk in disobedience...
Tomorrow I'll share how the Holy Spirit was finally able to penetrate my hardened heart....such a relentless pursuit of grace and mercy...
Our journey as Christians on this planet is filled with many changes....many twists and turns along the journey. Some come about by circumstances beyond our control - yet some are those we bring on by the choices that we make in this life.
A choice. That's what I faced one day. And I made the wrong one....
There are times when I think that perhaps the people who have heard my testimony will tire of it. Then I think again and realize that each time I share what God has done in my life, God gets the glory and enemy gets his head stomped on.
So...let the stomping begin...My moment(s) of salvation --changed forever -- in a moment. (More than once!)
I say more than once because I don't know how I feel about the "once saved, always saved" theology. I know that there are many very good arguments for that theology and many very convincing debators who would disagree. And who knows, they may be right. And while I do believe that the Lord died for our sins: past, present and future... in my heart of hearts, I know that whenever I walked away from the Lord there was a time when I had completely turned my back on Him. At one point, even speaking out loud that if living the life I was living meant spending an eternity away from God then so be it. That's how deep I was in sin. The sensual allure and stronghold that the sin and the enemy had on my heart was far more enticing than anything that God had to offer. What a liar Satan is. I remember the day I spoke the words..."if living this way will mean that I go to hell...then I guess I'm going to hell...because I'm choosing to live this way." And I remember hearing the enemy say, "now I've got you."
Looking back, wondering HOW in the world I could have ever thought that!! How I could have exchanged God's truth for a lie? How I could have just tossed away all that I knew about His goodness and His faithfulness? That whole thought process boggles my mind. For now, I can't imagine living my life for even one second without the Lord. He is my everything. His grace is amazing. His love is infinite and incomparable! He is an amazing God. And what's even more amazing is that He LOVES ME. Me. Who am I? No one worthy of such love, that's for sure. But love me He does and I am so grateful.
So, I had several moments of salvation. The first was at the age of nine.
...taken with my phone when I met up
with an old schoolmate
while on vacation in Virginia last summer.
My copy of this photo is somewhere
buried in my Mother's attic...
I was in Sunday School - in the pre-prayer / worship part of Sunday School when all of the classes sat together up in third floor annex of First Pentecostal Church of the Assemblies of God - the place we all refered to as "Peanut Heaven." I'll never forget the day. George, a.k.a. Brother Freed was leading us in prayer before we were to be dismissed to our classes and he asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus as their Savior. My heart started beating faster and I got this funny feeling in the pit of my stomach and when he said, "if you do, then please step out of your seat and join me in the front and I'll pray for you," the Lord said, "go." And I went.
There were several other children who made a commitment to the Lord that day, but I have no idea who they were. At that moment, it was just me and Jesus. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I also remember that afterwards some of the kids said, "Debbie, we thought you were already saved...." And immediately there was a feeling of embarrassment as the enemy tried to make me feel ashamed of what I had done or hadn't done up until that point. And over the years he has used those statements to make me feel as if the girls who made those comments somehow thought that they were better than I. I'm going to say it again - the enemy is such a liar.
Over the next decade, I loved the Lord. I was in church every time the doors were open. My life revolved largely around my church youth group and I was there for each activity and each church service. Often, I could be found at the altar on Sunday evenings - on my knees, crying out to the Lord. He and I worked out a lot of stuff together and I was drawn ever closer to Him as He, in turn drew close to me. In my Christian life, all was sunshine and roses. I was secure in my faith. I knew where I was spending eternity and I spent a lot of effort telling my friends and teachers about His love. I was passionate about sharing my faith. After all, everyone deserves to know about His amazing love for us.
On a Sunday evening during my senior year of high school as I listened to others testify about how the Lord had brought them out of a life filled with drugs or sex or every kind of sin you can imagine, I stood and testified how grateful I was that God had kept me from all of that. I had stayed strong - and I knew it was only by His strength that I did.
______________________________________________________________
Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
-I Corinthians 10:12
______________________________________________________________
(Note: I've changed the names in the following paragraphs
...to protect the innocent
...and the guilty.)
One month after giving my testimony, thanking God for keeping me from all the things that I considered to be "horrendous" sins, I went off to college at Edinboro University.. I was in heaven! This was awesome, being out on my own, meeting new friends, expanding my brain! My college roommate Ann, happened to be a close friend from home –we had been friends since age nine. She and I had decided to make a go of it as roommates, even though our high school art teachers and everyone we knew advised us not to be roommates, telling us it would destroy our friendship. (We are still friends to this day, by the way.)
Ann and I were very affectionate with one another, giving hugs freely when we would see each other. Another good friend, Kim, asked me why my roomate and I were so affectionate. I explained that we had known each other ‘forever’ and besides, I was from an Italian family and Italians are very affectionate people. Kim asked me if she could have a hug now and then too. I said sure, why not...and then one thing led to another until one day we found ourselves in bed together. Kim was also a Christian and was just as mortified by this development as was I. We got down on our knees, begged for forgiveness and asked the Lord to help us so it would never happen again. But because we didn't remove ourselves from the situation... It happened again. And it kept happening.
One month after Kim and I got together, My roommate Ann confided in me that she too, was involved in a lesbian relationship with Cindy. Cindy was someone I had introduced to Ann. Since Cindy was a Christian, I thought she would be a good influence on my roommate who had yet to make a commitment to Christ. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that Ann and Cindy were caught up in the same sin in which Kim and I were involved.
After a year of being together, Kim finally had the good sense to end our lesbian relationship. She was under such conviction and couldn’t continue to live the way we were living. We remained friends, but I was devastated.
About the same time, my father had suffered a heart attack and my Mom called to tell me that the doctor had told my Dad that he was going to die –it could be today –it could be tomorrow, it could be next week, it could be next year...but he was going to die. (Guess what?- we all are going to die someday. But I wasn’t looking at it that way at all.) I was, as you may imagine, extremely upset thinking that my Dad had only days to live. I turned to a friend to console me. Lynne helped me get through that tough time by buying me plenty of cheap blueberry wine to numb all the ‘stuff’ that was going on in my head. I actually have a photograph of ten empty bottles of wine. I had consumed every drop of that wine - by myself - in a period of 48 hours. At the end of the 48 hours, I was not only drunk, but hysterical, knowing that my Dad was going to be dead any minute. Kim and Lynne called my Mom and explained what was going on. Mom told me that what I had heard had been a misunderstanding and that the doctor was advising Dad to quit smoking because since he had had a heart attack, the cigarettes would only contribute to the disease process and could end his life prematurely. The doctor wasn’t telling Dad that he was going to die the next day.
I was relieved –and cried myself to sleep –in my friend Lynne’s arms. The next day, we were an official couple. We spent four years together. All of this time, I struggled with my decision to live as a lesbian. I knew that God’s Word taught that it is not a lifestyle that is pleasing to God. Yet the level of emotional intimacy that I felt was something that I wasn’t willing to give up.
Another friend had been praying for me and convinced me to attend a campus Christian Ministry meeting run by the Christian Coalition. I went to this meeting and it was there that I met Becca. Becca and I became great friends. I confided in her regarding my struggle with homosexuality and she became my prayer partner - committing to pray for me. Eventually, I did leave Lynne –but not because I had surrendered myself to the Lord...but rather because I had fallen in love with my prayer partner, Becca.
I believe that my insistence and determination to "save myself for marriage" was so intense and knowing that I couldn’t be tempted in that way, Satan tempted me with my emotional friendships with women and I turned them into something perverse –I allowed it. And in doing so, I know I missed out on so much that the Lord had planned for my life.
I have always had deep regrets about living life as a lesbian. I know that God had better plans for my life and I chose to walk away from His plan. What always comes to mind is the time when a very nice young, Christian guy from the local A/G church came knocking on my dorm room door to ask me on a date. I wasn't there. I was in Lynne's room. He left a note. I never responded because I was involved with Lynne. Today, that nice, Christian guy is a nice Christian Pastor. The Lord revealed to me that he was to be my husband...many years ago...but I turned my back on the whole idea. Oh, the blessings we miss when we walk in disobedience...
Tomorrow I'll share how the Holy Spirit was finally able to penetrate my hardened heart....such a relentless pursuit of grace and mercy...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)