A Life Made Beautiful

Over the last few days, I have been looking back over my life. Not to dwell on the things that I did or did not do, but because God has impressed upon my heart to go into counseling.  Now this is not anything new, it has been a thought and passion of mine for several years. Yet, I have wondered why me?  You know like Moses, arguing with God and coming up with a million and one excuses why God could not use him.  Instead of giving up on Moses, God looked at him and said okay you will do what I am asking you to do and here is Aaron to help you.  Well God has allowed me to put this off, and has listened to all my excuses and has told me now is the time and here is your husband to help you.  Not only is now the time, but he has given me a passion for families, and marriages.  Of all people I know, trust me, I have asked why me many times.  After all I am the one who ran away, got married, got divorced, remarried, nearly destroyed my marriage.  Why on earth would He want me to family counseling and marriage counseling?  What do I have to offer?  With that last question asked and after a friend said to me "because you have lived through it all."  did I realize I was the right person for this.  So I must remember God does not call the qualified He qualifies the called.  So I guess that means since I have lived through so much, that my call has been qualified because God has called me.

There are a lot of people who don't see or hear the message that God can take a person so ugly (sinful) and make them into something new and beautiful.  I look at my life and see the amazing things God did, before I gave my life to Him and after.  You may be asking how could God do anything amazing in my life when I was not following Him?  I would like to believe that His hand of protection and guidance were covering me because of the prayers from a praying mom.

The shortened version of my life:

I remember a very cold (and it was VERY cold)  night right after I ran away.  My boyfriend and I had no place to go (smart planning huh), so we slept in a truck cuddled together with not even a blanket... freezing.  That was the beginning of things to come.  After that for several months (I can say we were never homeless), but close enough to being homeless.  We lived in a motel, and this motel was not the Holiday Inn.  It was one of those run down motels along Santa Fe Drive in Denver.  If you know where Santa Fe is in Denver then you will know where I am talking about.  It was a run down motel just across from Cinderella City Mall (remember that mall?).  Oh how I felt like trash.  I felt totally worthless, unlovable, you name it I felt it.  I was scared, ashamed, and  felt totally isolated from anyone that truly loved me.  It was at this time, when I saw a glimpse of the horrible man that I was soon to marry. 

After being married to this man for 8 years, I began seeking away out of this marriage.  I was not a christian at this time, however I "knew" what the bible said about divorce.  Divorce is wrong.  If you get divorced and remarry you are committing adultery and going to hell no matter what.  Here I was being abused by a man who would drink and become abusive.  He always tried to hit me anywhere that no one would see bruises, and if he did happen to hit me someplace where a bruise was obvious I would just stay inside, and hide myself away until the bruises faded enough that I could cover it up.  I seem to remember always (if not always pretty darn close) wearing long sleeved shirts even in the summer time.  So out of desperation I decided to go and see a pastor at the church I grew up in.  I was really desperate!  So after speaking to this pastor and telling him about the abuse, this pastor looked at me and said "If Christ died on the cross for your sins don't you think you can handle a little bit of pain yourself."  What?!?!?  Wow that really made me stop and think.  Yes Christ died for me, I knew that, but I never made a commitment to Christ, so why should this apply to me?   Some how this must have applied if someday I would choose to surrender my life to Christ.  So with my head down I walked out of that church feeling once again, dirty, ashamed, because how could I even be thinking about divorcing this man.  That day I went home determined to change my marriage on my own only to experience more abuse over the next two years.  Finally, after talking to several people, and having the feeling that I needed to get out NOW...I packed up an over night bag, told my husband that I was going to Washington State, hopped on a plane and went to Minnesota.

Over the the course of the next several months I met and fell in love with "my knight in shinning armour".  I was divorced, and remarried pretty quickly.  That is when the shame of committing adultery really began to plague me.  I was a horrible person, and you might as well have placed a scarlet "S" smack dab onto my forehead.  Talk about shame!  I was feeling the most awful shame a human could feel.  My husband was even committing adultery because he married me a divorced women and he was in school to become a minister, how on earth was that going to look.  There is no way that anybody would allow him to preach the gospel behind a pulpit with a wife who is divorced and remarried.  Not only was I committing a horrible sin, but so was my husband.  I had doomed us both to hell. 

While my husband was doing his student pastoral internship in Oregon, I found out that I was pregnant.  Things were not at all good in Oregon.  My husband hated his internship, our living situation was not at all like we were told it would be, and my husband and I did nothing but fight.  I knew that this was all because God was trying to use my husband, but he could not because of me.  After all we were unequally yoked.  Our son was born, and the immediate feeling of unconditional love swept over me.  I have never known that type of love.  Yes my parents loved me unconditionally but I never personally experienced loving someone unconditionally.  Over the course of the next few months, I started feeling this urgency of someone loving me unconditionally.  It would be over a year later when at a church service on July 21, 2001, I gave my life to Christ.  Not just for Him to be my saviour, but for him to be my Lord. 

Change does not take place instantly in most cases, as it did not in mine.  However change does begin at the cross, even if we realize it or not, but it does begin there.  My husband and I have had many years of ups and downs.  We have seen many blessings.  We have even seen our marriage completely destroyed.  However, because of Gods hand in our lives, and our willingness to once again become completely surrendered unto His will, God restored our marriage, and healed our hearts.  Do I still struggle with feelings of guilt because I am divorced...yes, but God has forgiven me!  I have struggles everyday with my past sins and wrong doings.  God has forgiven me!  Just because I struggle with my past does not mean that I am not forgiven.  It means I struggle with my past even though I know I am forgiven.  We are told to pick up our crosses and follow Christ.  If my cross is my past, then I will pick up my cross and surrender daily to Christ because He has forgiven me, because I have surrendered my life to the only one capable of loving me unconditionally with my past, or without my past.  God has forgiven me, and He loves me unconditionally, beyond what I think unconditional love is.

You may ask me if I think divorce is wrong and my answer would have to be....yes.  You may also ask if God makes a provision for divorce and I would have to say...yes, with a big fat BUT!  When we are married God joins us as one, and He tells us what God has joined together let no man put apart.  I believe that if God can take a broken marriage such as mine and restore it, He can do that with any marriage, but only if He is given the opportunity.  I hate divorce, I believe divorce is wrong and against the will of God.  If you are in the situation where your marriage is not strong and is becoming completely torn apart I would suggest that you seek good godly christian counseling.  I know of a godly counselor that offers a platform where Jesus can do His work in your marriage.  Please contact me I would be happy to pass that information to you and even say a prayer with you.

My title to this blog is "A Life Made Beautiful", because God has made my life beautiful.  He took what was broken, dirty, and full of shame (me), and made it beautiful.  I remember growing up hearing and singing the words to a song called "Something Beautiful", this is a song that I never forgot even in those dark days way back when and even in those dark days that I experience now.  May these words be a blessing to you!

Something beautiful. Something good. 

All of my confusion He understood. 

All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife. 

But He made something beautiful of my life.