I have been thinking about my friend Maria...a woman God put in my life to tear down the final barriers between God and I. 

I have lived a life of protection...it has always been important to me to protect myself...never trust anyone totally.  It was such an integral part of my life, I didnt even know I was doing it.  I built walls of defense in my heart.  Thick and tall, like a fortress!  This was the high tower l kept myself in so I could not be hurt any more.

God had do a work in me to get me to tear down those thick walls of defense.  It was not His job to take them away...it was my job to tear them down.  God showed me that those barriers that protected me from others, kept me from Him.  I wanted to get to God, but it meant leaving the security of my fortress.  I slowly took it down...brick by brick, but there was this one tower that remained...it allowed me to watch over the kingdom of my heart.  Did you catch that?  MY heart.

I wanted God...but how? I truly believed I gave it all to Him.  I couldn't understand this nagging sensation that followed me.  I pacified myself by telling myself it was the devil trying to dissuade me.  No, it was God.  God spoke to me, "if you are protecting you...than I am not. That is not trust."  WHAM!!

I got out of the top of that tower and came down the stairs..but remained inside.

Enter Maria onto the stage of my life.  She is a deaf woman who loves God.  She came to a meeting I was at.  We didnt know each other...but our hearts were about to bond in a way words cannot express.  Maria started to "sing" for the crowd gathered that day.  From the first movement, I was spellbound, not by her, but by her love for God...spellbound by God.

Maria gave her testimony and my mouth fell open and tears gushed forth...she told my story!  Her life and mine are different...the abuses we faced were not identical, but God used her to speak straight to my heart.  She used words for emotions I had buried so deep I didnt even know they were in there.  Deep under my fortress of protection was a place in my heart even I wouldnt go.  Words spilled out of Maria like hate and rage and anger...the contents of that hidden chamber of my heart were spilling out...identified and known.  Like soldiers that had been given their marching orders, each of them came forth and stood in plain view for me to see.   

It was time for me to do deep business with God.  God brought a woman with broken hearing to speak to me, a woman with a broken heart.  God didnt want the good in me...what I wanted to offer.  He wanted the vile, the ugly, the scarred remnants of my life. 

I took time to look over the soldiers of hatred, discontent, rage, anger, malice and so many others that had poured out of me...not knowing there were so many!  Not having any idea what to do with them.  God brought a preacher who preached my sermon...A Love That Will Not Let Me Go...the story of Hosea and Gomer...it was then I looked up and saw Jesus standing there, in the courtyard of my heart.  He came looking for ME!!  For the first time, without thought or shame, I took out running as hard and fast as I could go to jump into the arms of the Lover of my soul. 

An amazing thing happened when I ran to God...without a second thought, i left behind my crumbling tower of protection, that dungeon of demons that had so been a part of me, and ran straight into a new life.

Psalm 18:1-3 

I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.  2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. {my strength: Heb. my rock}  3 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

Days go by and I do not think of Maria.  But today was a Maria day...and I thought I would share with you how she helped me, just by being herself.

Went shopping today with a friend...looking for decorations for a Christmas party for the kids at church.  You remember the last few years and the hub-bub about not saying "Merry Christmas"?  Well, they were dead serious...We went to 2 Walmarts, 2 Dollar Trees and a Dollar General store and not one of them sells anything relating to the manger scene.  Each of these stores, when asked if they carried these items said they do not carry religious items like that...Hmmm...In all those stores, we only found two boxes of Christmas Cards that actually SAID Merry Christmas.  Seems in the general retail market...Christ has been voted out.

I am not amazed, astounded or even surprised.  Most people I know want little to nothing to do with the real meaning of Christmas.  It is just sad that for the most part (other than me and a few others) the change will not even be noticed.

It is my firm belief that God has had His hand on me my whole life. There is so much of my life that I have hated, and hated God for making me go through…but I have no sad story to tell. It was all for a purpose. In Psalm 27:10 the Bible says… When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up. I can tell you this is true in my life. My parents did harm to me, but even in those times, God was there guiding and protecting. My husband did harm to me, but in those times, God was there preserving and directing. God knew what I needed at every step of my life. He knew about the hurt and rage that was buried in my heart…and what it would take to release and remove it. God has directed every step I have taken to bring me where I needed to be to find and accept His love and forgiveness. It took God working in my heart to bring me to a place that I was willing to own all those feelings and lay it all down. ALL OF IT.

We had been raised to only show the good – to portray an image of happiness and success, whether it was true or not. God has brought me to a place where I can just be me…and there are parts of me that are not pretty. God knows the truth about what is in my heart, both the exposed and the hidden secrets…who was I trying to kid??? I finally got real with God and myself and found that God loved and accepted me, despite the sin I had done…despite the sin others had done to me that made me feel as though I was unworthy, unlovable; damaged goods. God has forgiven me of so much…and that forgiveness has changed me.

God’s love and forgiveness released me from the bondage the abuse created. God’s Holy love removed the hatred. I understand now that God does not measure sin in big and little…He measures it in yes and no. And with that thought in mind – I am no better than my father in the eyes of God. I can only answer for me at the end of my life. God will deal with Dad. God will deal with Mom. God will deal with you. We will all answer for the things we have done in our lives. I can only worry about my relationship with God and know that He will deal with the rest. God has become the father I never had…one who loves me and tenderly cares for me in all my situations. He is my protector and my provider. He loves me, not for what I can do, but DESPITE all I do.

As a young adult, fresh out of my parents’ home, it wasn’t long before I found religion. It filled many voids for me. I belonged!! I learned the dos and don’ts of how to live, how to look, what to say and what to avoid… how to look the part of a child of God. But there was a still small voice in my heart now and again that told me I didn’t have it…that there was more to this than a prayer. When that still small voice got so loud that I asked for help, I was told that was the devil trying to get me to doubt. I was to tell him to go away. Made sense…at the time, but that voice never did go away. But As I moved around the country, I belonged to different churches, but knew deep in my heart, there was something missing. Aside from the churches…my heart yearned to know if I belonged to GOD! 

And what about that pit of so much pain, hurt, anger, rage, disappointment, and disgust deep in my soul that was tucked away? God love is a forgiving love, but how do you go about forgiving the unforgivable in someone who isn’t even here? So many questions, so many voices and opinions…

It is not a matter of saying “its okay”. It is not and never will be okay. Forgiveness is releasing my “right” to hurt them, for hurting me. It is a matter of owning the decision to let go of the hurt and pain they caused. For me, the only way I could was with God’s help. Easy words to type, but it took a long road to get here..

Growing up in a dysfunctional home with an abusive father and an intimidated and depressed mother shaped me in ways I never dreamed possible. My siblings and I have all struggled with many aspects of our childhood...and how it has impacted our adult lives.

We tell ourselves that we will NEVER live like this...that life is going to be SO different when I get out of here...but the one thing I never thought of is that I take me with me where ever I go. I can want all sorts of things, but I was shaped and molded to be imperfect, both by simply being human, then by evil that lived in our home.  As a teenager, I was anxious to get out of the house and start my own life. I just knew I was going to make my life so very different from where I had been. But how we grow up, no matter how good or how bad, becomes our version of normal.

My heart was filled with hate and anger at the situations I have had to endure. As a purple haired, dog collar wearing, out of control teenager, the anger I felt was palatable in my life.  It was HUGE. It scared me, the enormity of it – that this volatile nitroglycerine in my heart would destroy me or someone around me. So I buried it, hoping no one, including me, would ever know it existed. But things can only be hidden for so long…it will come out. In some, it will emerge as rage or rebellion. In some, it will emerge as depression or suicidal tendencies. In some, it will emerge as an addiction to something that helps numb the pain. In a few, it is removed by God. This is my story…I am one of the few.