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Why Can't I Get It Right?

I am just an ordinary person, not a professional writer, but I have something I want to share with you - something that happened to me a number of years ago...

Why can't I get it right?I was at one of the lowest places of my life. Several years before this I had come to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior but at this particular time my life was falling apart. My marriage of thirteen years was at a traumatic end. From the outside our lives had looked great but the facade hid a life of abuse and cruelty. My husband had been living a double life. One side of him was the wonderful husband and trusted community leader - the other was a child molester, rapist and murderer. When the truth was revealed to me I fell apart. 

I slowly began to fall away from God. Oh, I tried to do the right thing but no matter what I did, it was never enough. The harder I tried, the further away I got. Everything just kept getting worse.

Eventually, I had no place left to live. Even my friends and family wanted nothing to do with me. The only option I had left was to move 1200 miles away. I spent two days riding in the back of a pickup to reach this place and I had never felt so alone in all my life. The day I got there I found a place to live. The landlord was willing to let me move in with no money down, only a promise to pay when I could. This was nothing short of a miracle but I was blind to that fact. I still thought I was on my own. That night the temperature broke the records for cold. I had no bed, no furniture, no food, and the floor was freezing cold. The next morning I cried out to God as I had never done before. I could not handle being alone anymore. I didn't just need His help - I needed Him. 

DispairSome would have you believe you have to be perfect for God to hear your prayers: You have to go to church, pay your tithes, wear the proper clothes, do this and don't do that, but I have news for those people and for you. I had done everything wrong. I blamed God, my husband and everyone else for my misery, but I was the one who had allowed myself to live with abuse and fear for years. I had made excuses and covered up everything I knew was wrong because I was too afraid to do what I knew was right. I had lied, cheated, and walked away in anger from the One who saved me. I had taken advantage of the trust of my family, my friends, and of my God. 

"My faith, your faith, all faith--must rest on the loving kindness and concern of our Heavenly Father. He loves me and comes to my rescue when my faith is weak, when I don't deserve any answer from Him--all because of His tenderness and kindness"

But GOD says, "You did not receive a spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba Father!" Romans 8:15. I cried to my Father that day and He answered. That very day I realized I was not alone. Every need I had was met. By nightfall, strangers had brought me beds, blankets, food, pots and pans, dishes. Rent money was provided and even some special things I had wanted for years. Over the next weeks and months I kept a journal of the abundance and blessings God heaped upon me.

I wasn't perfect the day I walked away from God and I'm not today. I have gone through many storms and crisis and I am still fighting to bring my life into complete alignment with the word of God. Many things within and without have changed over the years but today I still sometimes find myself stumbling over some of the very sins and attitudes God has been trying to set me free from since the beginning. Sometimes I despair of ever "getting it right."

But because of His love I can go on. When I fall I am now confident that I can turn only to Him and He will pick me up, dust me off, and set me back on His track. He continues to manifest His love and provision for me every day. My testimony is not what God did for me years ago but what He is doing for me today, and tomorrow, and the day after that. My life is a testimony to His promise, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world." He continues to set my life to rights everyday.

Paid in fullNow I know and understand that God isn't looking for good and upright people. God isn't waiting for us to say just the right words in a perfect prayer. God isn't waiting for us to become a "good Christian." God is looking for someone who NEEDS Him. Someone who knows they have messed up everything and without His help they are doomed. He knows what and who we were before. He knows what and who we are right now and He loves us - just as we are. That is why He died for us. "For while we were still sinners Christ died for us." Romans 5:8. When you choose to accept God's gift of salvation He said, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." 2 Corinthians 5:17. The past is just that - past.

Today, my life is full. I never feel alone because He has taught me to turn to Him and trust Him for everything. God has given me a new husband and a family of brothers and sisters, young and old, who fill my life with God's love and joy. I no longer live in a house but in a home filled with the Spirit of God. I am no longer drifting through the days but I have purpose and direction in my life, given by God, and it is good to be alive! I don't wake in the morning with fear and dread in my heart but with excitement over what each new day holds and a longing for Christ's soon return.

God wants to meet all your needs too. He wants to take all your pain, your hurt, your shame, your discouragement and heal your aching heart. Let Him provide for you. Let Him give you all that you need and desire. Don't put rules, restrictions, and burdens on yourself that God never meant for you to carry. Come to the One who loves and accepts you in spite of yourself. Then and only then can you learn day by day to live the life that He died to give to you.

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21.

From one of many members of the Body of Christ at ITLM.

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