This is My Story!
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but it's end is the way of death."
Proverbs 14:2
I walked in the way of that verse for many years, only I didn’t realize “death” was waiting for me at the end had I kept walking. I don’t mean literal death but spiritual death. I had a lot of things embedded in my mind of what I thought was the right way to live and I truly believed that my dedication to all the rules I followed was God honouring. My parents did a great job of being parents and theres so much I thank them for; I could never imagine a life that they lived and everything they went through. I know they tried their best most times but the sad reality often times is that hurt people, hurt people and that cycle can go round and round until freedom is found and then free people can free people.
I wish I wouldn’t have wasted so much time following and serving a god that was not real. The god I served was stern, mean, and scared me to death; he had many many rules that were almost impossible to follow. My god’s love was conditional and based on my works. That god told me to listen to the church I was attending and my parents decisions for my life even after I was married. I thought I didn’t have to respect and honour my husband if he wasn’t obeying God. Following the rules of the church was the only and ultimate way to ever have any hope of redemption. So thats what I did, I obeyed the commandments given to me by my parents, I went to church and I tried to be a good person. Sounds kinda bleak and dull when summed up like that. My husband decided he didn’t want to go to a church like that shortly after we got married but he was so discouraged spiritually that he lost interest in church all together. He wanted to go somewhere but stepping outside the lines of whats been taught our whole life can be very daunting, its a lot easier to stay in our comfort zones and therefore I think we prevented God from using us to serve Him somehow had we put ourselves out there. Attending church was very important growing up and we had to go. So even when my husband stayed, I went, and I kept going back alone. My Husband and I were still happy, I was happy, for the most part or so I thought. I know now that it was just to show face on my part and hide what was stirring underneath and the discontentment in my life. There were deep wounds from childhood I carried in silence and even more in my teen years but marriage would be my happily ever after, I thought. I learned quickly that I hadn’t read the manual for marriage or I should’ve at least gotten the proper instruction book for marriage because I seemed to be doing everything wrong. It wasn’t until I went through the cds of Debi Pearl and I listened to “created to be a helpmeet” I saw all these things I hadn’t been doing. I realized how much I was tearing down my marriage, I wasn’t being who God wanted me to be as wife, as a woman or even a mom! I completely fell apart emotionally and for years I had been so focused on my husbands flaws and everything he was dong wrong. I had forgotten all about my own! That really pointed me to Matthew 5:7 "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye: and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brothers eye." I felt I was broken after that, not quite sure how to start over from years of doing it all wrong. I was deeply convicted in my role in life and I was a new mom at the time who was supposed to have it all together but I felt everything was unravelling. Sometimes I look back now and I’m just like, “wow” I have no idea how I even got through all that but the amazing thing is, I did. And there is not a sliver of a chance that I could’ve done any of what I’ve done in my life, where I have been able to move forward and make progress without God. I do wish that I had found someone who could’ve told me that it was normal to feel inadequate at times and had maybe walked along side me but I just figured I could do it on my own.
Sometimes I see kids who are just clinging onto their parent for dear life and they will not let go cause they’re absolutely terrified that something will happen to them if they dare they let go, even though they’ll be okay and everything will fine. They hold on. I feel like often times, thats me to God, just clinging with all I have, worrying about this or that and Gods saying it’s okay to let go and He’ll walk right along side me in case I fall. I need reminding at times to surrender my will to Him and allow God to move but I’m not always a very good listener. I know I need to let people work in my life that God has given me, I so often ask God for something and people come along but I miss the mark and only after I realize that God has tried to send someone my way but I was too wrapped up in myself to see but I am learning everyday. I am just so thankful, God is still always there, even when I’m not white knuckled over this or that, He is present in the good and hard times. I can’t remember a lot of the hard times now (thank God) but I know and believe that its by the hands that formed this world that carried me through many storms. Held me when I cried out to Him in the wee hours of the night, when I often couldn’t see a way out of where I was. It's God that was there, who beckoned me, softly. I know that if someone had tried to speak truth to me in the place I was in, I wouldn’t have listened. I was so “stuck” in what I believed but God was working and stirring in me a longing I knew only He could fill. Not my husband, family, parents or even my new baby. God wanted me to let Him be what I was looking for in others. God can work wondrous things in a broken heart where bruises and scars reside. He filled all the cracks and the missing pieces, all the hurts and brokenness I didn’t even know I had. Life is hard, marriage is hard, being a mom is so hard but thats where I felt so much closer to God. Times I could be held and felt safe in the arms of the man God gave me. Seeing my children being brought into this world was pain I couldn’t have previously imagined but with it came a joy I am still in awe over. There can be so much joy after the pain and there can be a closeness with God even in the dark valleys if we allow ourselves to receive His peace and give our pain to Him who took it all unto Himself. I have often asked God why? Why it didn’t feel like He was there but it is that picture of only one footprints in the sand, He carries us, even when we don’t even feel like He is close by. I can rest in His promise that one day He will wipe every tear from our eyes and make all things right and all will be restored. I’m not at all saying my life has been full of just dark valleys and hardships, not at all. I have had more joy then I deserve been given to me.
There is just so much I have learned from being in those places of my life where I just had to lift my arms and say God, I surrender!” God has always been and will always be. Isn’t that amazing?! He never leaves even when we leave Him. I left the gods I served, long ago. I gave my life the only one who lives and reigns forever and has washed my stains away, He already owned me, He made me, formed and fashioned me! How incredible. He told me I am good enough, He says that I am loved. His hands proved my worth from His nail scars and by His grace I am made new and free. I have my days where the enemy may think he’s won but I will not be moved, the enemy has been defeated. Praise God! My husband and I attend a wonderful church where we feel home and loved, there is such an amazing feeling of being part of a church family. There has been a lot of spiritual growth since being there and we feel so blessed, God has been so so good to us.
"The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my GOD, my strength, in whom I trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid, The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me. In my distress I called upon the name of the Lord. And cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, even into His ears."
Psalm 18:2-6
Praise God!
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Eva Hiebert
Beacon Bible Chapel
