Category Sobriety

Singleness and Celibacy — A gift from God

Debbie B. 4 Comments

A gift? Really? This is such a difficult subject to write about, but I’m going to take a chance and just do it. I’m really glad that I don’t have to wonder any longer about whether or not it’s God’s will that I remain single. I’ve written in earlier posts about having such a deep longing for family. I kept praying over and over for God to fulfill that longing. During that time of waiting, I also had learned how to pray to ask Him to remove the desire if it was not of Him. I waited for an answer either way for a very long time. It was tough waiting. Since initially the desire had not been removed, I kept holding on to the hope that He would send the perfect man of God my way.  Well, just a couple of blog posts earlier, I wrote that God had answered the prayer. He didn’t answer how I hoped He would. It’s truly amazing, the things that God does for those of us who seek Him and His will wholeheartedly. He ended up completely removing the desire for a husband and family that I carried for too long and He replaced it with a desire to fully devote my life in service to Him. Wow. I can’t begin to describe what I feel inside about this. I guess I can simply say that I am happy! I’m in awe of the joy He’s given me with this answer. What an incredible blessing. What an incredible call on my life! And the more I’ve been thinking about it, it truly is a relief that I don’t have to deal with the distractions and complications that can come with being in the dating world. Now, what I can’t say that I know for sure is whether this is for the rest of my life, or for just a season (however long that might be). It doesn’t matter. What I do know is that I am extremely blessed to discover God’s will for me and for that old longing that made my heart ache so much to finally be gone. Today, my focus is on my mission to fully serve God.

There’s a passage in the Bible that really spoke to me some time ago. I wasn’t really sure about what I read back then, but I’ve always kept it in my heart waiting for a confirmation from God. The passage talks about marriage and about being single. When I first read it not too long after I started absorbing and living out God’s Word, I couldn’t forget about it. But I don’t think I was ready either to really accept or understand what God’s Word was telling me in the passage. I wasn’t ready for a long while. But I’m truly happy now that He has answered my prayer and gave me the confirmation I had been seeking. He has shown me very clearly the way He wants me to go.

I’ve been single my whole life. And I’m grateful to be celibate. Of course I wasn’t always, but God has changed everything about me. He’s forgiven me and He’s taken away the ungodly desires from me and I am thankful they are no longer a struggle. I’m thankful He has helped me turn away from sin. This is all so personal, but talking about my singleness and celibacy has been on my heart to share for a while now because I know so many out there are struggling to find their soul mate. I see and feel the emptiness and the loneliness in their hearts. Many times people choose partners without seeking God’s direction first. When someone finally comes along, sooner or later there’s nothing but heartache because one or both end up bringing even more turmoil into the relationship. At least, I’ve witnessed this in so many couples who choose to do things their way instead inviting God to be the center of their relationship. I can see it so well in others, because everything I’ve mentioned is where I used to be. My last relationship was a disaster, I don’t know if I would have ended up taking my own life because of it, but I can tell you I wanted to be relieved of the humiliation and pain the man was putting me through. I was hitting rock bottom with the depression and the drinking so I really think it was just a matter of time for me. (You can read more about my mental abuse story “I wished he would have hit me” in an earlier post if you’re interested.)

I’ve spent most of my adult life feeling out of place for being single, yet I did enjoy the freedom. Before God broke through, I was at a very confusing period of my life. I was quite happy with being single, but as I started to grow older, I really started having a longing for my own family. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I know now that my whole problem back then was that God was never the center of my life, He wasn’t even a tiny part of it. So when I talk about Him today, I love that I can say that He is absolutely my everything in life now.

I’m finally understanding that being single is a gift from God and I am truly grateful for discovering this gift in my life, at this point in my life. For many years some people did a really good job at making me, the single and childless one, feel like something must really be wrong with me. I was always out of place. For so many years, I dreaded a relative of mine looking for a ring on my finger every time there was a gathering. I never said anything, I went along with it, but that sure brought me down every single time. I don’t think the person meant to make me feel that way, but still, it put me in a very bad place. It had such a negative effect on me, it would just keep adding to my depression.

My circumstances in life caused me to be such a lost and depressed soul, I turned to alcohol to self medicate and to numb myself out of reality as much as I possibly could for as long as I possibly could. Today, I see it as a blessing that I didn’t bring children into my dark world. As I have been growing and learning God’s Word and will for my life, He has opened up my eyes and heart to His beautiful gift. I realize how incredibly blessed I am for this call He has placed on my life. ME. The one who for decades didn’t care to know if God was real and then tried so hard to drink herself into a grave since it seemed to be the only way to be relieved from lifelong heartache and despair.  I am SO thankful to God for breaking through when He did almost 5 years ago!

So back to the passage I mentioned earlier — at the beginning of this incredible journey, although I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into it at first, I do remember wondering about what I had read in 1 Corinthians 7:34-35 — God’s Word translation puts the Apostle Paul’s teaching this way: “An unmarried woman…is concerned about the Lord’s things so that she may be holy in body and in spirit…I’m saying this for your benefit, not to restrict you. I’m showing you how to live a noble life of devotion to the Lord without being distracted…”

I SO want and desire to live that noble life of devotion to my Lord! He has given that to me! Wow. It’s an amazing change He’s done in me. And as for children, I believe He has shown me through His Word that He will bring me spiritual children and I’m pretty excited about that too. I know there are a lot of single Christians out there walking around with a void in their hearts. It’s not easy being single. I always find it interesting how some married people look at a single person’s life thinking “If only I were single…” And then there’s us single people looking at a married couple thinking “If only I could find someone to love who will love me back…” As a single woman, for the longest time there would always be triggers that would have me feeling a giant void in my heart. I always felt it more during the holidays where families celebrate together. I’m not talking about extended families, I’m talking husband, wife, kids…you know, the perfect family. I know there’s no such thing as a perfect family, but that’s how I looked at them. I saw the love, and I wanted that.  But today, I no longer have that desire. I no longer have that ache in my heart. God has given me something better and no matter for how long, I’m going to fully devote my single life to Him and rejoice over it with all my heart. I pray for other Christian singles to discover God’s will for them too. And I pray for the unspeakable joy in their hearts and souls, just like God has given to me.

Well, I am grateful for the courage to share this. I pray that God would reach someone else’s heart through it. Now this life I’m living is not easy. I don’t think it will ever be. There are times that I still feel out of place and even feel an occasional void, but I just keep reaching out to God, I keep seeking Him, I keep asking Him to fill my heart with all of Him and He always does. He never lets me down. What an amazing God I serve. If this has touched you in any way, I hope you will share it with someone who may be struggling in their own journey of singleness so they can know they are not alone in their struggles. Thank you, may God bless you.

“I wished he would have hit me” — My personal story of abuse…

Debbie B. Leave a comment

When people think of an abusive relationship, they mostly think of physical abuse. Normally, people just think of a man beating a woman and/or sexually abusing her.  But I would like to share some thoughts about another type of abuse that I don’t hear a whole lot about. I want to talk about emotional and mental abuse. In my opinion, this kind of abuse can be just as distressing and painful as being consistently hit. It is so difficult for me to admit this on this blog, but this is what happened to me. It is my hope that by sharing my own heart and experience about this horrible and devastating form of abuse, that others who may feel ashamed or embarrassed may be encouraged that they too can find hope and freedom and know that there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about.

While I was in the midst of it, I was never able to tell anyone about the constant mental and emotional abuse I was facing. I felt so humiliated by it. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I truly believed that nobody would ever understand what I was going through. I really wished he had hit me. I thought that if he had, then it would be a better excuse for me to explain my pain. I was definitely in denial. I also believed that I didn’t deserve any better (I wrote about that for the first time in an earlier blog entitled “I was a lost soul – a mentally abused woman who didn’t deserve better”). I was worthless and a loser, so I took it. I took it for 4 or 5 years, and it about destroyed me altogether. I didn’t know who I was anymore. Even though I was already battling through years of depression and low or no self esteem and using alcohol to temporarily numb the pain, I still managed to be a strong woman – suicidal perhaps, but strong. Well, that was until I started dating a man I had settled for. Little by little he started to destroy what was left of me. It was a horrible nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. It was sudden when I had found myself so weak. This is when my depression and drinking were heading to bottom. I really thought I needed this man in my life. I didn’t want to lose him. I thought I loved him. Looking back I have no idea why I thought that. He didn’t show me much love, he just wanted sex. He sure had a hold on me somehow. I had to drink my way through the relationship to survive it. I will never understand how I got there. His manipulation started at the very beginning of our early communications, but unfortunately, I didn’t think much about it. I completely ignored it. I didn’t think enough of myself. It’s sad to remember just how lost and desperate I was back then. I didn’t want to end up old and alone, so I ignored every single sign. And, it almost killed me.

It didn’t help to hear from others what they thought about abusive relationships such as, “Why doesn’t she just leave him?” “It’s her fault for staying around.” “She doesn’t want help.”  I confess that I used to think that way about domestic violence situations. I am so sorry for my judgmental attitude toward women of abuse. Please forgive me. Before it happened to me, I just could not understand why someone would stay and continue to take it, day after day.  I swore that it would never happen to me. I would NEVER become like one of “those women”.  Sound familiar? All of a sudden, there I was. I was exactly what I swore I’d never become. I was so ashamed that I had allowed myself to be in such horrible circumstances, that there was no way that I felt safe to reach out to anyone to talk about it or to get help. I figured “well, at least he’s not hitting me…” so I just kept taking it and drank it away as much as possible. Recently I was thinking more about the possibility of getting hit. I thank God I will never know if that was going to come into play or not, but I discovered recently that I had ignored another sign. After a family party turned violent one evening, (I described this event in that previous post I mentioned earlier), I remembered that days later he had reminded me that he had been letting me know that he was feeling anger building up inside of him. He told me though, that he was keeping it under control.  I was slowly discovering that he had anger issues and was just keeping them inside. But because I had never really witnessed it in him, until that frightening evening, I again didn’t think much of it. But it’s what he had said days later that kind of gave me the chills when I remembered it recently. He said “I warned you…”  I remember he was telling me that he had been warning me that he was about to break. Like it was something that I was supposed to know and just “watch out”. Don’t abusers who hit usually tell their women that they had been warning them? I know I’ve heard it before in stories of physical abuse. I then started to recall that he had told me that when he was young, he would see his father beating his mother. So I now think it was a good possibility that hitting would come next had I stayed.

So how did I get out of it? I have no doubt that it was a God thing. I believe God’s hand was on my life even though I didn’t know Him yet. I had been crying out to Him because I was definitely not going to cry out to anybody else. Interesting when I think back on it, how I was crying out to a God I didn’t know and I am grateful I took that chance! He set me free. And later, he set me free from alcohol abuse and severe depression. It took a rock bottom kind of moment for that, but I’m not complaining. I am grateful to be free.  I am now seven months away from celebrating my 5th year of sobriety. I am also celebrating my 4th year or so of being free from that abusive relationship.

So that’s some more of my story that I hadn’t had the courage to share before.  I’m glad I did now. I don’t know what else to say except that if you’re in the midst of this right now, there is hope in Jesus. There is a way out. Don’t be ashamed or embarrassed. Please reach out to someone! Reach out to God! You don’t have to keep living like that. You deserve much better. If you don’t know God, it’s not too late to start knowing Him now. Call out to Him with a sincere heart and He will hear you.  He will help you like He helped me and has helped so many others. I don’t know you, but I’m praying for you. Please use the below contact form if you’d like to send a private message.

I’ve been through a lot of hurt in my life. I buried most of it for decades and just recently in my recovery program, it’s all come out to the surface so that I could get healing. In therapy, I was asked to write a letter about victory. I’m thinking, if I can be this vulnerable and share this part of my story, then I should be able to share that personal letter too. Perhaps I will share it in a future post. Again, I’m only doing this with the hope that others will be blessed by it and have courage to take a step in the right direction like I did. ANY kind of abuse is NEVER OK.

That’s it for now, thanks for listening to my heart.

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New Life: A story of God’s amazing life-saving love at a time when unbearable depression had me begging Him to take my life.

2 Comments

My heart breaks for the lives that give up hope. I used to be hopeless like them. It wasn’t too long ago that I wanted to give up. I was giving up. I tried so hard for so long to drink myself to death, but all that the drinking did was put me into a deeper pit of depression, isolation, and darkness where I was tormented by thoughts of suicide. I could barely breathe. I remember hoping for things like dying in my sleep, but I kept waking up. Each day, I felt worse than the day before. Since the alcohol wasn’t killing me quickly enough, then I would hope to die in a car crash. I always thought it would have to be a single car crash because I didn’t want anyone else to be hurt. I just wanted the pain to stop. I really didn’t want to take others with me. I thought of other ways to die, but for some reason I would always be concerned about my mother or other people. At least I thought about others when I wasn’t too drunk and depressed to care. I remember there were times when I was concerned about what it might do to someone who cared about me if I died by my own hands. It would have been a surprise, at least I think so because since I’ve been sharing my story, some people have said to me that they had no idea that I was suffering from severe depression. Is it weird that I cared so much for others when I was in such a dark place? I don’t know. I’ve always been different I guess, but being different is what kept me alive long enough so the Lord could come in and save my life for eternity. For that, I am GRATEFUL.

My idea of the Lord taking my life meant that I wanted Him to end it. End the pain. End the suffering. It was a wasted and worthless life that didn’t deserve to live. I believed that lie for most of my adult life. I am so grateful for God’s life-saving love and that His idea of taking my life was completely different from what I had begged Him for. He still took my life, but He took it so that He could make me a new creation in Christ. That was in February 2010. His love is truly life-saving. It took me a long time to really get that I am a new creation. I’ve heard it and have read it over and over through God’s Word, through my pastor, and through other godly people in my life. But for some reason, it’s something that I really needed to more than just hear to believe. I needed to believe by feeling it in my heart. I wanted to feel it and believe it so badly, but I had a difficult time doing it. Something was missing. Although I had an idea of what it might be, I wasn’t completely sure. That is, until recently when God led me to something beyond incredible and fulfilled a longtime desire of my heart.

Pastors Sheila Coleman and Jim Penner

Thank You Jesus…

November 24, 2013, was the day. It was one of the greatest days of my three plus years of walking with the Lord. I will never forget it. I am so excited to share that I was one of three women who were baptized in the Pacific Ocean in Corona del Mar, California!

Pastors Sheila Coleman and Jim Penner

…by Your blood, I have been cleansed!

People, it was COLD! Cold, but beyond amazing. For the last few years, I had been praying to be baptized by full immersion. I figured that when the time was right, the Lord would make a way for it to happen. However, I figured that it would probably be in a swimming pool. A heated one, if it was wintertime! I did not plan to be baptized on that day (silly me thinking I’m in charge of things again). I didn’t take a change of clothes, I showed up at the beach with my camera because I wanted to capture some photos of a dear sister in Christ getting baptized. But the Holy Spirit prompted me and reminded me how long this desire had been on my heart. He said it was time and to follow Him, so I did. I did not want to miss out on the blessing He had there waiting for me. I saw how God answered my prayer and how He put things into place to make it happen at the most perfect time in my journey and with my own pastors which was such a wonderful blessing. I am so very grateful. This baptism is what I had been missing and I really had no idea how incredible it was going to be. It has triggered something in me that I cannot seem to find the words for. But those around me have seen me glowing. Even as I write this, I can feel the glow and it has already been eight days. I can feel the tears welling up again—such tears of joy every time I think or share about it.

Pastors Sheila Coleman and Jim Penner

A day I will never forget…

I AM A NEW CREATION. The old Debbie is dead and gone. The new Debbie is ALIVE IN CHRIST! The Lord has given me another new beginning–a new life, a very joyful and extremely blessed one. The old depressed, drunk, and isolated me has been gone for a few years now, but it seems like it just happened. My sins are forgiven—I finally got that too. The captive has been set free. There is Hope in Jesus and I pray for those who may be where I once was. I pray that you will find Hope in Him too. He’s waiting to hear from you and will meet you right where you are. Jesus is always just a prayer away.

Lord Jesus, Thank You. I pray that You will take many more lives like mine…AMEN.

Here is a video of the November 24th baptisms through Hope Center of Christ, which is my wonderful church home. If you can spare a few minutes to watch it and listen to it, I think you will be blessed to see what God has done for a few souls who have given their lives to Him. I am thankful to God that I am one of them!

http://www.hopecenteroc.org/four%20baptisms20131124.htm

HCOC photos of this beautiful day:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.595123893887494.1073741840.302596276473592&type=1

To the Lonely, Depressed, Broken: You don’t have to stay that way…I didn’t.

Debbie B. 2 Comments

I am grateful to God for giving me an amazing desire to share my vulnerable heart with anybody who will listen. I share my struggles as well as victories. God has performed miracles in my life and what good is it if I don’t share what He’s done for me with the world? This has given my life much meaning and I do it with the hope that people who are struggling will be encouraged to perhaps either turn to Jesus for the first time, or renew their faith in Him.

I am focusing on recovery today. I pray that anybody who is hurting, lonely, depressed, broken, or whatever your struggle may be, will consider beginning a recovery program. I pray this post will inspire you to take that courageous step sooner than later. There are different recovery programs out there, but the only one I am going to share about is Celebrate Recovery because that is where I go. It’s all I know. First and foremost, it is Christ-centered which is extremely important to me, but you don’t need to be a Christian to attend. Everybody is welcome. Second, recovery is for anybody who is struggling with “hurts, hang-ups, and habits” (as CR states it). I love the fact that it’s not just for alcohol or drug addiction like many people incorrectly assume. I happened to be one of “those people” before I gave it a chance and found out more about it.

Not many of my earlier posts on A Reason to Live have been about the progress of my recovery journey at CR. It’s not because I don’t want anybody to know about my progress or know that I’m even in recovery to begin with.  If you know me at all, you know my life has been an open book for quite a while now. Being this vulnerable and transparent was SO not part of my plan at all. No way would I have chosen that for myself. I believe some people who know me think I’m crazy to share such personal things about my life. I mean, you gotta be crazy to share very personal things for all to see on the internet, right? Well, you can call me crazy, but I like to call myself an obedient servant of the Lord. He’s creating an incredible testimony through my life and I’ll do anything to share it for Him. Somehow A Reason To Live has reached 37 countries including the USA. I’m not a typical blogger. I only write when the Lord puts something on my heart to share. I am amazed that this blog gets hits almost every day even though I’m averaging maybe one post a month lately. That’s a God thing for sure.

Anyway, the reason why I haven’t written much about my recovery is because it has been quite intense for me. My progress is where much of my focus has been, so writing gets put on the back burner. I am glad that I am finally able to share how I’m doing. I have no reason to hold anything back so I will share that this recovery journey at CR has been THE most difficult, and many times, THE most painful process that I have ever been through in my entire life. EVER. I don’t mean to sound like I’m trying to discourage anybody from doing recovery, I just have to be honest with how mine has been going. You must also know that it has been more than worth it because I am learning life-saving lessons. Even though I have suffered much growing pain, this recovery journey is turning out to be the biggest blessing of my life. I do not regret one moment of it. I do not regret one tear. I am receiving healing for past hurts that I could have sworn I was over and were forgotten. It turns out that they were only forgotten. They had been buried very deeply into my soul. I think that’s an extremely dangerous place to be for someone like me who used to be a severely depressed alcoholic in isolation.

I will never forget that first night as I drove into the church parking lot to check out CR. I did not want to get out of the car! A dear friend from afar contacted me that night and gave me the encouragement I needed to just do it, so I did. I was warmly greeted by strangers and that helped a lot. But when I first walked into that CR meeting, I truly did not feel that I belonged there. After all, I had already been sober for a little over two years. God gave me that miracle sobriety so why did I need a recovery program?? I kept asking God, why are You sending me here? Weeks later, I would get my answer, but initially I remember feeling so out of place. I had no idea what CR was about prior to that first night. I thought it was strictly for alcoholics and drug addicts and I only thought that because that’s what I had understood from someone else who was misinformed at the time. I learned quickly that CR is so much more. It truly is for everybody.

It took about eight consecutive weeks of showing up for me to start to feel that just maybe I really did belong there. I kept hearing the seasoned people say “keep coming back” and I honestly did NOT want to keep coming back. But I did, and I am so glad I did. I was encouraged to join their Step Study which is known as the Christ-centered 12 steps. It was something else that I really didn’t want to do, but I felt the Lord leading me to do it, so I signed up. This part of the program has been the toughest part of the journey for me. I cry a lot. But I am amazed at the healing that is taking place in my heart. This program is transforming my life all over again. I have put my whole heart into this and it is taking me to a whole new level on this faith walk with Christ.  I am a leader in the making now. The Lord has shown me that my future includes being a CR leader. It’s been God’s plan for my life all along and I’ve just discovered it this year. How blessed am I to have found my divine purpose in this life.

I feel I’m supposed to share these important events in my life. Not because it has anything to do with me or what I’ve done, but because it’s all about God and the great things HE has done. And I just hope and pray that it will be encouraging for others because it shows that God will do great things, beyond any imagination, in the life that seeks Him with their whole heart and makes His will their priority.

God gave me my miracle of sobriety in early 2010. It came from a rock bottom call out to Him in a hospital room. I wasn’t even sure He was real, but I fully surrendered all of me to Him for the first time and He answered my prayer and I have never touched another drink. He delivered me from the depression. HE IS REAL.

October 2011

“Miracles Remembered!”

If that wasn’t amazing enough, I was asked to share God’s miracle during a televised church service that was recorded on October 2, 2011, and aired weeks later reaching many people nationwide and internationally. That was a miracle in itself because I’m just me. I never could have imagined that a seven minute interview would be so powerful. But that’s how God works. I agreed to do it because I wanted people to find hope in Jesus and turn to Him for help. I didn’t think about those who knew me and that they would be finding out for the first time through an interview that I had lived decades with depression and a drinking problem. At least I tried not to. I was a bit nervous about speaking in church and knowing it would be recorded, but my pastor prayed over me prior to the service and I was comfortable enough to get through it with her. It was a wonderful experience and my life hasn’t been the same since.

I remember that one of the questions my pastor had asked was if I had done a 12 step program and of course the answer had been “No”. How incredible is it that one year later, in October 2012, I would start attending Celebrate Recovery not really understanding why I was there?! I never could have imagined that I would be starting the 12 step program just two months after that.

You see, in my case, God didn’t send me to CR to get sober. He had already taken care of that. God sent me there to receive proper healing so I could have a better chance at staying sober. He sent me there to use my life and testimony to encourage and walk with others in their recovery. He sent me there to get leadership training so I can one day bring this wonderful and needed ministry to my own church home. He sent me there to give me purpose–to have a meaningful life. He sent me there so I could bring Him glory. What an honor. What a gift of life. And to think I almost ended it a while back. I am so in awe and grateful for what He’s doing.

People need to know that this is not just about putting an end to our destructive patterns or addictions. We must get behind the issues that caused us to be destructive in the first place. I had no idea I was still carrying around deeply rooted pain until I participated in the step study. I do shed a lot of tears, but it’s true that there is healing in tears. I am learning to let go of hurts and the shameful things I’ve done in the past. It’s not easy, but the Lord is definitely healing me through this wonderful ministry. I am so grateful for the friends He has placed in my life. I need my friends. I can’t do this alone, none of us can. It is scary for me to think how easy it is for people to relapse. It doesn’t matter how long a person has been in recovery. Everyone is capable of relapsing if they stray away from God thinking they can do it on their own. I know that I am absolutely powerless without God being in charge of my life. And I need godly friends to hold me accountable. I have recovery friends and other ministry friends who do this for me and they pray for me and I am beyond grateful for every single one of them.

I pray this post will encourage someone to take a step of faith and allow the Lord to help them. And if anyone is in need of recovery for any kind of hurt or struggle, I pray you will give Celebrate Recovery a try for a while and see what God does. Even if you don’t believe in Him, He believes in you. I believe in time, you will know He is real and your life will never be the same. God is still in the business of doing miracles. My life is proof of that.

In just over five months, I am celebrating my fourth year of sobriety. Wow. What an incredible ongoing miracle that I get to keep telling the world about!

To God be the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Am I really battling suicidal thoughts again? How can that be after all God has done for me?

Debbie B. 12 Comments

Tough subject to write about, but I need to share what I have been walking around with lately. I haven’t written anything for well over a month now. I honestly started to think my blogging days were over (although I’m not much of a blogger with only 48 posts in 15 months). I felt like I had completely lost the passion for sharing my heart so openly. I guess that really isn’t the case. I just needed less time on the laptop and extra time with my Lord so I could keep my focus completely on Him while He brings me through some difficult challenges—amazing challenges that He’s using to prepare me to lead a recovery ministry at my church. That’s another miracle of His in the making somewhere down the road. I figured that if God wanted me to share something worth sharing, He’d put the desire back on my heart and give me the words. Well, it seems that’s exactly what He’s doing right now, so here we go…here is post #49 for Matters of the Heart (A Reason to Live).

It’s good for me to share that I’ve been struggling…a lot…this past month or so. I believe there’s gotta be people out there feeling the same. We need to pray for each other. As I continue to grow leaps and bounds in the Lord, my spiritual journey with Him is getting more and more challenging. I became overwhelmed to the point to where I have been battling some thoughts that have surprised me, especially after all the amazing things and miracles that the Lord has been doing in my life over the last few years. I was feeling like I was battling a bit of depression once again. Thoughts of not wanting to go forward any longer on this journey because it just gets too hard at times, made me think that I was feeling suicidal again. I didn’t want to just throw in the towel and tell God to find someone else while I start doing my own thing. I believe that quitting my walk with the Lord means quitting life altogether. That’s because I remember so well what it was like living in darkness, in the devil’s chains all of those years of drinking trying to kill the pain. That was a slow and painful death. If I don’t keep walking with the Lord, to me, that surely means death is the only other choice. This life is hard, but how can I choose death over life with Jesus?? I can’t. I was there and I can’t go back to it. I am choosing life, trusting the Lord one step at a time—that’s about all I can handle and He knows it and His power in me blows me away.

So am I really battling suicidal thoughts? Maybe not. My so-called suicidal thoughts are nothing like what they used to be back in the days that I had suffered from severe depression trying to drink the pain away. I didn’t know Jesus at that time. There was no hope for me back then. Today, I DO have hope in Jesus. Yet, these thoughts and emotions over the last few weeks had me thinking very unhealthy thoughts and I couldn’t stop thinking of Pastor Rick Warren’s son who committed suicide just a few months ago. This young man was blessed with good godly parents and he couldn’t hang on. He knew the Lord, why did he do it? I’ll never understand. That really tore me up when I heard the sad news. My heart felt so broken. I cried as if I had lost a close friend or family member. He was in the family of God, so I suppose I really did. My heart breaks for people that can’t hold on. I’ll never understand how I survived all of those dark years without the Lord. Maybe I’m not supposed to understand. I wish I could have met Matthew Warren before he died. I would have really liked to try to understand what he was going through in his heart and mind. When I was struggling recently, I was thinking about how nice it would be to never cry again, to never get my heart broken again, to never see people I care deeply for, suffer. It’s been so hard for me today seeing someone I love, who has had such an important part in my spiritual journey of sobriety, battle a serious illness.

Leaving earth and going to heaven sounds so good, I was wondering if it would be so bad if that happened for me sooner than later? I was starting to think strongly that because I’m not married and don’t have children, that there’s really nothing here for me anyway. Everyone else has their lives to live and their own families, nobody would notice that I’m gone. You know what? The devil has been working overtime trying to get me to believe those lies. He’d really like to see  me leave so God wouldn’t be able to use my heart to reach others for Him the way He has been. The devil doesn’t want God to save more lives. I guess this is the only time where my stubbornness pays off because I can’t let the devil win. Through my time with the Lord and praying about all of this, I’m discovering that I am not really battling suicidal thoughts. It turns out that I’m just longing to be with my Lord Jesus in Heaven. He’s shown me that I’m not really suicidal, I’m  just extremely Homesick and He wants me to keep trusting Him and keep holding on! So, I will!

I love what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians, it’s so how I feel in my heart: “…I desire to depart and be with Christ which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.” (Phil. 1:23,24)

I am not trying to compare myself to Paul. I  am not great like he was. But I have been given a mission in life and that’s to do all I can to keep growing strong in the Lord, to become a leader in His recovery ministry, and to keep sharing from the heart—a wonderful gift the Lord has given me (so I’m told) so that He can reach hearts through mine. Bottom line is I need to keep living my life for the Lord. Like Paul said, “For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.” (Phil. 1:21) When the Lord is finished with me on this earth, I will finally get to go Home and be with Him and with those who have gone before me. I will get my great reward. The Lord sure does make this life with Him worth holding on for.

Thank you for listening to my heart, it’s never easy for me. But when you listen to me, I believe you’re really listening to the Lord. God bless you all. And for those who think there’s nothing to live for, I want you to know it’s not true—don’t let the devil win. He is such a liar. There is always a reason to live…live for Jesus. He died a horrific death so that you may have life and have it abundantly. He can save others through you too and that is an awesome reason to live! I hope you’ll follow me in following Him, and CHOOSE LIFE! I promise you, you will not regret it. Jesus will make sure of that. ♥

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