Tag Faith

Painful memories bring many tears, but my heart smiles anyway.

Debbie B. 4 Comments

Recently, we celebrated the life of my uncle Joe who passed away last month. He was one of my dad’s brothers.  He was the oldest brother, and last one to go home to be with the Lord.  My dad was the youngest of the four brothers and the third one to pass away.  It seems so strange that they are all gone now.

On the way to the memorial service, I had so many thoughts going through my mind.  It was a sad occasion for sure for the family because he’ll be greatly missed.  But I wasn’t expecting so many painful memories of the past to return.  At least I wasn’t expecting them to hit my heart the way they did.  I have been so strong for the last year or so and the Lord has completely healed my heart so I was really caught off guard.  I completely lost it.  I couldn’t help but think about all the years without my dad in my life.  It always makes me sad when I go back to when he decided to leave.  I try not to go back there, but this latest death brought it all back.  I was reminded of all the times I spent with dad’s side of the family when I was a young adult.  The only way I could be there comfortably was to drink. I just didn’t know how else to be comfortable around them—drinking made it doable.  I remember how difficult it was to especially be around my uncles. Those painful memories certainly came back.  I loved my uncles and I don’t think they realized back then how hard it was for me to see them and to hear their laughter when my dad was no longer around.  They reminded me too much of dad and seeing how close they were to their kids made me sad all the time because I felt so abandoned by mine.  The drinking made me feel happy…well, sort of.   At least at the beginning it did. The happiness was short lived of course, but everybody drank so it wasn’t like I stood out too much.   I’m sure it was noticed how much I could drink as I got older, but nobody said anything about it.  I think they just thought I was a funny drunk. I remember being happy on the outside and dead on the inside.  I got pretty good at hiding the pain at first, nobody needed to know how I felt deep inside.  But as time went on, I think my emotions would come out more.  I remember crying all the time in front of the family.  They knew I was sad about things, but nobody asked and I didn’t share in words what I was feeling.  I remember those horrible days so well.   I remember how lost and alone I felt. (I am so grateful that the Lord has changed all of this and I am no longer lost, drunk and depressed!)

What a roller coaster of emotions…I was also thinking about what a blessing it was for each of my uncles to be surrounded by love and family while they were on their death beds.  Someone was with each of them when they took their last breath on this earth.  I am so glad to know that.  All of my cousins were so blessed to have their fathers in their lives.  My heart goes out to the families for their losses.  Learning of my uncle’s recent passing and knowing that he had family there with him made me go through different emotions.  I was grateful that my uncle was not alone, but I was incredibly sad at the same time—sad because out of all of them, my dad was the only one not surrounded by family when he died.  His death was sudden and unexpected and he was quite a distance from everybody.  It breaks my heart that nobody knew that he had died until several days later, when his neighbors noticed that they hadn’t seen him in a while.  Suddenly I found myself on the phone with a complete stranger who had called to give me the worst news I had ever received over the phone.

That made all kinds of thoughts go through my mind like, was it instant? I can only hope it was.  It’s horrible wondering if he could have been saved if help was there.  It’s hard not to think like that but I’m learning to just give it all to the Lord and to keep thanking Him for reaching my dad’s heart at some point while he was out there so I know he’s in Heaven.  I am also grateful for the forgiveness that the Lord helped me with so that everything was okay between me and dad right before he died.  What a tremendous blessing that was and the healing and freedom that came with it!! God is so good.

As followers of Christ we believe that we have eternal life. I keep reminding myself that this is not our home, especially during the difficult times. Death is only sad for those left behind.  As soon as I got word that my uncle died, all I could think about were the four brothers being reunited in Heaven.  I swear I could hear their voices and the laughter that I used to hear when I was a little girl before everything fell apart.  Those are the memories that I want to hold on to.  And I heard them say to my uncle: “Welcome Home, Carnal, welcome home.”  The thought of that sure brings peace and a smile to my heart.

As I’m coming to a close on this I started thinking…what’s the purpose of this post?  You know what, friend?  I honestly have no idea. This blog is all about things from my heart that I feel God puts there to write about.  Every time I have published something, I have wondered whether or not I should have. So far, it always turns out that someone was helped by what they read.  I am grateful that God is using me this way so I just continue to follow those promptings no matter how difficult it is to open my heart like this for strangers.  Anyway, I figure at the very least, that writing and getting things out is good therapy for me.  It can be very dangerous if I keep things inside and I certainly don’t want to go backwards on this journey!  This really helps keep me on the right track with the Lord and it’s keeping me sober.  Praise God!

I pray that something in here is a blessing to someone out there reading it.  If not, I would just like to go ahead and say: “Thanks for listening, anyway.”  God bless you. ♥

Thinking about suicide…

Debbie B. 2 Comments

Sure hard to believe now that after two and a half years into a journey of a lifetime with the Lord, that I ever had those thoughts.  I was tormented by them from the enemy for years, and he almost got his way.  Remembering what I was like not too long ago brings more tears to my eyes.  I am so grateful to God for what He has done and for what He continues to do in my life.

For those who have lost a loved one to suicide, from the bottom of my heart, I am so very sorry for your loss.  My heart breaks with you. I won’t pretend to know your pain. There is no way that I can because I have not walked in your shoes.  However, my heart breaks every single time that I hear that someone died at their own hands.  My heart breaks because I know their pain all too well.  I know what it’s like to feel that there’s no other way to make the pain completely stop.  We will never be able to understand why some people die, and some people like me don’t.  I stopped trying to understand. Only God knows.

By the grace of God, I am still here and I believe that the Lord wants me to share my heart once again on another extremely difficult subject.  Just like the last post, this one took me a while to write—just too many painful memories started to surface. It doesn’t get any easier writing such personal things about my life for the world to see, but it has become a big part of my ministry journey, so here I am.  I can only hope and pray that the Lord reaches someone through it.

Sometimes I feel guilty talking about how I was saved when someone else lost their loved one.  But, I know I shouldn’t feel guilty.  I must give God the glory for what He’s done in my life.  I am so grateful.  I can’t help someone who has died, but perhaps I can help someone else keep from taking it that far.  When I look back now on those days of torment, I believe God was there the entire time just waiting on me to call to Him but I never did until just a few years ago.  I didn’t know how to—I figured I had been bad my entire adult life, why would He listen to me?  Oh, how wrong I was!!  Many times I would spend hours awake at night crying and thinking of ways to end it.  I knew that I didn’t want to suffer physically.  I wanted to go quickly, but I wasn’t confident that I would do things right.  I remember thinking if I was going to go through with it, the best way for me would be to fall asleep in a running vehicle in the garage.  In my mind, that was going to be the cleanest, the most peaceful, and the most painless way to go. That was going to be my plan, but thank God I never had a chance to carry it out.

Now that God has opened my heart and eyes, I see how He was there working behind the scenes making things difficult enough for me, which kept me alive.  First, He gave me an incredible woman for a mother.   After dad left, she sacrificed more for me than I deserved. She kept me going and busy so that I would stay out of trouble.  I was a good kid because of how hard she worked and because of her love for me.  I have no idea how she did it all.  I am grateful for her.  I didn’t know it then, but I believe God put it in my heart to hang in there for her.  I just couldn’t have her find me dead.  Not after all she had done for me.  Second, mom and I moved around for years from place to place after we had to give up the house.  Amazing how everywhere we lived, there either wasn’t access to a garage, or in time the garage always ended up being storage one way or another…every single one of them.

Because I didn’t have God in my life at that time, I turned to alcohol to get me through the pain.  Little did I know I was still committing suicide, but it was a slow and painful death—the very thing I had always wanted to avoid.  Interesting, isn’t it?  Anyway, having a wonderful mom in my life is the only explanation I can come up with for staying alive long enough until I could open my heart for God to come to the rescue. And because God is God, He delivered me from it all.  The suicidal thoughts, the depression, and drinking.  I will share His miracles in my life until I am no longer able!

Anyone like me who has been delivered from such tormenting thoughts, I’d like to hear about the great things God has done in your life.  I hope you’ll comment.  For anyone who is suffering from these thoughts, I hope you will cry out to God and give Him a chance.  I hope you’ll fully surrender your life to Him.  I am thankful you are still alive and reading this!!  I want to ask you to do something: Look back over your life. Could it be that God has been there the entire time causing things to happen behind the scenes (like He did for me), and that’s why you’re still here with us?  I have no doubt that is what happened in my life and the reason I was able to hang in there long enough to be rescued by Him.  I hope you will keep searching for reasons to live, but most of all, I hope you will cry out to God for help with a sincere heart. He will hear you. What He has done for me, He will do for any of you if you let Him.  He will reach down and pull you out of the pit of darkness.  There is no pit too deep for Him to reach down and save a lost soul.  It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what you have done…He will save you.  That’s what He does. You just have to want to be saved.  Jesus turned out to be my only reason to live and it is a decision I will never regret.  He has given me an incredible second chance at life and has given me an incredible desire to help others. He wants to do the same for anybody who invites Him to.  It’s an amazing life!

My heart goes out to those who are where I once was and to those who are watching a loved one go through it. Keep praying. Take one day at a time and don’t give up hope. There IS hope in Jesus.  May my life always be a testimony to God’s grace and mercy.  If you have a prayer request, I hope you will post it here.  I would be honored to pray for you.

Jesus loves you more than you can ever know.  I pray you will get to know His love like I have.  If you do, you will NEVER be the same.

Thank You Lord, for the gift of life. ♥

A word for lonely hearts, from someone who knows…

Debbie B. 2 Comments

I have only been writing this blog for a couple of months now and I am truly grateful for the positive and encouraging responses that I have received from so many.  I appreciate it because it really helps me to want to keep sharing God’s greatness in my life no matter how difficult opening my heart like this can be. God has definitely placed a special calling on my life.  I feel His call into ministry, but I never could have imagined a blog would become part of it. What an incredible and challenging adventure this has been.

As I write each post, if you were to sit with me while I share things of the heart, you would witness some tears.  They’re mostly tears of joy that come from the Lord because of all the wonderful things He has done in my life, but each time seems to start out with tears that come from the painful memories of the past as I write about them. My main purpose for sharing my heart on this blog is to help people find hope for their own lives when they hear what God can do with an ordinary person like me—someone who lived without Him for 44 years.  This is the desire that the Lord has given me…to share with a hope that He reaches a heart or two through my testimony.  We can’t live this life without hope in Jesus. I know I can’t.

Loneliness keeps coming up lately, so I felt prompted to write about it. There are a lot of lonely hearts out there.  I can see them and I can feel them just about everywhere I go. Mostly I see it in single people, but I know it happens to married people as well.  Loneliness can be very painful at times. I know this, because I feel this pain every now and then.  This journey can be a lonely one for me at times.  I am amazed at how many times I have heard about loneliness lately. It helps to know it’s not just me.  That is why I am putting this out there. It is for others who think they’re alone in dealing with this.  Know that you are not.

You see, my life choices from the past have left me without a family of my own. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I knew what I was doing. I’m not blaming anybody, but I will say that as a kid, going through an ugly and scary divorce with my mom convinced me that I would never get married and go through what she had to.  I was convinced that I would never have kids and put them through that.  So that’s how I lived my life…making sure that I never had a family.  I guess you can say it’s the one thing that I was successful at while being drunk and depressed (it’s not a proud moment).  I got used to alienating myself from people—I didn’t know any other way to live at that time. My life was a godless one and so I can see why things weren’t working out well.

Now that I am older, sober, and have the Lord in my life, I have my moments where I find myself wishing things could have been different. The loneliness sometimes occurs after serving the Lord and spending time with people who also love and seek the Lord as much as I do.   When service and fellowship is over, of course everybody goes their separate ways.  It blesses me so much to see whole families loving and serving the Lord together.  Just looking at them you can see how God is always in the center of their lives.  That is what I desire in my heart at times—a family who serves God together.  But when I get home, I don’t have a family like that to come home to. I have to fight off negative thoughts like “Look what you did, you made these choices, you did it to yourself…”  I know where those thoughts are coming from so I fight them and I put my focus back on the Lord and His love for me.

Jesus is my all.  I have learned how to spend time with Him on a daily basis where I feel His presence and the comfort and peace of the Holy Spirit. Whenever I find myself feeling lonely, I have learned to ask Jesus to fill that hole.  He does every single time.  It works most of the time, but I am human so I still have my moments where I crave human companionship.  After all, God wired us that way.  I am sure loneliness will always sneak in now and again so I’ve learned to not let it get the best of me.  I won’t let it bring me down.  I may shed a few tears over it once in a while, but I keep my hope in Jesus and He sees me through every time.  I am so thankful that I only deal with this ocassionally…so thankful it is not all the time.

I really don’t know why I am sharing all of this about myself, but I felt the Lord wanted me to so here I am.  It’s not like I have all the answers that people are searching for in their own lives. I can only speak about my own life and share what helps me. Jesus is the only One I know to reach for now.  I don’t look for comfort in people or things.  Not any more. That’s what got me into a lot of trouble to begin with.

I hope this will encourage someone’s heart. I pray you will have the desire to just keep seeking the Lord and only the Lord.  Not only in times of loneliness, sorrow, pain, or whatever it is that you’re going through, but always.  Remember, nobody knows the pain and suffering that we go through in this life better than our Lord Jesus Christ. When you weep, I believe that Jesus weeps with you.  There’s nothing that He has not experienced Himself, and there’s nothing He can’t do in your life to turn it around and use it for good.  My life is proof of that!! I hope you’ll take a look at some testimony in earlier posts.

Jesus loves you and He wants to help you…call out to Him.  ♥

Trading Beer Bottles for Bibles: Discovering a New Kind of Thirst ♥

Debbie B. 4 Comments

Just had to share that this is my third summer of being sober…wow…Praise God!  I am definitely stronger now, but I still want to be careful not to mess up.  I guess the summer brings back a lot of memories of my struggle.  This used to be the time of year when I would drink the most (at least until the depression became severe, then it was whenever). In addition to stress triggers, I’d have other triggers such as warm weather which would make me crave ice cold beer.  Of course it would be pointless to just have one or two.  When I drank, it was to get high (and eventually to ease the pain).  One or two wasn’t nearly enough for that. Watching sports on TV with the old boyfriend would be another trigger.  Sunday’s weren’t spent in church, they were spent on the couch watching football and drinking through the last evening game.  No wonder why I used to hate Monday’s so much.  It’s truly amazing that I would make it to work the next day.  I thank God for taking it all away…the cravings, the depression, and yes, the old boyfriend (unhealthy/ungodly relationship).  If I was going to have a new beginning with God, it just needed to be me and God.  No distractions.  I knew in my heart that it was going to be the only way that I would be able to truly change.  I was right.  The Lord has done incredible things since I gave my life to Him. I am so in awe of all He has done.

When the Lord first sobered me up, I remember so clearly those first few months of sobriety. I was wondering if I would be able to continue on the right path. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep it up. I wasn’t in any kind of recovery program, and even worse, I wasn’t yet connected to the Lord like I am today.  He was just starting to break through in my life and I didn’t yet have an understanding of His amazing power.  What God has done in my life are true miracles. He has helped me with breakthrough after breakthrough.  To think it all started with a rock bottom cry out to Him for help.  

I must say that I am so proud of my progress thus far. I have worked so hard at putting into practice, wonderful godly principles that I have learned from great Christian ministers and authors over the last couple of years. I have learned from the best through books and through audios with amazing messages.  I’ve taken classes in ministry school and classes through church.  Basically, I was taking advantage of every opportunity to learn and I would just soak it all up.  It’s something I continue to do today.  I love that I have become a life-long learner.  I think this only worked as well as it did because I reached a point where I was finally ready to change.  I was so tired of just barely surviving life.  I was done with coming up with excuses for why I couldn’t change. I really felt I was dying a slow and painful death and I needed to do something very soon before it was too late. 

I’m so thankful for the teachable spirit that the Lord has given me.  Putting godly principles into practice is a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week effort.  Just like seeking God is.  It’s all more than worth the effort. I gave up going out with friends that like to drink and I cut way back on watching television.  I don’t even watch many sports anymore.  I lost the desire to.  I think God took that away because there are some triggers that will always be there.  I pay attention to the scores now and then, but that’s about it.  I know I am safe as long as I am with people who don’t drink.  The majority of people I spend my time with now are those who also love and seek the Lord as much as I do.  That’s where I feel the most comfortable.  I am so grateful for them. They keep me grounded and they keep me out of trouble. That’s what I crave now—the company of godly friends. God has given me a wonderful church family. 

It certainly is paying off after almost two and a half years because I can say that I am no longer in survival mode. I’m living the best life possible and the Lord is leading each step I take.  My life is all about God and it is such a wonderful way to finally be living.  It is true living.  I’ve said in earlier posts that this journey is not an easy life.  This takes a lot of commitment and hard work, but it is a truly blessed life. The indescribable joy and peace that only God can fill my heart with, is beyond amazing.  I can’t imagine living without Him ever again…EVER.  I am so grateful for learning how to stay connected to God all day, every day.  I love my life.  Every time I say that, my heart just melts because not too long ago I was just about done with this life.  Thank God for second chances!  Thank God for His power to change!

I am thrilled that I have traded my beer bottles for Bibles.  In the last couple of years, I’ve collected different types of Study Bibles and other materials so I can dig deeper into God’s Word.  I am learning so much and I just can’t get enough of Him. The Lord has removed my old unhealthy desires and has replaced them with godly ones—He saved my life, and the least I can do is live it for Him. 

It is my hope that this will encourage anyone who is tired of the way they’re living to put down any vices and seek Jesus above all else—no matter what the cost.  I have done this and trust me, it is worth it.  Don’t try to work God into your life, you’ll keep coming up with excuses as to why you don’t have time for Him.  Instead, work your life around Him.  Keep Him in the center always.  If you do this, just watch what He does in your life—get ready for an incredible journey!

Bless you! Let’s stay thirsty for Jesus!!! ♥

A true story about the power of God in a broken life of depression and drunkenness

Debbie B. 2 Comments

There’s so much brokenness around me, I felt I needed to write again about depression and the drunkenness that can come with it.  I know not everyone can relate to it, but I believe there’s someone out there who needs to hear this. It’s also about how God reached down and changed it all by turning a life filled with hopelessness and emptiness into a life filled with everlasting joy that only He can give. A life filled with hope and purpose. I pray that it gives someone out there needing God’s hand to move in their life much encouragement. His power is real.

It was 2010, around 2:00 one February morning when she was suddenly awakened by her heart going haywire inside of her chest. The symptoms were very familiar as she had lived with them for about 17 years of her adult life. It began sometime after she started drinking heavily. It was never actually said or proven that drinking was the cause of the symptoms. They told her it was a possibility, but she never knew for sure. She figures the drinking definitely didn’t help, but that didn’t stop her. There were several things that should have stopped her from drinking, but she was too deep into the pit. Only God would be able to pull her out…when she was ready.

It took the doctors a long time, but they finally diagnosed her with a minor heart condition called Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT). It’s not life threatening, but it can cause wear and tear on the heart. The symptoms would wipe her out for a day or so. It was more a huge inconvenience than anything to her.  In 2005, the SVT had finally been corrected by an ablation—a procedure where they took a catheter, went in through the groin, into a vein, took it up into the heart, and basically burned off extra nerves that were in there causing the crazy heart rhythms (at least that’s how the doctor at that time had explained it to her).  After the procedure, she had been symptom free for five years…until that one dark morning after what turned out to be the morning after her final evening of binge drinking.

The symptoms returned and they were extremely severe. Because she had lived with it for so long, she knew how to stay calm and knew the different things to try that usually made the irregular heart beat jump back into normal rhythm. However, this time it was different. Nothing she tried worked. She had been told in the past not to wait too long before seeking medical attention, but she’s very stubborn. She tried for an hour to handle it herself, but she started getting too weak and the nurse she had been speaking to on the phone convinced her to get to the emergency room. To slow the heart rate, usually all that was needed was an IV with some meds. Eventually, it would get back to normal and she would be released.

But once again, this time it was different. The medical staff in the ER couldn’t get it to slow down at all. She couldn’t believe what was happening. She kept wondering why nothing was working this time.  She never had to stay overnight in the hospital for this condition before, except when they did the procedure to fix it.  It was difficult for her to have to share with the doctor that she had done some binge drinking the night before.  She didn’t say anything about the severe depression because she didn’t remember feeling depressed at that time. The alcohol did its job and she was numb. After several hours of no progress, they finally admitted her into the cardiac care unit.

This is when she thinks that God was really giving her a major wake up call to wise up and change her destructive lifestyle. She thinks she was running out of chances and started to see that there were some significant warning signs, maybe slightly smaller wake up calls that were leading up to that last episode, but she had been ignoring them. This warning sign however, it seems God finally broke through and made sure she couldn’t ignore it. She was finally ready to listen. She knew in her troubled heart that if she didn’t do something to change her ways soon, she’d either end up in jail or dead.  Soon, she would be alone in a hospital room where she would find herself crying out to God for help. Rock bottom finally came…

As I laid there in the hospital room all alone and not so drunk anymore, I started to think about why I was there. I had nobody but myself to blame.  I had been depressed and a drinker for so long, I was very tired.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I used to pray many nights crying out to a God I didn’t know, asking Him to take my life (thank God for unanswered prayers).  So there I was in the hospital room seeking God sincerely with my whole heart for the first time.  I realized that I really didn’t want to die. I just didn’t want to hurt anymore. I didn’t think I was going to die there in that room, but I felt that if I didn’t stop drinking and change my ways that I’d be dead before 50—I had just turned 44 the night before.  I had sure made a big mess of my life, but the Lord reached down when I cried out to Him. He helped me to clean up my mess and He delivered me from the depression and drinking…He set the captive free just like He promises to.

These are amazing miracles in my life that I try sharing with all who will listen. God is the God of miracles and breakthroughs and He’s using my life to show what He can do with a willing heart. Looking back, I now consider my old life a blessed mess because of what He’s doing with it now. Today, I’m grateful I can say it’s no longer a mess, it’s just extremely blessed. I’ll be honest and say it hasn’t been an easy life, but it is definitely a blessed one. I will spend the rest of my days trying to reach out to others hoping I can help them reach out to God like I did. I pray I can help them find hope in Him. I also pray that more people will open their hearts to Him because what He has done for me, He will do for anyone who seeks Him with their whole heart. I truly believe that.

Friends, for anyone struggling out there, you are not alone. Never give up on God. I am so glad that I didn’t.  May God speak to you and bless you through this story…after all, it’s His story! ♥