God is REAL. He has never left me. My family had briefly introduced me when I was young, but I never took the time to know Him. My brother read the Bible in high school. I wanted to, longed to, but never took the time. I spent my life doing what needed to be done, but not taking the time to do the right thing. I never allowed myself to do the right thing (just the bare minimum). I never allowed myself to be happy and do the right thing. I even purposefully did the very wrong, bad things. Things that I am ashamed of, that there is no explaining the real reason why I really did them, except that I longed to be loved.

I never found that love in my life. God never stopped looking for me and calling for me. The deep down feeling I would get when I briefly explained the hidden meaning of Christmas to my daughters while living in an atheist household. Never wanting to speak the words “there is no God”.

HE IS REAL! I know from the miracles of life, the desire that man has to love and belong. I have been shown physically by the One and Only God, by “coincidences” (as man would say) that no probability could calculate or explain. One day driving home from work, after recently being separated, I had a conversation with God. I was feeling overwhelmed, trying to decide how to navigate through the problem my life was in. I had been attending Church, reading the Bible, and seeking out everything I could get my hands on to learn who God was. Doubt, pain, heartache overwhelmed me. So much that I was at my end (not of life), but at the end of wanting to stand through the pain. I said to God that I know it is wrong to ask for proof. I did not want to test Him, but (there is always a but with us) I did not know how to have faith in something I couldn’t see and feel, because all of the things I could see and feel were in such turmoil. I asked for some sign that He really was real.

Later that night, I forgot about the conversation. While swimming with my eight year old daughter, I stopped and looked up to the sky. There was a large cloud that took my breath away. I stared at it so long my daughter asked what I was looking at. I asked her what the cloud looked like, with no prompting from me, she said “a man”. It was not just any man, that cloud looked like Jesus.

I am not loosing my mind, or making up this event. But when you add this to the number of events, proof and feelings from a place inside your soul that calls for us, that we can’t deny. I have encountered too many calls or quotes that arrived at precisely the needed moment. I have read through most of the Bible stories, and seen God’s promise of Jesus in the Old Testament stories. The statistical probability of so many men over so many years writing a story that blends together so many pictures of Christ and Truths of life. So many Truths on how we should live and love one another, and not hurt each other, and how to stand strong but loving on the foundation of Truth and Right. To read the History and the Prophecy of life, the world, the history of man and what is to come. One can only Know the Truth of our Lord and God.

I cannot “run” any more from God’s call. I will not allow myself to doubt anymore, His love. I will surrender to Him and no longer try to control or plan my life, but I will consult Him and place all of my burdens at the foot of His cross. No matter what the men of this planet say. We are here for a reason. We are uniquely and wonderfully made and created. We were not a random chain of events that brought us from the sludge that randomly became a living, breathing, thinking, feeling body. Our bodies are too complex to even fathom that possibility.

The hardest thing now, for me, is letting go of my life and letting the Lord, our Father, have complete control over my life and all matters in it. I am a divorced mom of two daughters, 11 and 20. God praying that they do not ever know that full details of my past, I will be dedicated from this point on to living for Christ. I can no longer worry any more about my life. That is God’s place. He has a plan for me. It is my duty to spend in the word and have a relationship with Him. To allow quiet times to listen, and let Him worry for me. I am here to serve Him, and be the best servant I can be. Becoming a Christian has been the hardest thing for my to do in my life. My life has become more unimaginable, it is hard to explain. Even simple explanations to problems has escalated so out of proportion that no-one saw that painful outcome of those events. My friend who was used to lead my back to God’s house, explained afterward, that he couldn’t warn me that my life would become even harder after asking God into my heart. Because, there is no explaining the things that were to come, no anticipating it. Once you ask God into your heart Satan will have a fit at the loss. Some things in your life will come out of left field. But the peace you feel in your heart is unexplainable and real. It is such an unfamiliar feeling for a person, yet it is real.

I have not had tragedy. I have experienced a lot of life. I am not alone, and I am just now allowing myself to feel and experience the fullness of life. To feel the waves of overwhelming emotions, happy, sad, angry, and calm.

I am going back to college to give myself a better opportunity to earn an income since I am 43 with not much retirement, and no plan in place. I am debt free, and pray to keep the simple job I have right now. God has blessed me in so many ways, I would spend too much time listing them. I have tithed over the last two years, but no where near the ten percent because I can’t afford to give away the little money that I receive from my job. However, the Truth is, I cannot afford to not follow the will and plan of God and let him show me what he has planed for my life. My life and all that I have come from God alone. I cannot make money without life. And I cannot be alive without God. I have not placed God first in my life because I had other needs, wants. Knowing that I was not doing the right thing. That is between God and myself, and if I ever want to have any chance at finding out what God has planned for me. I can do this only by letting go of the reigns of my life.

May you hear God’s call in your life. And I hope that you can find the peace that I have found.

God Bless you and your family.
Jo