Today we were invited to share our ministry or our story through Kelly’s blog and I decided to put it all out there. Many times I have wondered how my situations and circumstances can help others and what these times have meant to me as a person and how these things could possibly help others.
I truly believe that God uses our circumstances and situations for His good when we let Him. I was born in 1973 to a very young mother who got pregnant out of wedlock and got married because she was pregnant. When I was almost 2; my mother was murdered and my whole life changed. My dad was young and irresponsible so my grandmother got custody of me.
Thus should have become my happy ending. Young girl raised by her grandparents, right? Um, No ~ My grandfather molested my cousin and me for years when we were kids and then when we finally told my grandmother; she got us family counseling but never divorced him. Every day I lived with my abuser and felt like I was not important enough to make the choice to not live with a child molester. Every day I wondered why my life was this, my search for being good enough led me to seek love from a very early age.
By the age of 17, I was married and still the void was there. There was this part of me that was always looking for more, but not knowing what it was. My beautiful babies came in 1993 and 1995 and the is love was different, a love I had not known before; a love that was different than any other love. But even still, there was a deep unhappiness in me that could not be explained.
I guess by now I should have already said that I grew up in church; I grew up always knowing about God, always hearing about God, always thinking I was a Christian, always wearing the title but never really knowing God, knowing Him in the glory of His power and in the beauty of his wonder.
In 2004, as my marriage fell apart I blamed God. I blamed him for the abuse, for my mom dying, for an unfaithful spouse, for all my shortcomings in life. I turned completely away from Him because I felt He had failed me in every way possible. I decided I could do just as well on my own as I had with God; not knowing that I really had not experienced Him for myself.
I met a great guy, who became my best friend and my love. I knew then that my life was complete. I knew that now I needed nothing. Except that there was a missing piece still, there was a hole that could not be filled. There is a great song out right now and one of my favorite lines goes like this. . “there is a God Shaped hole in all of us”. See that was my problem; I had this hole that only God could fill and it took me 30+ years to realize it.
The last six years have been the best of my life even though we have faced so many financial and emotional hardships but everyone of those have brought us closer to God. The day that I realized the God shaped hole could only be filled by God was the best day of my life. As you read through my other blogs you will see the path we have walked the last few years, struggling to find employment, walking through bankruptcy, suffering through hurt in ministry, having been victims of identity theft. All of this that we have went through I can see now is for God’s Glory and for us to be a help to those who are facing those same situations today and to let them know that as you let God fill that hole in your heart He can walk you through any fire.
Blessings,
Shelly
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