I've been talking to God a lot lately; not in a bragging-way, but because I've truly never loved anyone or anything the way I love Him-way.
I wake up & yearn for Him. Throughout my day, as I'm doing mundane tasks of life, I call out to Him in my mind & my heart..."Father I just want to feel your presence."
It's not that I need anything specific, even though we always do if we're honest, but it's just to hear His voice. It's soothing. It's bold. Sometimes its correctional or even downright comical...but His voice holds all of my pieces together.
And I think back to my life before I TRULY surrendered to God...ya know...before I was "saved-SAVED" and I just don't know how I did it. I don't know how I woke up and just did whatever I wanted to, went where I wanted to, spoke how I wanted to, lived however I wanted to...and I never even consulted my Heavenly Father or his heart for the day.
Not just daily, but weekly, monthly, even yearly...just lived MY life according to MY wants.
I think on that and get saddened, I don't know HOW i did it. There was no hope, there was no purpose, there was no point to it...and it led me to the place of despair I was on the night I died to myself.
December 23, 2016.
That's the night Paula passed.
Wife. Mother. Daughter. Overachiever. Validator. Regular church-goer. Active scripture memorizer.
I prayed to God, "if this is as good as it gets to live a life FOR YOU, if all of this pain and sadness and hurt and confusion is as good as it gets...just take me home."
And I expected it. Ya know, a bolt of lightning. My last breath. I waited. Even then I knew God answered my prayers. So, I waited.
But instead of a lightning bolt, I heard a still, soft voice, "Are you ready to know who I TRULY am?"
I was so confused, so God clarified himself!
"Are you really ready to know who I AM versus who you've been taught I AM and who you've always known me to be?"
And that...that was the moment I died to myself, my past, my concept of church and Christianity.
I took my last breath as a confused Christian and my first breath as a surrendered vessel.
I've never looked back. Not ever.
And I've wrote it all down. The hard moments. The confusing moments. The heartbreaking moments. The shameful moments. The surrendered moments. The defining moments. The revelatory moments.
I wrote them through laughter and tears for all of the world to read. So that every other broken person that comes across my words, will be introduced to the hope in Jesus I found, and they'll yearn for a love like they've never experienced.
Don't let anyone fool you, the love of God is so complex and so intoxicatingly beautiful, you won't ever want to outrun it when you truly experience it.
I don't do what I do or live the way I live so one day I'll get a gold star from my God...no, I live every single moment knowing one day, I will hear "WELL DONE" as HE WRAPS HIS ARMS AROUND ME.
I long for the embrace of my Heavenly Father, for the overwhelming presence of His love that I will no longer be separated from once time is over.
And this, this is why I've kept writing. Even though I wanted to throw it in the trash a blue-million times! But if I can push through, if I can keep on, and my book leads ONE person to repentance, ONE person to knowing hope, ONE person to knowing their worth in GOD, one person mending and developing a true relationship with the one true God...then it'll all be worth it.
Won't it?