What You Don't Know Can Kill You

What You Don't Know Can Kill You

....and boy do I know that first hand. 

Growing up I was steeped in religion like a tea bag in hot water making sweet tea. No matter what I did, I could never measure up to the "Good Christian" standard. Every goal I accomplished it seem that I still had 10 more to go. 

When I finally reached the age of 40, I had reached my limit. I was miserable. I weighed 260 lbs, I felt horrible, I was angry and depressed. I felt desperate and hopeless. All religion had left me with was looking forward to the day the rapture took place and took me out of my misery. I used to tell people that the Bible says to love others as you do yourself. I said I do,  I hate others as bad as I hate myself.

             Wow! 

It still stings just thinking about that now. It's amazing how badly I wanted to die. I wasn't suicidal, I just wanted all the pain I was in to end.  

I remember I was talking to the Lord and this was my prayer. 

"God I hate my life. I don't want to live like this 40 more minutes. I sure don't want to live like this 40 more years. Please change my life and when I am in the middle of that change and I tell you to stop, don't stop until you have completed the work in me." 

Talk about a life changing prayer, believe me this was no joke. 

God started immediately changing my life. He took me out of church for 9 months. During that time, I did a deep dive into the word of God. I began to hear God's voice clearer than I ever had in my life. In those nine months I learned about the Unshakable Kingdom of God that I now live in. I was no longer in religious mumbo jumbo but I was in my Father's Kingdom and he loved me and wanted the best for me, so much so, that he sent His one and only son to die for me.  For ME!!! Even while I was still a sinner, Jesus died for me!! 

Then I read Hosea 4:6

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also will reject you from being priest for Me;
Because you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children."

The destruction that I felt in my life when I was 40 came from a basic lack of knowledge. See, what I didn't know about God almost took my life. No, not my physical life but my enjoyment for living.  What I know now is this. The more I know about God the more I want to know. I realize now it will take me a life time of discovery and I won't truly know Him until we meet in eternity. But that has made my life so rich and full and fun.  

I LOVE my life. I live it to the fullest everyday. I am a friend of God and He is my friend. He has given me a life worth living. I love waking up to a brand new day and a brand new adventure.  Like my sister Cheryl says, "I am living my best life."

Thank God for all the pain, heartaches, betrayals, I have suffered. Thank God for all the places I have lived and the churches I attended. Thank God for the enemies I had and continue to have. Thank God for all the times I suffered in poverty. Thank God for all the times He said no. But most of all Thank God for not stoping when I was in the middle of Him changing my life and I cried out for Him to stop and He stuck to our original agreement and didn't. 

Why would I thank God for all of these seemingly tragic things?

Because I am so overwhelmingly in love with Jesus. Because I love the person I am today and the foundation I have on the unshakable, unmovable word of God. Because every single time I fell, He raised me up. Because every time an enemy rose up against me, my Father came swooping in to my defense. Because my Father fed me smack dab in the middle of my enemies. And lastly because I am who I am today because He loves me.