Healing the Hurting Woman

Like many, maybe even some of you reading this right now, I came to Christ to get out of a bad situation. I knew if God didn’t intervene in my life that someone was going to die. I had purposed that that someone wasn’t going to be me. I was 34 years old. I had been in an abusive marriage (my second) and I was the mother of two young boys. I thought that when my husband and I separated that the abuse would stop but I was wrong. I knew that only God could get me out of the mess, so I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. However, the verbal abuse continued and I had had enough! I went to my pastor and I told him my plan, that if God didn’t put an end to the torment I was going through I was going to take a contract out on my husband! Well you can just imagine the reaction of that poor pastor! He was a young man, filled with the Holy Spirit. He told me to go home and get on my face before God and not budge until the Lord had given me a strategy other than one that involved murder! Well, as a newly saved woman I really didn’t want to kill anyone, so I obediently went home and began to seek the Lord on this matter. I don’t remember how long it took but God did give me a strategy to stop the verbal abuse that the enemy was spewing out at me through my husband and that strategy was for me to shut MY mouth! That’s right, I was to stop doing something. Whenever he came around to pick up our son if I needed to speak my questions were to short and to the point and my answers to him were only to be “yes” or “no.” Otherwise I was to pray in the Spirit or read Psalm 91 out loud. Well, I did just as the Holy Spirit had led me to. As he began to curse and scream at me I started reading Psalm 91 and praying out loud in tongues and to my complete and utter amazement he began to walk backwards to his car, muttering and fussing. The more I prayed in the Spirit, the faster he walked until he was in the car and backing out of my driveway leaving a trail of dust and gas fumes. I only needed to repeat the scenario one or two more times until he stopped the cursing and hollering and peaceably began to come and pick up our son for visitation. Shortly after that, he moved away, remarried and the rest is history. That was my introduction to God’s love and power. He cared for me and through Him I had the power over circumstances in my life. It didn’t matter that I had created the mess or not. He was there with me to see me to victory, then as now. But I still didn’t believe that God really loved me. I knew what the Bible said, “that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” The word “world” meant” the world” and all of its inhabitants in general, right? I didn’t understand about a personal, one-to-one, face-to-face relationship with Almighty God. It was almost an inconceivable concept. The evidence of a loving God just wasn’t anywhere to be found in my life, or so I thought. Upon accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior I thought that I had just escaped going to hell. But then somewhere along the way I heard that salvation was more than just not going to hell. It was healing, deliverance, prosperity, wholeness. God was interested in all of that? In my life? Well, maybe I’d better dig a little deeper I thought, and so I did and was amazed when I found the River of Living Water, in Jesus. I pray that the words in this book help you to see a Father God who never intended for His daughters to be battered or abused. He never intended to us to stick a needle in our veins or for our lips to envelop a crack pipe. He never meant for someone’s fist to slam into our eye or lip or the side of our head. His intent for our life does not include the selling of our bodies or for us to parade around in various stages of undress in order to get someone’s attention, or to make a few dollars, or for us get raped or for our innocence to be stolen when we’re just little girls. His plan did not include our becoming a mother at 11 or 12. Incest isn’t in God’s game plan. We weren’t created to be on lock down, separated from our families, our children, or from our own souls. We were not created to live in poverty, fear, hopelessness, or sold into slavery. We weren’t meant to dig for food out of a dumpster. Or worse yet, be found dead in one. Yet these things happen, sometimes because we have chosen the wrong path or sometimes because we seem to have been born in the wrong time and place. Whatever the reason you find yourself on the outside of God’s will for your life, I am here to tell you that God Himself does have a plan for your life. He says so in Jeremiah 29:11, “…for I know the thoughts I think toward you says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end…” His expected end. Not an evil end. Not the end expected by that person who told you that you were no good, or stupid, or that you’d never amount to anything, or that you were too fat, or too skinny, or too black, or too red, or that your hair was too nappy or not nappy enough. Or they told you they didn’t love you, or lied when they said they did love you. Or of the one who tried to abort you, or tried to choke the life out of you, or knocked you around when you were pregnant, or abandoned you on the side of the road. I want to share with those of you, who are feeling hopeless, tired and confused, the truth of a loving God who has a plan for YOUR life in spite of the mess it may be now. The beginning of this journal quotes the scriptures primarily from the Book of Psalms. When I first came to Christ I stayed reading the Book of Psalms for about 3 years. Why? Because the Psalms ministered to my broken heart and they helped me to heal. I still didn’t’ believe that God, the Father, loved me personally. But I began to understand that He had a love for mankind in spite of our mistakes and I knew He was my only way out. Verse 14 of Jeremiah 29, He says, “…I will turn away your captivity…” Come, let us meet up with Jesus and let Him turn your captivity away. AN INVITATION TO BECOME FAMILY Dear Daughter, I am so happy that you have picked up this book and that you are about to step out from you past life of fear and uncertainty and into the life that I have been waiting to bless you with. I am prepared to speak to you through the words in this book. They are My words, chosen just for you, to speak to your heart at this time in your life. This time is unlike any other and my Word is waiting to gain entrance to your heart. Yes, I created you, even though you may have been told otherwise. I created you because I want you to share eternity with Me, in a place unlike anything you could imagine. I know how hard your life has been. I’ve seen everything, I reached out to you and sometimes you did feel my Presence. Sometimes you could not, but I was there. I have never left nor forsaken you. So take this book and read it. Speak to me. I want to hear your voice and see your face smiling as you learn that you are loved and treasured by Me. Let my Words caress you heart and cover your soul with my healing oil of gladness. Let me turn away your captivity and open your prison door. I promise to walk you through to freedom. There is only one thing that I require of you and that is to accept the gift that I have sent especially for you. That gift is my Son, Jesus, the Christ. I sent Him to die for you. He took all of your sin, your sickness, your poverty, your brokenness, your pain so that you wouldn’t have to bear it, yes you and everyone else. His death and redemption is my gift to you, you just have to accept Him as your Lord and Savior. Are you ready to accept My gift and step out from death into life? I am waiting to bless you but you need to say the words (out loud): “Jesus please come into my heart and change my life. I accept You, the Father’s gift and I know that you paid a price for me.