Memorial Box Monday - Faithfulness

If you head over to A Place Called Simplicity, you can read Linny's post on God's faithfulness in her life.  
Today, I would like to share a little bit about my own journey with the Lord.
I was born and raised in a home where church was a very important part of my life.  My sister and I were the only young people consistently in the Sunday evening service.  I so appreciate the foundation that was laid for me during these years.  I distinctly remember being ten years old, praying with our pastor to ask Jesus into my heart and then being baptized.
Sadly, though, more often than not, I did not live like someone who has been saved from certain death and destruction.  My teen years were characterized by selfish and indulgent living.  I cared most about what felt good to me and what my so-called friends thought of me.  I never doubted the existence of Jesus or openly walked away from my faith.  However, to anyone watching, I was not bearing fruit that was consistent with what I claimed to believe.  I also wasn't talking much about what I claimed to believe - but, I was sure warming up the pew every Sunday and Wednesday.
I went on to make some really bad choices early in my college career.  Choices that left me deeply wounded, even though, at the time I was able to disengage from myself and carry on with college life.  Through it all, God was there.  I knew it.  To a certain extent, I was comforted by it, but looking back, I am so ashamed of how callously I regarded His sacrifice.  I lived my life however I pleased, and then actually had the nerve to sit in church each week.  I was a fake and I don't know if I even knew it.
One day, when I was nineteen years old, I found myself standing in a small, gas station bathroom staring at two pink lines on a home pregnancy test.  I was a sophomore in college and my world was spinning rapidly out of control!
One month later, I was a married sophomore in college, expecting a baby.  Now, I can honestly say that there was never a day that I was disappointed I was having a baby.  I was sick of the party scene; I had been living it for far too long already.  I talked big about wanting a career, but truly, I wanted to be a mom.  I always had.  True, this wasn't how I had envisioned it would happen, but my family was supportive, I was going to finish college, we weren't going to starve, and I was going to be holding a newborn in a few short months!
Where was God, you might wonder?  Well, He was where He always is when His children stray.  Waiting.  Patiently.
I don't know if I was truly a "christian" or not.  Over the years I have tried to analyze that very thing in my head, but I only end up frustrated.  I wasn't living my life to please Christ and though I believed everything you are supposed to believe about Jesus, I had no fear of the Lord, I bore no fruit, and I treated His sacrifice casually.  I am thankful beyond words that I didn't meet Him face to face during that time, because I honestly don't know.
Six months later, after a super fast natural delivery and an emergency c-section, my "baby" turned out to be twins!  Can you say SURPRISE!?!
Again, where was God?  I can tell you exactly where He was on January 25, 1994 - He was in an obscure hospital in North Carolina, protecting the life on a tiny, breech baby boy whose heart rate had, unknown to anyone at the time, completely bottomed out during labor and his very young mom who was hemorrhaging on an operating table.  Sparing our lives so that his tiny sister would grow up with her twin brother and her mom.
Within a few weeks, my very young husband decided that the grass was greener on the single side of the fence and literally overnight, he was gone.
God was still there.  He was still waiting, patiently for me to realize what I didn't have.  Now, don't forget, that through ALL of this, I never missed a Sunday.  I was a faithful church attender and truly I believed.  This is noteworthy because it is so scary to me that I could sit there week after week after week and truly NOT GET IT!!  I was missing the heart of it all.  I was missing the relationship.
But God.......
After my husband left us for another relationship, we lived with my parents.  They were unbelievably supportive and loved their first grandchildren wholeheartedly.  I could not have made it during that time without them by my side.  They provided for us in every way, insisting that I finish my college degree since I only had one semester left at that point.  I stayed home the first nine months and then went back to school a couple of days a week and graduated when Joshua and Bryce were a little over a year old.  
Now, during the time I was at home with my babies and my mom, a young man started attending our church.  I am from a very small town and though the church is large for the area, it is small by most standards.  This young man had started attending the church a few months before, but we had never met.  This is a miracle story all its own, that I don't have time to get into in this post.  Suffice it to say, that man is the man I ended up marrying - less than a year after we met.  It was quick and I wish I could say that at this point we were totally walking with the Lord.  
We weren't.
He moved to Florida, 750 miles from the only place I had ever lived, six months before our wedding and the kids and I moved immediately after.  Succeeding in completely ripping out my parent's hearts.  They have yet to truly forgive Stan.  (I'm partly kidding.)  Our first year of marriage was horrendous.  I have several posts under the topic of Marriage that further describe our journey.  For the purposes of this post, I will just say that God was still there and He was still waiting.
I was attending Bible studies and meeting people in our new city.  Remember, I could talk the church talk. What I wasn't prepared for were women who talked about Jesus as if He were right there at the park with us.  Women who wanted to stop in the middle of the playground and pray for our husbands.  I was completely blown away!!
Now, God was moving.  Now, my heart was ready.  Seriously?  Could it have taken all of that to prepare my heart?  I am still in shock at how hardened it must have been.
I don't even think those sweet ladies had a clue that I didn't have a personal relationship with Christ.  I don't know to this day if they have a clue how God used them, but one day I got it!  It just clicked.  I stood in church one Sunday morning, like a million mornings before, and the Holy Spirit washed over me in a completely tangible way.  I remember the feeling as distinctly right now as I type as if it happened yesterday, instead of over sixteen years ago.
All the guilt and shame of my life prior to that day took me to my knees.  I could not believe I had missed it!  However, as God does, He spoke to me in that moment and offered to completely wipe away all of that.  He tenderly whispered that this was the day He had been waiting for.  I had never felt so clean.  I knew then and there that I wanted my whole life to be about Him and Him alone.
Everything changed.  My marriage - that took some time, we were in pretty bad shape, but together, we gave it to God.  The way I was raising my children - it became my mission to see that they never played the church game.  I wanted them to live authentic, on mission with God lives.  The first thing God did was call us to home school - loudly and clearly He said it.  We have never looked back.  
Through it all, He was there.  He was drawing, softening, whispering.  He never yelled, He never forced.  And He never gave up.
He is ever faithful.  Ever loving.  A decade and a half later, I am still amazed and in awe of His sacrifice for me.  Me, who, even though I knew better, scoffed at it, didn't appreciate it, and treated it with casual indifference.  Me, who deserved nothing good - gained everything that day.  
Now, as I have walked with Him all these years, through valleys and up to mountaintops, one thing has remained.  He is faithful.  Even when I lose heart and threaten to give in to despair, He never wavers.  I can not begin to explain how much I love Him.  He is absolutely everything to me and my heart's desire is to live a life that pleases Him, in every way.  I never want my Abba to be disappointed.  Not because I think He will stop loving me or to try to "earn" anything.  Simply because I adore Him.
Thank you Jesus.  Thank you for not leaving me where I was.