Before God, I was a seemingly selfish person. I was incapable of seeing the many blessings in my life. The great thing about God is that He waits patiently for us to see Him and then He opens our eyes to all that He has given us.
One of the blessings I saw was my nephews. I have two nephews who I love very much. But I was always too selfish to see how much they loved me back. How much they wanted me to be more a part of their lives. Before God I spent very little time with them. I was so busy filling my days with nonsense that I could not seem to fit them in, never realizing that in the meantime they were growing up.
The next blessing I saw was life itself. You see, I am a cancer survivor. Before God, I was so afraid of dying. Dying was the end in my mind, filled with darkness, loneliness, and hopelessness. Actually what I just described was my life.
When they found the cancer I cried, but the “cancer” part never really sunk in. I went through the motions of the physical part, the surgeries, the pain, the healing. But I never identified that I actually had cancer until several months later when they told me that I needed to have scans on my lungs. Lungs I said, why lungs? The nurse said because the kind of cancer I had could metastasize in my lungs. That is when I realized I had had “cancer”. I was so afraid. I went into a depression. Then shortly after, my cat (my child of 18 years) developed cancer in her eye. She had surgery, bounced back like a kitten again, buy then died 3 months later when the cancer metastasized throughout her body. She truly was my child and I had no idea how to live without her. Not to mention, I saw my own mortality through her cancer and her death. I went even deeper into a depression. In my mind, even though I had an amazing family, I was more alone than I ever had been before.
I spent my whole life living for tomorrow and never, ever saw today. I was so lost in tomorrow, that during the 18 years of my cat’s life I was so stressed about losing her that I forgot to enjoy every minute that God gave me with her.
I never enjoyed today. Not in my relationships, not on vacations, not my health. I was so busy chasing tomorrow. Then suddenly tomorrow had “cancer” in it, possibly death. And I had lost my lifeline of 18 years to the same disease. I had no relationship with God. I wasn’t even sure he existed. As a matter of fact I was sure if he did exist, he surely didn’t like me at all.
So what did I do? I cried, A LOT. I felt sorry for myself. I lost tons of weight and did not leave my house for three months other than to go to work. Then I found a friend and a boyfriend who where just as lost as I was and I continued to develop toxic relationships.
Until one day my sister threw me into church and God spoke through the pastor so passionately and grabbed a hold of me and has never let go. God is truly the answer to peace. He made us in His image and we thirst for Him every minute of every day that we are on this planet. Jesus said "whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in ham a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14.
Most times we are so stubborn we don’t see Him until we are on our knees and even then sometimes we miss Him. Thank goodness God never gives up on us.
He loves us so much that no matter how much we hurt Him and turn our backs on Him, He is always there waiting for us until we are ready to recognize that He is all we need. We go through life searching for peace. We look high and low. We wake up every day hoping that maybe today’s the day I will find it. Mistakenly thinking that we can find it through another person, possibly through a shopping spree, or maybe hitting the lottery.
Not knowing God and being under the influence of the enemy, we don’t have a clue what it means to have peace in Jesus. The devil has us so convinced that Jesus isn’t real. That if God even exists He must not care about me or He wouldn’t let all these things happen. This is the way I thought for many years. Never knowing God's promises, never reading His Word.
Now I thank God every day that he used my sadness, my cancer, my loss, my sister to bring me to my knees. To bring me to Him, where I have found, without a shadow of a doubt, my peace through Jesus. I found my family, my church, my health, my life. Thank You God for loving me so much. Thank You for being so patient. Thank You for forgiving me. Thank You for choosing me so I could choose You.
Colossians 1:13-14 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
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