Anonymous, USA
As a young child I knew God. As I got older I drifted. I was raped at age sixteen. This incident caused the deep void in me to become even more obvious. I tried all I could to fill this void, drugs, guys, partying, etc., but nothing seemed to work and my smiling face when I was out would quickly turn to tears wept on an ugly dorm room floor the second I got home. My search reminds me of a scripture I was to later read: “Why do you go about so much changing your ways? You will be disappointed by Egypt as you were by Assyria. You will also leave that place with your hands on your head, for the Lord has rejected those you trust; you will not be helped by them.” – Jeremiah 2:36-37. I can remember being high on coke and special K, pot, and alcohol and just out of it in my sin, and hearing a loud thundering voice question, “What are you doing?” Calling my name telling me to stop. Fear of God brought me out of a very risky place that night.
However, I still did not answer His call to me. God is so merciful. All throughout the Bible you hear stories of people, murderous evil people turning away and God luring them back to Himself.
It was at a point in my life, marriage problems, financial problems, a baby, that I could no longer handle the flashbacks from my rape experience, when God truly called out to me again. Before a flashback could enter my mind I would hear the name of Jesus! Jesus! Louder and louder and I could feel within me a fight (that I had no part in) to cease the torments within me. There is such power in His name!
Since that time I have completely given my life to God. He is my healer, my redeemer, my husband, lover of my soul, my best friend. If there is one thing I have learned it is we will never fully understand the love He has for us. Who but God would send His only son to die and go to hell until we were justified for us? And then raise Him from the dead that we one day will be raised up with Him?
To God, we are priceless. And to us, He is more than worthy of all our praise!
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of the sand. When I awake, I am still with you.” – Psalm 139:13-18