…about God’s Story in Shana
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
I, along with most children in my generation, grew up knowing this verse by heart. However, I never quite grasped the full implication of these words. I knew God loved the world because he created it, but never did I think he could love me. I grew up in a Christian home. My third great grandfather founded an independent, fundamental, southern baptist church not far from here. We went to church every now and then. I was saved by the age of 8 and baptized at Oak Street Baptist Church. I was a normal, average, lower-middle class, middle child. I knew right from wrong, how to be polite, speak when spoken to, and how to fold our hands and pray a very simple prayer at dinner time. But all those years, I knew I was a typical problem child. I got into everything and in turn got into my fair share of trouble. But most of all, I knew that I generally brought shame to my family name. Therefore, bringing shame to God. If my family was so often ashamed of me, how could God ever really love me, much less like me?
Some people have asked me if I was ever really saved back then because I didn’t know the true love of God. I believe I truly was. I believed in God. I believed that Jesus was the Son of God, borne of a virgin. I believed he came to live a perfect life, as an example of how we should live. I believed he died on a cross, and that he was risen on the third day. I believed that he is in heaven with God, and I would some day go to heaven. All of that sounds great, but what I also believed was, although, I’d get into heaven, I thought that God would have been so disappointed in me from all these years of messing up. That he would be so ashamed of letting me in to heaven that he would shuffle me off to the far back corner where all the bad kids go.
Fast forward into adulthood, to carry on what seemed to be yet another notch of disappointment, but something that previous generations in my family had carried out; adultery. You read that right, I ended up being the woman with a scarlet letter, forever to wear. I had sinned in a way that I never thought I would. I had an affair and I filed for divorce from my husband. On the day our divorce was final, Tom and I decided to try again at living life together. For seven years, we lived our lives looking married, as most people didn’t even know we were divorced, but still divorced all the same. We had never put God between us as a tie that cannot be broken, so along the way, as much as we tried, we just never could quite put us back together just right.
In December 2018, I had a planned hysterectomy. Three weeks later, my internal stitches pulled loose leaving me hemorrhaging for almost eight hours. I remember laying in that hospital bed as the fluorescent lights faded from black to white and back again. I remember thinking this is the day my life ends and I go to heaven. I had run out of time to do all the things; to put life back together, to say I’m sorry. I had great guilt for all the damage I had caused, as I was once again living separated from Tom. There were so many things that I wanted to tell and teach Allie, that I’d never get the chance to. I had so many regrets, yet I wasn’t scared of dying. I had messed up so much and so often that dying would mean I got out of this world easy. I wouldn't have to do the hard things and say the hard words to the ones that needed to hear them the most. I woke up the next morning, with a second chance. With a blood transfusion and Tom standing at my bedside, God hadn’t taken me from this world. He didn’t let me take the easy way. He let me have another chance at life, and I’m pretty sure he had a plan in mind.
In February 2019, I attended a women’s conference at Oak Street. My best friend at the time had invited me, so I went and she ended up a no show. As I sat in that sanctuary at a table of five other women scared to death and completely broken, I felt for the first time the reckless love of God. As one woman spoke that weekend, she read a verse that I had never been aware of.
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:1-2.
As she spoke, I clearly heard God for the very first time simply saying, “Stop running! Just turn around to me. You haven’t messed up so badly that I can’t fix it. Just PLEASE STOP RUNNING.” I left that weekend feeling completely freed and knew there were so many steps ahead of me that I needed to change. I needed to change the way I lived, the way I spoke, my friendships, and start running back to Christ. I dropped everything so quickly that people that knew me, had no idea what had happened and didn’t think it was a permanent decision. They didn’t trust that I truly had been changed by the Holy Spirit in that church.
I started learning to walk with God. Stumbling at first. I began attending a women’s group regularly on Wednesday nights, hearing real stories of real redeemed messes in lives. I met and discovered a kind and warm love among these women. I found new friends that did know Jesus and allowed me to learn about him and his heart.
But why this verse? Why did this one speak so loudly to me? Because of that word condemnation, I know it well. Shame and condemnation is what I was raised on! To be released, or to know that I had already been released from sin and shame and condemnation…as I sit here typing, I feel that rush of freedom all over me. I learned that God didn’t just love the world he created, but he loved ME! The me that had messed up so very badly. He sent his ONLY son. And as a mom of one biological daughter, I placed her in that situation and quickly realized the weight of that. But he sent Jesus, for me! I fell at his feet and surrendered it all to him that day at that women’s conference. I would have to say, I lived many years being saved, but that was my salvation moment.
In February 2022, Tom and I attended yet another conference, but this one was a marriage conference. Still legally divorced, but living together, we attended that weekend. Hearing advice and stories of couples, we came home that Friday evening and made a promise to each other and to God, to start over. Completely from a clean slate, and with God in the middle; we, as a couple, surrendered our relationship to God and allowed him in. From that day, we have remarried, and our relationship is stronger now than I could have ever imagined. I have watched Tom and Allie’s relationship be restored. I have witnessed God work in areas I had prayed for for over 10 years and had almost given up on. I have watched God chase my daughter with such great love and woo her back to him with open arms. And even still to this day watching him work in the details of my everyday life.
So, if you’re reading this and anything sounds familiar, and maybe the way you have viewed God has been a bit distorted, try looking through this lens. God deeply and recklessly loves you. He is calling you. He never leaves, he never lets go, he never gives up hope. You are never too far gone for My God to reach!
“Let your conversations be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear What man shall do unto me” Hebrews 13:5-6.
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you. Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me! They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” Psalm 139.
There is just not one verse in there that does not need the one before and the one after. You are already known. You are already loved. You are already sought out and bought. There is nowhere you can go and nothing you can do to drive God out or away. He is always there, waiting on you to stop running and turn back. If you have a pulse, God has a plan and a purpose!