God's salvation is truely great! His gift of his son, as a sacrifice was too great a price! Yet Jesus, my shepherd, took on the shame of death in my place. My "dirty wool" kept me off the path of righteousness and away from the throne of God. My sins seperated me from a holy God and the glory of His presence.
I have been in a great deal of pain lately ~ so I doodle and listen to music to ease the pain and keep from eating or numbing out with food.
My brother played little league baseball and I would watch from behind the fenced backstop. One time I had my nose and fingers sticking through the fence and wham! the batter threw his bat as he ran and I got a bloody nose, bruised fingers and a black eye. After that I would flinch every time I heard the crack of a baseball hitting a bat.
Family life behind closed doors was not easy. I learned to be afraid and overprotective of my body and my soul and my mind. Over the years, with God's help - I have learned that I cannot control life and there will be "black eyes" and I will feel black and blue often in my life. Hebrews 11:17 - Abraham was forced to sacrifice his son but at the last moment, God spared him this sorrow. Abraham believed God would fulfill His promises and was ready to do the unthinkable, the unbearable. "Blessed is he who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him." James 1:12 I am promised that if I get out there and keep believing, no matter what trial comes, how painful it may be ~ when "game over" is called ~ a crown and eternity with the Lord is around the corner. 
Dear Lord, Your mercy is amazing! Thank you for keeping me alive this long and healing my battered soul and mind - year after year. Help me to live a fearless life and but my trust in You every day, even when life becomes painful. Help me look at Your Son for my example on how to treat abusers. Lord please forgive my family and help them see how useless a life spent hiding secrets is... let them see the truth and stop denying the family "sins". Through Your Son's name, the Rock of my Salvation, I plead, Amen
It is a new year! Twenty-ten or 2010 - a new decade begins. The Lord has given me the strength to live through 2009 that was filled with: a shattered femur, forced disability retirement, my father's illness, death, and the eight months that it has taken to deal with his estate or trust. There is still much to deal with but the boxes of bank statements, old photographs, and other papers are sorted and stored. There is a feeling of rightness and peace after cleaning out all the corners and reaching the bottom of a box of dusty bank statements.
The heart is much harder to "clean". It is harder to organize the chaos there. The corners of the heart are more guarded and blocked by endless cobwebs of scars from my past. God through His great mercy, has cleansed me and that continual "cleaning" and forgiveness gives me great hope and peace. Psalm 51 also helps me today:"What you're after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.
Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life.
Tune me in ~ to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health.
God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!" (The Message)
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Cor. 5:17Lord God, thank you for allowing me to remain here, on earth for another year. Help me to walk in the light of Your grace. I have sinned greatly and I have allowed food and my need for food to control my life. Help me to clean out the dark places of my life. Guide me past the scars that are blocking my way to the new life you have ready for me. Thank you for sending Your Son, Jesus to live, die, and live again - all so that I could stand in Your holy presence - a new, forgiven creation. When I think of Your love for me, I want to celebrate! You are worthy to be praised! It is in Your Son's name I pray this prayer, Amen.
