Its a Decision

I made a decision last week to put a video of my testimony on my blog.  I decided to trust that God could use it as He saw fit and I would just be obedient to His leading.  The testimony that is posted is actually a shortened version of my complete testimony.  I spoke at my church on where I had been, what God had done in my life, and where I was going now.  My testimony, when I wrote it, was to stress that God is in pursuit of His children but when I stepped on to the stage, I felt that I had to also speak about how satan is a liar and that we cannot believe those lies.  It is vital to know the difference between the love of God and the lies of satan and make the decision of whom you are going to listen to. 

For a long, long time only the lies of Satan rang in my head.  I am not talking about “the devil made me do it” mentality but the “I am not worthy of love” thought process. That was a lie from satan and it had an impact on all the decisions I made, how I treated people, and how I treated myself. 

Writing my testimony was hard.  It felt like opening up a closet that I had shoved all my stuff into, and I had to take it out and decide what I was going to do with it.  Much of it was like those cards that you get now that when you open them they play music but my stuff played “You are ugly”, “You are dirty”, “No one will love you.”  “You don’t deserve God”, and the loudest one, “God doesn’t want you.”  Playing over and over and over and I had to decide, “Who am I going to listen?”

Many days I wake up and I can almost feel the darkness building up in my head, the doubts, the fear, that record that I have broken over and over again that plays, “you are not _____, you can’t do ______,” Name it, I promise I’ve heard it more then once.  Now I know what to do, I turn on the Light.   I fight those lies with His truth and I go to God’s word because there He gives me the weapons to fight.  But I have to decide to use those weapons and to believe that those weapons were written for me. 

Just because His word says that God loves me and that I am forgiven does not mean that is all there is to it.  I have to decide to accept it as truth and sometimes I have to read and re-read and pray and pray again, to be reminded.  If I told my daughter one time that I loved her, does that mean I never have to tell her again for the rest of her life?  No, I pour my love for her over and around and make sure she knows that she knows that she knows how much I love her.  But God loves us more.  The Bible says it over and over again how much more God loves us but we have to decide to accept that love.  It’s a decision. 

Do I wish that I could change the things that happened to me, yes. I wish I hadn’t been sexually abused, I wish I hadn’t had an abortion, and I wish I hadn’t been divorced, twice, and all the other things that satan wants me to sees as failures.  But can I change anything about what came before now?  No.  But, I can decide how what came before will impact today and so I decide to be thankful for it. 

Thankful?  Yes, thankful, because God will use it.  (Genesis 50:20) I know that.  God used someone else’s pain and hurt and suffering and their willingness to talk about it, to let me know that He loved me, so I can be thankful because maybe one day someone else will say, “You let me know that I wasn’t alone”, or “Your story helped me to see that God could love me”.  That alone, that one person makes everything worthwhile.  If you knew that your pain and hurt would be used by God to save one of His children from an eternity in hell, would you go through it?  What if the one saved is your child, your sister, or what if it’s you?  Are they worth it?  Are you worth it?  God’s Word says that you are.  So I have decided to be thankful and open, and honest, willing to share all of it, even though it hurts sometimes, because each of us are worth it.  Decide.