Going With The Flow -Part 2

Fitting In At Any Cost
Wish I could say that smoking was all I did in an attempt to "blend" in with the world, my choices spiralled down wards until Jesus saved my life in my early twenties.  Sparing the sordid details about my behaviour, let's just say, I was as lost as lost can be. More details on another day.

The point of bringing that up is to share just how compromised and desperate some of us can become when we are convinced, the only way to stop the pain in our hearts, is by going with the flow. Problem is, that flow can be likened to a river of icky white Bondfast glue. Sure at first, some may believe you are one of them and not "different" at all. You may even have a dude come and tell you are cool! But the longer you are trying to flow down that river of glue, that glue starts to form a skin as it begins to dry, as a result, you start to hit globby areas and end up getting caught up in behaviours you never intended. Slowly but surely, if you stay in that river, the glue hardens and so does your heart and mind. Before you know it you are being arrested for shop lifting, boys use and leave you, people are calling you seedy names behind your back, and your spending any time you can numbing the pain with alcohol or drugs, just to mention a few...
Embrace Reality!
More than anything, I am so thankful to our Lord Jesus Christ, for opening my eyes to see the lies I was believing and literally saving me, soul, body and spirit. He taught me to embrace the red. Meaning, let go of trying to be someone and something you were never created to be. Embrace all that is unique and different and me! Life with a disability or visible difference, that some like to point out, is just something that I would have to accept,  instead of hurting myself to show "them" I was equal. How silly to think that I could actually hide those four wheels!
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Looking back during the years I was up to my neck in bad, self destructive behaviours, I am in awe and thankful, for the many times it must have been God, Who made sure I would receive messages of Truth.  Not that I was always listening, but He knew what I needed to go through - nothing was in vain.
One time that was so obviously, Him speaking to me...still warms my heart...

Up until the age of fifteen, out of ignorance, I had no problem with abortions. Convinced that, it was just a means of ending a pregnancy and that was that. There will be more about this very serious topic another day. I bring that up because a few years later, after seeing a poster in my apartment building, I went to the community center next door. It was to view a special presentation that featured a film I had never heard of called,  "The Silent Scream".
It was the most traumatic short film I had ever seen. It was a video of an ultrasound during an abortion. I can't bare to watch it again, but I have linked the title of it, incase you want to see it. There was a discussion afterwards. Clueless at that point about the organizations called, Pro-Choice and Pro-Life at the time. That evening, my heart sank. It was there that I learned there were people who supported what was happening to this baby, even after watching what we all just did!
From the back of the room came comments and declarations about human life and the so called "right" to end it, that made no sense to me at all. It was logical, wasn't it? Then, the most amazing thing happened, a lady in the front of the audience, shared Psalm 139 out loud.
Up until then, opening the Bible my dear Grandma H, had given me was rare. As she read God's Word, my heart felt something it hadn't experienced before. Feelings of my own purpose and the love of a God who chose to make us, one by one. It was incredible!
Returning back to my apartment, I unburied my Bible, and looked up Psalm 139. These Words, His Words, were a huge revelation to me. The God of the universe, planned us before any parent ever even wanted to have a child!
Psa 139:15-17  NKJV - My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, [And] skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When [as yet there were] none of them.  How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

Assuming my folks didn't know about this, I still remember the excitement as I dialled them up and read the passage to my Mom. 

Thank You Lord!