Let me tell you something, without God in my life I can guarantee you I would not be alive today! When I talk about my life, many people might say I'm looking for sympathy or trying to make things sound bad to get attention, but that's not the case at all! I know that I have it better than a lot of people but that doesn't mean my life has been easy. When I look back on the first 17 years of my life I see a lot of hurt and pain...
The first four years of my life were typical I guess (I honestly don't remember too much...the memories I do have are those recalled by pictures or storied in later years). I had a mom, dad, three older sisters (all halves), one older brother (half) and eventually a younger brother. There was laughter and tears, but overall life was good. After all, it's easy for people to shelter a young child from the drugs, violence and other harms of the world. On December 10, 1991 the harms of the world finally took their toll on my dad who comitted suicide; I was just four and a half. Like any young child facing this type of crisis the loss didn't phase me for a long time. But while I didn't understand what was going on nor did my younger brother our family and friends all did. Things changed and we didn't know why. Mom checked out as she grieved; my dad's side of the family deserted us after blaming my dad's death on my mom; my two oldest sisters left to go live with their mom and also resented my mom. We were always being watched by friends from church while my mom spent time alone. As I look back now it was as if we had lost two parents rather than just one. But to me that was how it was...I didn't know for a long time that my life wasn't what you would call 'typical'. I mean I knew my dad wasn't coming back and that 'all' the other kids had dads but this was just something I had to accept. I didn't know how exactly my dad died for several years. Nine years went by before I began grieving the loss of my dad. It was so hard for this to all seemingly hit me so long after it happened; just out of the blue (it seemed). The next year and a half as I dealt with the grief I was able to, with the support of friends and family from my hometown, stay strong in the Lord and trust that 'this too shall pass'. Then my family moved to Arizona from Washington; from a town I had grown up in since I was a toddler to a place where I knew no one outside or my family. My family had a hard time finding a church down here (in fact we still don't go normally). I didn't make friends and started spending a lot of time online. I met a lot of different people on another Christian board but they drug me down even further. I started to hurt myself and I just hated myself; I just wanted to die! I stopped going to my church shortly afterwards because before I slipped up I had taken a leadership role in the youth group; the other kids looked up to me and watched everything I did and now that I was at such a low point in life I didn't want them to see me like that...so I stopped going. I knew that it was then that I needed to be there the most, but it didn't feel right anymore. To my surprize, to one from that church ever tried to contact me and see why I hadn't been there in so long. I went for about 4 months without going to church and finally realized I needed to be in fellowship with other believers (other than online), so I started looking for a new church (I'm still looking now with my family).
About a year ago now I was at a youth camp with my old youth group. A few days into the camp I started to feel God calling me into youth ministry. At first, and even now sometimes, I doubted that this would even be a possibility for me...I mean there are still so many Christians out there who do not believe it is right for females to have pastoral roles in the church, but times are changing and slowly this is becoming a thing of the past for many churches. But I felt God calling me in that direction and I was ready to follow; that's exactly what I did! When I took that step of faith and went forward and told God I'd do whatever He wanted me to do things changed! God revealed His hand at work in my life - how He has always been using my experiences in life to prepare me for things in the future; molding me into the person I was supposed to be and using the hurt I had in my life that Satan had planned to break me apart for my good and for the good of His Kingdom. I have seen how the experiences in my life from the death of my dad, to my latest break up with my boyfriend and everything in between have all been building blocks to not only who I am but who I will one day be and they are all preparing me for the calling God has for my life.
So how has God helped me through these tough times in my life? He's always been there for me to lean on, even when I am afraid, ashamed of myself, or too stuborn to crawl back into His arms eventhough I know that's where I need to be. Like I said in the beginning of this post, without God I wouldn't be alive today. There have been so many times in my life when following in my father's footsteps and giving up seemed so much easier than running to God and letting Him get me through all this...when suicide just seemed like the answer. But I knew better. I knew the hurt that would cause others around me and even people who didn't know me. I knew I was supposed to use my past to help people in similar situations and that giving up could leave them without that help. Suicide wasn't right for my dad and it would never be right for me; or anyone! I promised God, myself, my family, friends, future husband, kids and the people I would one day minister to that I would never give up on life! One of those people will never let me down and that's God...without Him to live for and fulfill His plan for my life nothing else would matter!
I don't know if that helped anyone at all, but it is my hope that it did. If things are unclear to you or you just need someone to talk to I'd be glad to try to help...just let me know.
God Bless,
Melinda
