Stop! Get Quiet...be still-Part I

Greetings to any and all who may be reading this. 

A lot has happened since my last post on Valentine's Day, 2017.

I'm sharing today about where I've been with the hope that you will be encouraged.

This post is in two parts, with the second piece coming tomorrow.

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“I despise that town. I stay away as much as possible.”

“Why?”

“Too many bad memories. Everywhere I go, 

I’m reminded of 19 years worth of ‘em.”

This is often my conversation with someone about a nearby town where I lived for 23 years.

Lots of good things happened there. First house, my daughter was born there, and we had great friends and was part of an amazing church family. 

While living in this town, I also experienced the betrayal of infidelity between my husband and best friend from church.

Left with my precious children, then 15-months old and six years, divorce followed. 

Foreclosure, bankruptcy.

When I ended the revolving-door of insanity with my ex and his out-of-control life, setting boundaries, things intensified with him. 

Emotional, verbal and mental abuse.

Believable threats.

Scenes in various places like those on that TV show COPS.

Living in fear. Lies. Injustices. 

These memories surface, along with apparent undealt-with brokenness, everytime I go to that town.

In spite of the bad, my relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, deepened during those years. When I thought my stretched-out faith couldn’t be stretched one more milli-speck, He would show up, which caused my faith to stretch all the more.

He lavished me with grace and forgiveness for my mistakes. He turned vision for ministry into physical reality. He called me out over deep waters to the mission field; opened doors to opportunities and experiences that I otherwise would never have had…

…if I hadn’t gone through the pain and hardship…

if I hadn’t experienced the abuse.

And at one of the lowest points in my 16^th year as

a single mom, He penned, When All Seems Lost, a poem I wrote that eventually became a song.

Then I wrote a book. Two actually.

God has definitely taken the bad stuff and turned it into His good purposes. All that happened was a long time ago and sounds like I have healed and moved on to amazing things. 

While this is mostly true, the other truth is, I haven’t. Not fully. 

The rush of life, work, raising kids, and saying yes to endless volunteering opportunities, has let me unintentionally avoid dealing with painful memories. 

So where have I been these past five months, since my last blog post? Where did I go? 

I went into time out. 

I quit writing. I quit all social media venues, except one I visited occasionally. I said, “no” to every volunteer opportunity.

I quit scheduling stuff, and cramming my days with pressure to do this, do that, get IT done, get more page views, followers and comments. 

My want-to quit on me too. In a state of exhaustion, I felt the unravel begin.

Marital irritants became monumental. I began to disengage from everything important.

I questioned...

• Will my marriage survive?
• Will the ministry survive?
• Has God really called me to write?
• Did I really hear Him say......

Some days ended with me crashing in bed before dinner.

Add to that the ongoing sorrow of my son’s mental illness and estrangement, I was done.

Then in March the news came. My bestie of 25 years, mentor and sister in Christ (the one on the left) suddenly had a stroke and lay in the hospital on life support. She wasn’t going to make it.

A seven-hour drive to say goodbye, followed by her passing, left me depleted and emotionally spent. 

No doubt that my current life, compounded with past years of undealt-with hurts had caught up with me. 

All I seemed to be able to hear from God was, 

“Terri, stop! Get quiet. Be still.”

"Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

"Gladly, Lord. Gladly."

My Father put me in time out. 

During my alone time with God, my prayers went from presenting requests, with stress-infused petitions, to two things:

“Lord, that I would hear Your voice, 

and be filled with Your spirit.”

Was I in trouble and needed to be disciplined? Or was my time out like those called by coaches to discuss strategy and a new game plan? I discovered it was some of both.

Meet me back here tomorrow to find out how my Rescuer, Jesus, showed up. 

If you are on the brink of quitting, hang on! If you're burned out and over committed, there's hope.

Until tomorrow, I leave you with this song: WHEN ALL SEEMS LOST

Staying the course,

Terri