Speaking in Uganda


When I was 16 months old my mom died.  I was raised by my father, who did a good job raising me, he always provided for us, it was not always easy.  My dad is a good, good man, but in all my life I can never remember my dad saying I was valuable or beautiful.  These are words that a girl needs to hear form her father, and even though I never heard those words, I knew my father loved me. 
As I grew older I looked for attention from boys, I looked for love and acceptance in all the wrong places.  At 19 I found myself pregnant, by the point I found out, I had left the father because he did drugs.  I wasn’t going to keep my baby- I didn’t want to be a single mom. But I decided to.  I did my best to take care of her, sometimes I had 3 or 4 jobs, and went to college.  We attended church when I wasn’t working because I wanted my daughter to have a relationship with God, I thought it was too late for me but I hoped she would.

I lived a life that everyone thought I had it together, I dated the best looking guys, I was a single mom that owned her own home, nice car, great job.  But really people didn’t know the shame I carried.
I had always believed there was a God in heaven, but I had never experienced His grace.
Then one day some friends asked my daughter and I to go to church with them.  I remember the songs we sang, that my heart busted wide open!  “I could sing of your love Forever”, Draw Me close to you, and come, now is the time to worship!  And I wanted that! I wanted to sing of God’s love forever.  I cried and cried and cried.  I loved Jesus! I knew that He died for me and my sins! And I knew that He was my Lord and Savior that day!

As I grew to love Jesus, I longed to read His word, to hear all that He was saying to me. I’d go to bible studies to learn more, I memorized scripture. There was always something that held me back though.  Even though I knew I was His, I still was held in bondage of never being good enough or sometimes being too much.  And then one day when I was helping at Youth Group, our Pastor talked about how we were God’s masterpiece.
Eph 2:10 NLT For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

At that moment, I realized that God made me, He had plans for my life!  He made me new in Christ, and I wasn’t too much of something or not enough of others, I was created by Him for Him!  It was a freedom I had never felt before.  There are moments when I get insecure and when I feel like that I read His word. I remember that He loves me, and made me just the way I am supposed to be.

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