Patty's Peace

Please understand I have spoken and gotten permission to share everything I am about to from this woman, she wanted to share it.

Oh what a holiday! Came and went and as of last Wednesday night, my bible study group finally convened after holiday break.
We were so excited! Just to get back to our routine of seeing each other and partaking in discussion and study of the bible and particularly the Patriarch’s: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Beth Moore).

In group discussion we went over one question particularly telling, a question that involved the moment Rebekah was pregnant with Jacob and Esau and wondered why they were fighting within her. Beth posed the question: if the end result of this is supposed to be (blank), why am I (blank)? And we were to fill in the blanks.
And while some of us shared our answers right away, all of a sudden Patty, one of my sweet bible study sisters decided to share her answer. She smiled as she gave us a disclaimer.
“Ok, I was in a different place when I wrote this,” as if to say, do not hold my honesty against me. I can always go for more honest with God – Amen!
She answered, “It the end result of this is supposed to be a closer relationship with God, why am I so lonely.”
We were all stunned; in a good way. She had in one fell swoop asked a question I think all of us had asked at one time.
Patty went on to share how this had been an interesting time for her and God since about June of that past year. She went into telling us how that for so long in her life she had been a Christian, but because of unresolved issues in her life she just could not seem to connect with the Lord in a deeper way. She loved the LORD but she had seemed to have missed the intimacy with God.

Does that sound familiar to anyone?

And then she went on to tell us that when her marriage of 20+ years ended, she had so many feelings of anger and bitterness towards God that even though she went to church, she went out of duty. Her heart was drowning. Patty went to therapy to work on her abandonment issues and as she was able to grieve the past hurts and begin to trust again, her therapist suggested that God could also be a comfort. Patty couldn’t connect to God, because Patty had been wounded in a way that made her fear being duped again.
“One night in worship,” she spoke sweetly, “they were singing a song about trusting God, and I thought I don’t trust you, God, but you know what, I WANT TO!”

Wow! Can bravery be anymore apparent than when we get honest with God?

We all sat, wide-eyed and blown-away, by this touching and real encounter that she had with God. And what an encounter it was.
She went on to tell us that since she told God she wanted to trust Him, He has been doing nothing short of sweeping her off of her feet. I so desperately love the way God gets women. He created us, and what a love we share. Patty believes that God used therapy to heal her with a person that she could physically see and then moved her into a deeper healing with Him directly. She also believes that each person’s journey is unique and precious. God heals us in His own time and in various ways.
She took that step, at the moment God appointed, to connect in a real life, real love relationship with her Creator. In an email I received from her today she writes:

I am finding that where I used to feel so rebellious about God asking anything of me, because I am falling in love with Him I desire to please Him. It is so different for me.

Who knows what is next for Patty? God does, they are on their own walk now and I couldn’t be happier for a fellow sister. I am pretty sure that from now on, she will be anything but lonely.

I was so blessed by this woman’s bravery as a daring daughter of the King. She responded to the knocking on her heart that the LORD was doing. How much of our lives would be changed if we responded when He knocked?
LORD, even as much as I talk to you, pray to you, praise you and think of you. CONSUME ME MORE!!!! I want nothing more than to be head over heels over you.

Make me hunger and thirst for you and your commandments.
In your son’s name, the love of my life, even more make Him the love of my life,
In Jesus name,
Amen