Story of ME! 7

hahaha okay I am feeling the flack (Thanks Jessica). I really am doing my best to sum this all up! It has been quite the roller coaster I tell you!

L started hanging out with this guy more and more and introduced me to his wife. They were wonderful people but the "too good to be true" type. I was skeptical of it all. We started hanging around church groups with their friends more and I felt the distance growing between me and L. I hated that! I KNEW HE WOULD LEAVE!

We were on our way to "Lifegroup" (a group of church members in the same season of life, ex... college group, 20's zone, elder's zone, young families.) with our new "friends" one evening and the wife (A) turned to me and started asking me some questions about my heart and why I was so shut off to Jesus and knowing HIM. I was bitter and hard-hearted, I knew they were trying to separate us and it was working on L. I told her we could talk about anything but my father. Then she asked me some questions about him (she didn't take to hints very well) and I lost it. I broke down my walls and let God in. I accepted Christ right there in the back seat of that car! (If you are lost and have more detailed questions feel free to email me... hahaha it is a summary here.. hehehe). That night I dumped a bag of weed down the toilet, threw away my cigarettes and gave all the alcohol in the fridge to the guys next door (had I thought about it a little harder I probably would have thrown it away too...). I turned away and never looked back! I knew the downward spiral I could not escape and I was ready for this change!

July 4th 2002 L and I both got baptized in the river in the city where we lived. I felt it was so significant to be baptized on Independance day! My chains are gone... I've been set free! Thank you JESUS! I cannot tell you how ALIVE I felt that moment! We celebrated like none other that day! My mother and father even came to see the blessed event but were told of the wrong location so they met us back at our house to have bbq and homemade ice cream with us. Oh did I not tell you that my mom and dad have by this time started dating again. YEP! hahaha. I guess about when I was 23 or something... they just started talking again and the next thing you know they are in LOVE all over again but it is completely different now because they have both changed tremendously! Crazy but cool.

Now comes the part of living together that needs to be addressed. We lived in a two bedroom house... both bedrooms fully furnished so I just move into the other bedroom. He carries on with his life as though he just got rid of a girlfriend and starts hanging out with some old friends again and doing all sorts of things. My heart gets broken and I turn to God. I didn't know what that looked like but I cried a lot and talked to HIM as though He were right there. I thought it felt kind of dumb at first but the amazing peace that came as I lay there talking the more I knew how real HE was to me!

In my heart I knew this living arrangement was still not pleasing to my FATHER but I didn't know what else to do. I just knew if I moved back to where I came from and back to that life that I would surely stumble and fall. My heart was torn.

One day I was home trying to figure out what on earth I was going to do, where I would move to. I didn't have a job so I didn't have any money saved up and I didn't have a degree to get into anything that would pay me to live on my own again. Not anything honest anyway. I had been a Chiropractic assistant for about a year but I had an application in all over town and nobody was hiring. Then a girl shows up that I had met at a Lifegroup meeting one night. Just out of the blue she comes knocking on the door.

I invite her in and she starts talking to me about our living arrangement and I tell her that I am trying so hard to figure out where to go but I am afraid of where I will end up. She then explains to me that she had been talking with her family about me living with them for a short time and that they wanted me to come live with them. WHAT!!! Totally out of my comfort zone!

sorry gotta go ... boys are up from naps! I know... absolute torture! Sorry! I will be back later tonight!