Twenty dollars in my wallet, my suit case full with as many clothes as I can pack for two little boys, airplane reservations I am escaping to Oklahoma to a safe loving shelter. In my mind, I am leaving my husband, desperate not really thinking clearly, no career, no car, no home except hope that my dad will give us a home. My dad is newly married but I am his daughter. My grandma lives in the nearby town so in my mind a back up plan maybe I can live with her. All of these plans are in my head, I have not discussed them with anyone. I just need SHELTER. Arriving at my dad’s before I can talk to him and tell him my heart and need, the very next morning my plan blows up before I can ask if I can stay. I have a huge fight with his wife. The argument so great that my dad didn’t know who to try to calm down first. The only thing I could do 1500 miles from California was to go for a walk.
Beloved, have you ever needed shelter from a storm? Can I be honest? I really need shelter from that storm I was going through. I thought I could go home to my dad but I was wrong. Maybe I still could stay with my Grandma. Thinking, if my mom was alive, I would have a home, I am angry. So, Grandma and I prayed, I so wanted to hide, I wanted to seek shelter in this small town. I wanted to raise my boys close to my dad and my beloved Grandma, I wanted…….
My shelter and hiding place has always been God. Suffering with depression and chronic migraines without God and my boys my life would not have been worth living. My only choice through the early years is staying close to God. Learning that I needed to resist the devil, and he will flee from me is only after I submit to him and the only way to submit to him is to draw near to him because he draws near to us.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James 4: 7-8
Recently reading Hope Prevails: Insights From a Doctor’s Personal Journey Through Depression by Dr. Michelle Bengtson, I realized hope escaped me during the days I was looking for shelter with my dad but hope never has to escape us because there is a sustaining hope a hope that prevails. In Chapter 4, “Recognizing You Have An Enemy,” the enemy would work overtime in my life. Dr. Michelle Bengtson says, “We have an enemy who would like to paralyze us in fear with the rivers, the floods, and fires, of our lives. Satan uses 3 tactic: he seeks to kill our joy, steal our peace, destroy our identity. Jesus looks past the masks we put on for the rest of the world to see us as we truly are, even as we try to hide guilt, shame and the utter despair we feel.” Chapter 8 helped me the most in this book you can read about this in my blog Our God Given Worth. If you would like to win a book, please enter here.
I would like to tell you my dad came through for me and perhaps he did. You see after much prayer with Grandma Johnson, I went home to my husband. Oh, my marriage still had many struggles to overcome. Victories from coming home at that time, remember I had no career, I returned to college and did not stop until I earned my Master’s Degree in Nursing. I walk in forgiveness. God has blessed my marriage we are now married for 46 years. I have twenty dollars in my wallet. Beloved, we have hope, a hope that prevails and we have a hiding place and a secure hiding place in God.
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13
You are my hiding place
You always fill my heart
With songs of deliverance
Whenever I am afraid
I will trust in You
I will trust in You
Let the weak say I am strong
In the strength of the Lord
You are my hiding place
You always fill my heart
With songs of deliverance
Whenever I am afraid
I will trust in You
I will trust in You
Let the weak say I am strong
In the strength of the Lord
I will trust in You
You are my hiding place
You always fill my heart
With songs of deliverance
Whenever I am afraid
I will trust in You
I will trust in You
Let the weak say I am strong
In the strength of the Lord
I will trust in You
You are my hiding place
(I will trust in You)
You always fill my heart
(Let the weak say I am strong)
With songs of deliverance
(In the strength of the Lord)
Whenever I am afraid
I will trust in You
