In 2006, a testimony was born out of a broken life that happened to be mine. This was the year that my life became less about me, but more about a newborn baby that had been given to me. My life before the conception of this child resembled a roller coaster of events, complete with many life-altering decisions that I had made because I was convinced that my life was my own. After being given the gift of a son, the focus became less about me and more about my new role as a mother.
During this time, the former life that I had created slowly started to become more of a distant memory as I embraced the future that I had and it was during that time that I was able to give a testimony about how bad I had messed things up in my own life but how God had still given me a second chance and although I was not proud of the choices that I had made, I took delight in feeling the angels rejoice because of how capable God was to take a life like mine and bring restoration to it.
Hands shaking, heart pumping, stomach flipping, knees knocking, breathing irregularly, I gave a testimony that spoke of God's redemptive powers and how it wasn't our job to straighten up our lives in order to have a relationship with Him, because He works best in our weakness. That testimony was hard to give because I realized that there was a level of embarrassment not just for me, but also my family, and once the bandage was ripped from the wound I felt like the beautiful part was all that was left to see because that part had become God's power in his weakest daughter.
Then 2009 happened,and my definition of family was unraveling right in front of me.
Our church at the time hosted a yearly prayer conference and in preparation to see lives change, chains break, marriages be restored, physical miracles occur, truly supernatural things happen, a team of us got together once a week just to pray for what God was going to do during the prayer conference. Just an intimate group of us, we would gather together and truly have inhibited, face on the ground and weeping prayer services. No expectations, no agenda; simply just to wait, listen, and ask the God of the universe to be moving in people's lives so that they could encounter the greatness that was I AM specifically during the conference.
The spirit was heavy and petition for the living God to move was all we wanted, and yet I sat alone in a dark corner with the spirit of anger growing in me. Sitting on a pew isolated from everyone else, I started to conjure up lies to tell people as to why I wasn't being seen at church much anymore. The light that I had experienced was growing dim because I was alone, or atleast I felt alone. My family, whom I thought was my foundation, was fading from existence and I sat alone crying, angry at God. By the time I was ready to rejoin the group, I wiped the tears away and went to sit in another part of the sanctuary and it was then that I heard the voice of God.
Every word that had been spoken to God out of anger was replied to. The lies were being confronted, the hurt was addressed, the sense of abandonment was replaced by the One who was with me all along. Because of a friend whom had no idea that the prayers that he was saying were a direct reply from the Keeper of my heart to me, I was heard and told by God or El Roi, the One who sees you, (Genesis 16:13) that my foundation was not maintained by my own efforts but rather by the one who calmed the storms that my life had become.
The prayer conference was wonderful and I often relish in the stories of victory that God produces as a result of total brokenness from people's lives that God takes and gives a beautiful meaning to, but of all the conferences I have been to, that year my favorite story was my own. It turns out that the prayers I was saying on behalf of others were noticed by an Almighty God that knew what I needed before I had even reached the edge of the shore and He was there waiting to part the waters for me.
"Jesus got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, 'Quiet! Be still!' Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, 'Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?'" Mark 4:39-40
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