Excerpts

#1
I sat with my back flat against the block wall, my arms curled around my knees, which were drawn tightly toward my chest while providing a resting place for my chin. Tears streamed down my face as I wept uncontrollably. I was alone. In an effort to comfort myself, I rocked back and forth while my broken heart repeatedly chanted, “Nobody loves me. Everybody hates me.”
I had easily tucked my small, six-year-old frame into the darkened space under the porch stairs, reassuring myself that I was out of sight. I remained quiet and hidden, my knees muffling my sobs. No one was to find me.

#2
As I began to understand who I was in Christ Jesus, I was humbled to realize that God, God Almighty, Sovereign God, had a very different view of me than I had of myself!
I uncovered Psalm 139:13-14: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your words are wonderful, I know that full well.”
God made me. Every fibre, bone, and drop of blood that produced me was woven together by the very hands of God.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” Jeremiah 1:5
I began to realize that not only had God created me, but He’d planned me.

#3
I felt hopelessly lost, doomed in a world of existing from moment to moment, day to day. I was in a spirit of gloom, imprisoned in dungeons in my mind where there was no light. No light meant that there were no shadows. Sightless, I grappled for security, sanctuary, and a sense of belonging. There seemed to be no way for me to be redirected back to the surface.

#4
Anger raged in me like a thunderous storm which could not be calmed. I could not be pacified. What do I do with all of this anger? I thought. Where do I go to still the rage inside me?

#5
I am a child of God, I thought. At first it was a captivating thought. Then I fought against it and argued with God that it didn’t apply to me. However, as hard as I fought against this truth, I kept hearing it repeated over and over in my mind. I am a child of God.
So I reached out and grabbed on to this truth. I held it tightly. It was the start of a journey that moved me out of a wandering state of confusion, out of the depths of despair, towards a place where I eventually felt a sense of belonging and love.

#6
Lord, do you love me?” I” asked Him. I continued before He had a chance to answer. “And then, Lord, if you love me, why?”
That was when I heard the Lord’s still small voice. “It is not a matter of whether I love you, but because I love you!”
Still struggling, I replied, “Then why, Lord? Why do you love me?”
His answer blew me away! “You see, Darlene, My love for you isn’t based on anything you have done or could ever do. Rather it is based on who I am. I died for you because I am love. That should be sufficient reason to say that you are worthy of My love.”