Daily Encouragement For April 19:

The Prodigal Daughter

I was pretty much raised in the church. For a long time I thought 
that I was a Christian because I wasn't Jewish. One day a fellow 
student in middle school invited me to a youth function at her church. 
[My family had quit going to church for a couple of years......long 
story but basically my mother remarried an agnostic, and was let go 
from church choir director job so bad taste in mouth.] Anyway, I saw a 
terrible movie about the tribulation that scared me to death. But the 
upside is that it got me thinking. I realized that I needed Jesus in my 
life....Downside, I was terrified of God because of the movie. Eventually 
I went to another function with the same middle school girl and accepted 
Christ. Sounds like a nice little package right? Keep going....I then 
begged my family to go to church. Eventually everyone went except my 
step-dad. 

Things kept happening to my family at all these churches and we had 
to keep going to new churches. Things were ok for a while for me 
except that I was a social outcast from the beginning and becoming a 
Christian just made me more of one. I became perhaps a little overbearing 
in my Christian infancy and alienated most of the few who'd have anything 
to do with me. Eventually I came to blame God for my intense loneliness 
and depression in my teens. I hated myself for 7 years and contemplated 
suicide but didn't because in a movie I saw it said that it was a sin. 
My home-life was no help as it deteriorated more and more as my parents 
became distant from one another. 

So I struck out to find people who would not hurt me like the Christian 
friends I had met in church. The two main friends kind of thought of 
themselves as parents trying to help me be more socially adept. I am 
thankful for that, but I got into all sorts of weird and bad situations as 
a result of hanging around with them. 

During the second half of my college days an old high school friend tracked 
me down. I misunderstood his motives. I thought he wanted to date 
me....originally I guess he just wanted to see what I was up to and then he 
saw the depths to which I'd sunk and then started hounding me for God. 
Eventually, even I saw the depths to which I'd sunk and decided to go back 
to church and only date "church boys". I asked my friend later why he kept 
calling me even though I was rude and he said that when I was in high school 
I'd made an impression on him with my walk with God (somehow) and that he 
thought I had too much talent to waste. No..... I wasn't out of the clear 
yet. After college I moved back home with my mother and started to attend 
church regularly where I met my future husband. Sounds good 
right?....wrong....even then I did not walk as I should. Eventually I quit 
church again because I felt so much pain at feeling like I had to give up 
communion because I was unwilling to change my behavior and repent. Then I 
got married. Finally I came back to church. I started singing in the 
choir again. I became friends with the choir director's wife. She helped me 
get started in Sunday school again 

At the time, someone at work started to tell falsehoods about the bible and 
that put the fire of God in me. I really started to study because I 
couldn't let partial or untruths just lie there unchecked. That got me 
started....but not where I needed to be. 

I'd always struggled with my weight and when I had my baby I was the 
heaviest I'd been in my entire life. I joined something called "Weigh 
Down". It turned out to be Christianity 101 with an emphasis on weight and 
obedience. I feel now like I have had the gauze taken from my eyes. I feel 
now like I'm a true Christian for the first time because I have not only 
taken Jesus as my Savior but also now as my Lord (meaning I try to be like 
Him and do what He asks me to do out of love and respect for Him). 

For the first time in my life I feel like I...yes, little ol' me, has a personal 
relationship with the King of the Universe. I don't call it religion, I call 
it a friendship. I am still striving to be more like Him and it will 
continue to be a very long and hard road. My will is very stubborn and my 
thinking/understanding is still often wrong. But it is my wish to be the 
"disciple whom Jesus loved" just as John was. It is my continuing quest to 
love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. I am always amazed by 
the unreal sequence of events that unfolded in my life (the God-incidents...not 
coincidences) and the very personal presents and messages my Savior gives 
me on a regular basis. I do ask for personal signs of my Savior's love for me 
and He will show me in a very personal ways....a way that only He could know 
about...that He does in fact love me very dearly. 

The prodigal daughter is home. 

Hallelujah! Amen!