What a roller coaster of a week I have had. Last Sunday my ex wife Barb had to kick our 21 year old pregnant daughter Melissa out for stealing pain pills. Barb tested her and she was of course positive for the drugs and even when caught she lied about it.
We started trying to reason with Melissa to get her into a treatment program and she was not willing to listen. I contacted my support network and asked for prayers immediately. I contacted the Doctor and a friend that is in the child birthing business and got a quick education.
There is nothing you can do legally even when you know a pregnant women is abusing drugs to protect the baby. According to the laws child abuse can not be accused or enforced until a birth occurs. This angered me but all I could do was pray and ask friends to pray for God to intervene and to warn Melissa that if she or the baby tested positive at birth that the state would take the baby away.
Well thankfully God did do something. On Thursday afternoon Melissa whom had told her Mom that she wasn't going to treatment started calling treatment centers on her own. The Holy Spirit answered the prayers of all of us that were praying and convicted Melissa to get help. I praise Jesus for stepping in and helping our poor broken and hurting daughter.
Friday evening Melissa checked into an inpatient program in Seattle and will be there for 3-7 days and then will come back and go to outpatient everyday but Sunday. I am so thankful for God stepping in when He did.
This week was also the 5 year anniversary of my Dad's death. I was in so much tooth pain that day that I didn't even remember until 3 days later. How bad I felt when I finally remembered. The enemy has really been messing with my mind this week. After praying about this I believe that God may have actually used the emergency root canal on Tuesday to distract me about the loss of my Dad, the grief over Melissa and her choices and the fear of sharing my testimony with the church on Thursday night. There was just so much going on and I needed to focus on my testimony for God and His Glory that I needed to be distracted from everything else.
I went to a class Wednesday night in Tacoma on handling spiritual warfare and was so on fire for Christ all day Thursday. I spent several hours Thursday preparing to share my testimony and in prayer that I would give all glory to Christ for saving me from myself and Satan.
For the most part Thursday night went well. I was really nervous for the first 6-10 minutes and then I calmed down and shared how the enemy had controlled my life and rewarded me greatly for my wickedness but once I gave my life to Christ and started walking with God. I have slowly become a better man. I now am rewarded by God with something much better than women or money. I am rewarded with a love and peace that I never knew existed. I am rewarded with the knowledge of eternal life with Christ, the great I Am.
I only really said one really stupid thing that I truly regretted. I was convicted by God right then and there and with grace God moved me past it and I was able to share the message He wanted me to share. The most important part of my story. The part that even though I am still very broken, I am forgiven and I am covered with a Love that is life changing. I know that I am not the man that God wants me to be but I also know that through grace and love I am getting closer each and everyday of my life as long as I walk with Christ. The moment I stop having a constant relationship is the day I will become wicked again and start living for the enemy again.
After my testimony several people came to me and told me that they could relate. That they had also been struggling with the same sins and the same spiritual warfare from the enemy. It felt really great at that time to have shared with those people how God loves them as He loved me enough to not have given up on me.
Yet within a couple hours Satan was attacking hard. The enemy was telling me I really blew it. That I had glorified him and my sin. That I was not worthy of representing anyone but him. That as long as I testified like I had that night I was hurting the Kingdom of God. Of course at the time I was duped into believing that God was convicting me and telling me I had blown it. That I should leave ministering to people that know what they are doing. I knew that this was not God in my heart but I was believing the lies of the enemy.
These lies have really rocked my world that past few days. Even today I was trying to rationalize not going to church. What if people didn't get the point of my testimony and believed I was glorifying my sin. What if I had offended someone really badly with my very graphic and sinful story. What if...what if...what if.
I prayed all day for Jesus to rebuke Satan but he has had a real stronghold on me. It was so bad that when I did get to church someone came to me and told me that some people were bothered by my story. This person told me that he explained that the enemy was letting them hear the wrong story and that he heard a story that glorified Christ. I just wanted to run out the church and hide. Thankfully I just gave it to God. Thankfully I asked my Pastor to pray for me. Thankfully Jesus once again told me, "I love you and you are good and I am proud. I appreciate that you want to evangelize for me and that you will learn from your mistakes. I appreciate that you are asking me to battle the enemy on your behalf and I your Lord will deliver you from Satan!"
I pray thanks to God for the Son of Man. I pray thanks for His armour against the evil one. In Jesus name I pray thanks for the blood of Christ washing away my horrific sinful life where I lived for evil. I know I will never be deserving of the Love that is free and even though I deserve death I praise God for forgiving my mistakes of the past and my sins of the future so that I may live with Him forever. I thank God for His Spirit dwelling in Melissa and getting her to help herself. I praise God for all He does for me everyday. In Jesus name I pray. Amen
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